From Burnout to Balance: Tips for Achieving Work-life Harmony

In today's fast-paced world, balancing work and personal life sometimes feels like an uphill battle, and it can really take a toll on our well-being. But it doesn't have to be this way. 

Achieving work-life harmony is possible and essential for leading a healthy and fulfilling life. This blog, “From Burnout to Balance: Tips for Achieving Work-Life Harmony,” will guide you on the journey from burnout to balance, offering practical tips and strategies you can implement to create a life you love.

Recognizing Burnout From Work

Work-life balance can be an ambiguous term to describe working professionals’ desires to experience harmony between their personal and professional lives. However, what qualifies as balance varies from person to person based on expectations, priorities, and individual life constraints. Therefore, assigning a global definition to work-life balance is challenging. Yet the longing to reduce employee burnout remains, particularly among knowledge workers who dance daily across the blurred lines of work and home. This increased hardship is largely due to the proliferation of remote work structures following the upheaval of work environments in 2020. 

Nevertheless, it’s helpful to have a working definition of work-life balance to identify opportunities to beat burnout. In an article for Forbes magazine, Maura Thomas offers a helpful and simplistic definition of work-life balance by stating that it simply means “don’t work too much.” In this way, employees can protect their well-being and optimize their creativity.

At Healthy Minds NYC, we often care for high-performing professionals who work themselves to the marrow, reaching workplace burnout quickly. If you have ever experienced some of the following common burnout symptoms, it might be time to explore your levels of stress in therapy:

1. Do you routinely feel irritable and impatient?
   One of the first signs of work burnout is increased frustration over minor issues at home with family or in the office with co-workers. Irritability can be an indicator that you’re overlooking your needs.

2. When was the last time you got a good night’s rest?
   The average individual needs at least seven hours to be well-rested and avoid feeling fatigued throughout the following day. If you’re struggling to get to sleep or wake up throughout the night with thoughts of work projects or problems, you may be facing employee burnout.

3. Are you clocking out at the appropriate hours?
   In New York City especially, there can be pressure to “out-work” your colleagues, responding to work issues late into the night. Technology has only fueled this habit, providing non-stop digital access to work through our devices. Consider your boundaries and make it a habit to log off when your workday ends so you can return fresh the next day. 

4. Is your physical space messy?
   Physical and digital spaces can manifest the mental and emotional clutter we’re managing. Notice how well you’re tidying up your environment. Not only may it signal the juggling you’re carrying work from one place to the next, but it also may indicate the lack of time to clean up after yourself. Remember that a cluttered workspace makes you less focused and productive, causing the burnout cycle to continue. 

5. Do you use your PTO and vacation time?
   A common burnout symptom is when time off accrues but is rarely utilized by an employee. From the fear of being perceived for not working or concerns about having too much work to return to, you might neglect your personal life if your vacation time adds up. 

6. Are you spending time with people you love?
   If friends and family feel they regularly get the short shrift because you’re not prioritizing time with them, you might lack a healthy work-life balance. 

Maintaining a high level of awareness about your experience of workplace burnout is vital. The causes of stress can be sneaky, edging into your life slowly and habitually without your knowledge until they compound and become unmanageable.

When we provide career coaching or therapy for our clients at Healthy Minds NYC, we hear clients point to several reasons for burnout that may have started small but grew over time. For example, a client reported having too many responsibilities at work after a coworker left, but they reached burnout because they felt powerless to change the situation. Other clients feel they need more autonomy or control in their role, perhaps due to a demanding boss, which leaves them feeling defeated. Some employees burn out due to isolation at work or feeling like they are in a toxic environment with colleagues who add negativity to their experience. One of the primary reasons we find employees burnout is a misalignment of core values with their employer. 

Regardless of the cause of employee burnout, the impact is substantial. Research shows work burnout can have a multitude of life-impairing consequences, such as job absenteeism, depression, heart disease, insomnia, headaches, and more. Developing a plan to overcome burnout and achieve work-life balance is critical.

How to Deal With Burnout at Work

You can take steps today to improve your work-life balance and address job burnout. Just remember, there is no such thing as achieving perfect balance. Instead of perfection, make your goal to increase your level of fun and work less. Then take some of these specific actions for your mental health to reduce burnout: 

1. Start by prioritizing your physical, emotional, and mental health.
   Follow simple wellness strategies that beat burnout, like meditation, eating well, exercising, and maintaining a consistent sleep schedule.

2. Try to find a job you love.
   While work cannot be the sole source of meaning for your life, it is essential for your mental health that you value what you do professionally. If your job is draining or you sense you’re coming up against a pivot in your career, seek support at Healthy Minds NYC to get coaching for your life and career. 

3. Disconnect from technology when needed.
   Log out of email, turn your cell phone to silent, and unplug from work outside of business hours whenever possible. Maintaining boundaries around your workday can radically change feelings of burnout. 

4. Go on a trip or staycation.
   According to the U.S. Travel Association, 55 percent of employees report having leftover vacation days at the end of the year. Use your vacation time by intentionally planning downtime to suspend work. 

5. Enjoy time with the people you love.
   Strong relationships can positively affect your mental health. Protect time with friends and family and prioritize creating experiences to enjoy their company. 

6. Get realistic about how you manage your time and workload.
   Use task-tracking tools and be honest about how long it takes to complete projects so you’re not causing yourself to feel overwhelmed by impossible work goals.

Maintaining Work-life Harmony

If you are in a position of influence in your company, consider advocating for your work-life balance and creating a more harmonious work environment for your colleagues. A company-wide emphasis on work-life harmony can lead to massive benefits for an organization, making it worth the time and energy to pursue. Individual employees will experience life balance, and the organization can experience benefits like lower stress levels, higher retention of workers, increased productivity, better employee engagement, and enhanced teamwork when life balance is honored. Organizations that embed best practices for healthy work-life balance into their policies, rules, and regulations position themselves best to empower employees to experience work-life harmony. 

Here are a few creative ways to foster life balance if you are a decision-maker in your organization. These are also opportunities you can lean into to advocate for your own mental health and life balance with your employer. 

1. Normalize holding the line between personal and work time. Set precise work hours and respect everyone’s time outside of those hours by holding communication until the next business day. 

2. Allow flexible work environments or arrangements. Free employees to juggle personal demands with work priorities with some measure of flexibility around work hours or work location. 

3. Provide support and resources to those who care for others. Reduce employee stress related to caring for children, elders, or medically vulnerable loved ones by strategizing ways to help caregivers. Employee support might include benefits such as childcare stipends, eldercare support, or parental leave.  

4. Invest in employee wellness initiatives. Encourage self-care practices throughout the organization, such as providing access to mental health care services and stress-relief apps, designating quiet spaces in the office, or hosting onsite fitness classes. 

5. Motivate employees to take advantage of breaks and vacation time. For example, at Healthy Minds NYC, our team shares updates on recent trips and travel to encourage one another to have fun! The reminder to be a whole person with a dynamic personal life outside work fosters a healthy work-life balance culture.    

If you want to establish a healthier relationship with work or experience more work-life balance, our executive coaches at Healthy Minds NYC are here to help. Click here to explore career coaching or life coaching with our team to set goals and create a plan to beat burnout. Our Care Coordinator is available for a free consultation to help you make a plan for your mental health today!