Self-Care to Avoid Burnout: Why You Need to Put YOU on Top of Your To Do List

Stress is part of life, and in limited amounts it can even boost your performance, but it can also make you sick In fact, there is research to suggest that it's related to serious and chronic diseases such as, a suppressed immune system, cancers, chronic fatigue syndrome, hypertension, heart attacks and anxiety disorders.

In society, it is what author Charles E. Hummel asserts, "Your greatest danger is letting the urgent things crowd out the important."

In today's fast-paced work culture, the demand to unrealistically perform the job of several employees, daily interact with difficult people or perform well despite depleted resources can wear down even the most sturdy person.

A short duration of stress is doable and even healthy, but when you regularly acquiesce to prolonged stress, it taints your mood, encourages depression, drains your energy, and eventually your body breaks under it's weight.

It is YOUR duty to manage stress levels, tweak your habits, develop boundaries and monitor your emotions and thought processes to ensure your protection from it.

This assertion might rattle you a bit, because the struggle is between the fear of losing your position or reputation by selectively erecting boundaries to that which is nonessential to your job performance versus protecting the most valuable asset you have---YOU.

Let's review this familiar analogy:

As you board an airplane, preparing for your flight, a stewardess explains the emergency procedures of the carrier. He or she speaks about the drop of air pressure in the cabin of the plane. Her caution? Put your oxygen mask on FIRST before attending to your children or anyone else. The point is clear. You of no value unconscious. Take care of yourself before considering helping anyone else..

This is the attitude I want to extend to you. As the leader in your family, department or organization the reality is often true--- you tend put yourself last on the TO DO list. Do this long enough you are heading towards burnout.

Intentionally managing STRESS is the FIRST step in controlling your energy's output--thus your effectiveness on the job and at home.

The goal is to generate enough energy everyday to attend to your daily tasks.

A dear friend shared why she took the risk to protect herself from impossible work standards.

A teacher, she embodied the idea that she could handle whatever circumstances popped up. Because classroom management is her forte, administration often compiled, each school year, an inordinate amount of classes with "troubled" students.

This year, however, Tanya found the intense pressure of disciplining scores of such students, and the demands of the profession overwhelming. In fact, Tanya's body began to signal it was burning out.

Excruciating migraines, back pains, fatigue and weakness began to impact her performance. As result, Tanya was more absent than she had ever been in the preceding years.

Faced with the reality that she was not "Super teacher," nor had to be to be an effective teacher, she confronted the administration, confessed her limitations, and shared her stress related health issues.

Taking an unnatural by needed risk,Tanya requested one particularly angry and violent student be removed from her class. She had spent copious amount of time addressing his severe misbehavior, but the parents refused to comply with her behavior plan which included counseling for the family.

As Tanya is sharing this story with me, her eyes began to well with tears. "This was the first time in many years, that I was REAL and asked for help before I burned out. I was grateful that my request was granted!

After that, something shifted inside me. I learned that I need continue to examine some of my unrealistic beliefs to see how they are causing stress. I am also learning to be a better advocate for myself. Plus, with the reassignment of that troubled student, I was able to better do the job for which I was hired---teaching.

What has happened to Tanya, I hope happens to you----a shift in thinking. Giving yourself permission to be a person with dignity, a person who has limitations that need to be respected by others, a person who nonetheless can perform well at home or in your career, is a critical step in maintaining balance--no matter what the world throws at you.

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Rosalind Henderson is a certified John Maxwell leadership coach. She works with leaders in boosting their performance without burning out. Rosalind is an expert in this subject about work/life balance. In early adulthood she struggle with an anxiety disorder and depression that she has overcome with mentors, and thousands of hours of study. YOU CAN PREVENT BURNOUT. Visit her site at http://www.therosalindhenderson.com