Are you suffering from Career Burnout Syndrome?

CAREER burnout has turned into a common phenomenon these days. Blame it on hectic lifestyles, tough deadlines, multi-tasking, or cut-throat competition. The basic reason for career burnout syndrome is that most professions are liable to exhaustion and mental strain.

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

CAREER burnout has turned into a common phenomenon these days. Blame it on hectic lifestyles, tough deadlines, multi-tasking, or cut-throat competition.

The basic reason for career burnout syndrome is that most professions are liable to exhaustion and mental strain. To deal effectively with this problem, people need to differentiate normal stress from more serious exhaustion.

Keep in mind that, no profession is immune from the dangers of career burnout syndrome. Accepting this hard fact will make you handle this issue positively.

Some of the most common signs of career burnout are;
If you are continuously burdened with feelings of sadness and despair at your workplace, then something is seriously wrong with your job. You need to look out for the reasons for this depression. Constant fatigue is another dangerous sign of career disinterest.

Many people get jobs feeling very happy and motivated. But quickly, the enthusiasm reduces and gives way to a lack of motivation because you no longer care about your performance.

The reason is simple; you have started to lose interest in your job. The final signs are boredom, resentment and sleep problems. Once you are aware of these signs, accept the problem and seek help.

Planning your career effectively is a very important step if you really want to achieve success. We all have some dreams and certain ambitions regarding how we want to see ourselves at different points in life.

Planning is very crucial in fulfilling your dreams. So, while you embark on your career path, it is essential to sit alone for a while and figure out the essentials of your dream. You will also need to devise proper plans to turn your dreams into reality.

While you start to plan things ahead, you need to first do a self-assessment. You need to be honest with yourself and ask questions about what you like and enjoy doing the most.

Once you have sorted out these things you will need to survey the job market. You should also give adequate consideration to the level of training required along with the expected income.

These steps will be followed by final planning. Choosing your favourite career might seem like a phenomenal task but better to think and decide rather than acting hastily.

And yet, many times we find ourselves at crossroads in our career. We feel that the career matter is confusing.

However, career development is a gradual process. It takes time, effort, perseverance and planning. But the concept of career development begins with self development.

If you can’t develop yourself, there is no question of your career developing at a desired pace. ‘Charity begins at home’ and in this case, with yourself.

Realize that learning is a never ending process. Don’t confuse learning with education because the latter is a time bound process but learning is forever. A good learner is a good reader.

Developing a reading habit will cultivate your personality and will enrich your skills and knowledge.

We are all aware of the comfort zone. It refers to a place or area of work where we have made ourselves very comfortable and we subsequently stop putting efforts into new developments.

We continue to bask in the previous glory and this causes us to conceive a feeling of indifference. So get out of that comfort zone and start exploring and taking new challenges.

The author is a teacher at Kagarama secondary school

shebs10@yahoo.com