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Dear mums and dads, as the global pandemic has accelerated the evolution of our lives, have you been experiencing burnout in recent years as a repercussion?
The uniqueness of the pandemic has caused a huge repercussion I have never seen in the last few years. With one of my previous demanding jobs being a Relationship Manager, many of my fellow colleagues who are also mums have been finding struggling with having a good work life balance.
I have to admit that I was completely burnt out in recent years since returning from maternity leave to my corporate job.
With return to work mums, sometimes it is even harder to adjust and refocus, whilst juggling with your little ones and ensuring all is in good order in the house.
At that time, my colleagues and I, were all in the travel and lifestyle industry, we have been overwhelmed with the extremely high demand from our clients who have been locked down for too long, and now wanting to travel the world.
It was great to see that the opening of the Australian border has been a great stimulant for the international travels, holidays and business trips. The spend on travel and lifestyle has significantly increased there or four folds. This is amazing and brought unprecedented growth for our business. And also keeping us on the job.
However, the crazy demand from our clients has also caused unprecedented exhaustion in ourselves both mentally and physically. Our mental and physical health have been negativity impacted. This in turn placed ongoing pressure on the family lives for myself and fellow parents.
As this impact has prolonged and hardly could be resolved in the short term regardless the effort both my company and myself putted in to make changes. From what I have experienced throughout the year, I have had a number of reflections and tips that may help fellow parents to walk out of burnouts.
1. Face the Reality
By facing the reality, I got to understand that things will not change overnight, and it is only you who can make changes to yourself, then a fundamental change will happen.
When you tried to practice not to dectitated by the clients’ demand and take control of your own time and it consistently failed, then it’s a time for you to seriously consider a change.
2. Make Changes
Many of us have the inertia to make changes. To do so, you really need to thought through and have the courage.
For me, it was a struggle and a lot of fights in my thoughts. But what propels the change is my family.
When I am very confused, I look at how the imbalanced work and life situation has resulted in a detrimental impact on my relationship with my husband. Further, I realized that I have been deprived of quality time with my little toddler girl.
Most importantly, it has resulted in a negative impact on my mental and physical health. I have been feeling tired ongoing, and there were more tensions between my husband and I due to various reasons.
I then decided to list the things that are not on the right track, and what are the ways to cope with or resolve them. After trying different ways to deal with the situation including setting some me time in the morning before I start work, learning to delegate work accordingly, meditate 1-5 minutes in the early morning and so on, but all failed due to lacking of time from overloaded work, then I realized that the ultimate way to resolve them is to making a big step to change what I am doing now.
One day, I shifted my focus on the current job, and looked for some other job opportunities within the company, out of my surprise I saw another beautiful door opening in front of me, which is a digital marketing role that perfectly aligns with my hobby, and that’s what I have been running now this website/blog. All the job description makes sense to me, I what a dream job to go for.
I applied for it straight away, and another surprise is that I was given the Interview opportunity pretty much the next day or two. I tried my very best to prepare and answer the questions at the interview. And oh wow, I nailed it and got the role. This has all made a positive change to myself mentally and physically, I am now doing something that is not only my hobby turned into a profession, but more importantly gave back myself and the whole family a good balance.
And what’s more?! The amazing journey after that is I have continued on my passion for digital marketing and now turned into a full-time self-employed mum blogger applying all the knowledge and experiences I have gained from the digital marketing role!
3. Shift Your Focus
When you are stuck in the burn out situation, try to have your brain jump out of it. Practice reset, readjust, restart and refocus. Do it as many times as you need.
If the burn out is persistent, you need to step back, press the stop button in your life first, then analyse the situation, consider the possibility of reset your life. If resetting is hard for you, then consult with anyone among your friends or family who is already performing well in his/her life, or a specialist who can help to manage burn out.
This may open another door to you by helping you get out of the abyss and bringing the courage to climb out to see the light.
Having the right mindset and a holistic view on burn out issues is critical. If you feel something is not quite right, you are persistently exhausted, dreaded about going to work every day, depressed, easily irritated, physically drained and so on, then it is the time for you to go ahead with some self care and clear up these issues immediately. If you don’t do it now, then these might have undesirable impact in the long term for both your own mental and physical health as well as your family’s.
Anytime in doubt, don’t hesitate to seek help and guidance. Apps such as BetterHelp or programs such as Sensa Health will be great ways to help you out.
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