In your endeavor to optimize income, you may have accepted more tasks to your already busy schedule. Your openness to take on new challenges has placed you in the crosshairs of glaring deadlines.
Things have rapidly spun out of your control. You've lost track of time and work milestones altogether. Your work has become a grim struggle that barely serves to put a meal on the table.
Your family and social relationships are hopelessly cold, if not completely broken.
You're in the jaws of stress, fatigue, resentment, bitterness, lack of motivation, and deteriorated emotional, physical, and mental health.
Sad to say, these are symptoms of trade burnout.
But there's good news.
Even the bleakest cases stand a chance of thriving again.
How?
Here are three ways tradespeople can avoid trade burnout:
As a tradesperson, it’s easy to fall into the temptation of juggling opportunities and bogging yourself down with heavy workloads.
You don’t want to see any client go, so you onboard every prospect, leading to extended work time.
Before long, you barely have time for anything other than work. The temptation to cut into your family or leisure time doesn’t help much–it’s never intended to.
Your intentions may be pure, but this is a one-way ticket to:
You’re simply burned out.
Like every person, you’ll always be torn between your work, social engagements, and family. Therefore, you need a strategy to help you “be there” at the right time.
Draw elaborate boundaries with structured time allocations for each of your obligations.
Setting work-life boundaries begins with determining how much work is enough for a day. Set a specific time for when to call it a day.
To avoid overindulgence in any of the non-work engagements, divide the remaining time thoughtfully as well.
Create a daily schedule that’s supportive of your work and social goals.
Then stick to it by constantly asking yourself this question: “What am I supposed to be doing right now?”
Ensure your answer is always correct. After all, doing the right thing at the right time is the key to successful living and working.
The key is determining when to work and when not to. That's the surest way of keeping trade burnout at bay.
Prevent work-life conflict by spending quality time with family. Recognize that no one at your workplace will love you the way your family does. Neither will any person love your family the way you should.
Stay in touch with relatives and friends because that connection reduces loneliness and fosters mental and social health. This translates to physical wellness.
When you’re at home, disengage from work by:
If your work schedule is too hectic, that’s a call to control your time to tame trade burnout.
In the table below, we contrast the life of a tradesperson who has a work-life balance and one without.
Self-care involves understanding yourself and what you need to maximize your mental, physical and social potential.
It’s not a work after-thought or entitlement. Nor is it merely about pampering yourself. Instead, it’s part of the work itself.
As a tradesperson, you spend a good portion of your workday tinkering with machines, hauling heavy loads up and down the stairs, slinging heavy tools and materials across halls, and crouching in tiny spaces and air-starved shafts.
Such strenuous activity leaves you physically and mentally drained—the classic symptoms of burnout. Therefore, you need a daily self-care routine.
Rejuvenating with proper exercises will bring better physical well-being and increased mental acuity. These two faculties are crucial for success in your profession.
Once you get your body and brain in their element, emotional fitness will fall into place automatically. Exercise keeps emotions at bay, which is good news, considering that mismanaged emotions can make you irritable and lead to poor judgment.
Reboot yourself daily with at least 8 hours of sleep. Research reveals that enough sleep will make you more creative, focused, and intelligent. As a tradesperson, you need these characteristics all the time.
On the other hand, sleep deprivation will:
On days when you get less sleep, compensate with an afternoon nap.
How about taking regular breaks? Relieve your body and mind by walking away from the work site for twenty minutes after every two or three work hours. Afford yourself a mental break by focusing on matters unrelated to work.
Here's a nugget-packed video for you.
Self-care also involves a balanced diet. Nutritious food will improve your:
Eat more healthy carbohydrates, proteins, fiber, and vitamins by including these foods in your diet:
Avoid bad carbohydrates that come from sugar and potatoes.
Finally, enjoy a hobby such as hiking, reading, sports, or community volunteering.
Set your goals based on a precise analysis of your skills and abilities, timeframe, motivation level, and current mindset.
Make your goals realistic and achievable because every milestone will boost your motivation and self-esteem.
Unrealistic goals will remain unachievable, leading to failure. Repeated failure is a recipe for:
To avoid trade burnout, reduce or expand your goals according to the time, skills, money, motivation, and support at your disposal.
Write your goals down for regular analysis, tracking, and reassessment. Don’t be afraid to list the possible threats, too. That way, you’ll be active in defending your goals by warding threats off.
Build accountability with a faithful and trusted friend, colleague, or family member by sharing your goals with them. Having someone to check in with you regularly is a safeguard against burnout.
Better still, use the SMART approach by making your goals:
Don’t expect to do everything yourself. You can’t succeed single-handedly.
Therefore, acknowledge when you need help and seek it. Identify a mentor or consultant you can call in times of need.
The secret to a healthy trade life is a deliberate and balanced merging of life’s facets without abstaining from any of them.
Attempting to maximize your work at the expense of your health or relationships will backfire, plunging you into trade burnout.
Remember: Your decisions will not only have a profound impact on you and your work but also on your colleagues, family, friends, and community.
Burnout is real. But so are the results that you can achieve by facing it pragmatically and with the goodness of other people at heart.
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