Are you suddenly doubting your competence, and you now think maybe coding isn't your thing?
Are the bugs making your headache and your nights sleepless?
Or maybe everything is suddenly getting frustrating and unbearable?
You are experiencing Burnout
Burnout is a reaction to prolonged emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress or chronic job stress and is characterized by three main dimensions: exhaustion, less identification with the job, and feelings of reduced professional ability. This feeling eventually starts eating you up, and over time it affects your personal life, social life, health, your interaction with family and coworkers.
What can cause burnout?
Toxicity from team members.
How do you relate with members of your team? How supportive and trusting are those relationships? In many cases, you can't choose your colleagues and clients, but you can improve the dynamic and how you interact with them. It could be as simple as taking the time to ask others how their day is going or being a good listener. Grow good interpersonal skills.Excess workload
When you chronically feel overloaded for a prolonged period you are prone to experience burnout. You have to understand that you can't handle everything at once, learn to plan your workload, prioritize your work, delegate tasks, say no, and let go of perfectionism.Unfair treatment.
When you find yourself in an environment where you feel you are not given what you deserve. You are probably a victim of some systemic Bias of the other. For example, do you get acknowledged for your contributions or do other individuals get praised, and your work goes unnoticed? or you are denied a raise in salary for no just reason.Lack of interest
It might just be that you have no interest in the project or company you are working with. If you are caught up in an environment where the values do not match yours, you will most likely start experiencing burnout.
Perfectionism
When you feel you have to do everything right with 100% perfection. You can't afford to make any mistakes. You are responsible for everything. You have to satisfy everyone. You have to have everything under control.
Pessimism
When you keep feeling You can't make it. You don't stand a chance at every environment you find yourself in.
Signs of burnout
- Sense of failure and self-doubt
- Feeling helpless, trapped, and defeated
- Detachment, feeling alone in the world
- Loss of motivation
- Increasingly cynical and negative outlook
- Decreased satisfaction and sense of accomplishment
- Feeling tired and drained most of the time
- Lowered immunity, frequent illnesses
- Frequent headaches or muscle pain
- Change in appetite or sleep habits
What can help?
So if you have been on this particular project for quite too long and you are already frustrated trying to figure out what's wrong with your code, or you have too much on your desk to handle. I have a little advice for you:
Shutdown your device and get some beauty sleep😴 .
You will most likely dream about the errors 😂😂 but then your brain gets to relax, and so does your body. On waking up, you will feel energized again, and By the time you come back to that code, you would have been able to figure out what the error is.
Go on a vacation.
Sometimes all you need to do is take a break, change the environment, visit new exciting places, discover new things and people. All you need is to be far away from whatever stresses you so you can reenergize. By the time you return, you will feel alive again and ready to meet those targets.
Learn to show yourself some love
Give yourself a treat, go out shopping( if it makes you happy), hang with friends, get yourself a gift, watch a movie, play some games, get health checkups. Anything that makes you happy is worth considering because you deserve all the love.
Exercise
This sounds more like a chore, right?. But Exercise helps get your mind diverted from the bulk of work you have to handle. Try getting up from your office area and walking around a bit. Get busy with things you love doing; it could be walking around, bicycling, playing with your cat, swimming or dancing. This will make you feel a lot better.
Have a Heart-to-Heart With Someone Close
If there is someone close to you that you can air your heart to, reach out to them with a bottle of wine and have a heart-to-heart conversation about anything you wouldn't share with anyone under normal circumstances.
Try to Remember Why Your Work Doesn't Suck
Ask yourself a few questions like: What do you enjoy about your work? What made you start working in the first place? What are your overall goals and dreams that are intertwined with this job? If you centre your energy on the positives rather than the negatives of the job, you will start feeling better about yourself.
Conclusion
You have to understand that burnout is prevalent among most working groups, and it can cause issues at work, at home, and in life. The good news is, it is always possible to take action once you start noticing any signs of burnout. This article is inspired by the CHAOS D&I Badging