5 Reasons Why You Should Maintain A Good Work-Life Balance
Studies have shown that freelancers are more likely to be affected by burnout than permanent employees. The reasons for this are manifold. What is particularly conducive to the development of this condition is a lack of work-life balance, which is one of the main reasons for the permanent state of exhaustion. Combined with fear (the fear of losing customers or contracts for example), negative emotions and a lack of opportunities to unwind, it means that freelancers are highly exposed to burnout.
While burnout is generally described as a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion, there are various symptoms to look out for and a comprehensive list of possible symptoms will be presented later on. The causes are usually excessive and prolonged stress, but here again the list of causes is rather extensive. This article will point out possible causes, symptoms and, ultimately, point out how to prevent burnout if you notice any of these signs on you.
Causes:
As pointed out above, the general cause of burnout is a high-level stress over a long period of time. People start to feel overwhelmed and unable to meet constant demands of their work life. The motivation and interest that lead them to take on a certain role will diminish over time as the stress continues. If the gap in this conflict of roles between their ideal and their actual life becomes too big the emotional disappointment rises considerably.
This exact discrepancy is the basis for burnout. In general, the root of burnout can be found in your personal life, your social life and they can be of organisational-psychological nature, meaning they concern your work life. As this article is intended for freelancers, I am going to focus on the work-related reasons and will only touch briefly on the other causes.
Causes for burnout in personal life:
- Abnormal ambitions (meaning abnormal addiction to success in particular with people whose self-esteem is mainly based on their professional performances)
- Perfectionism (setting goals to high and having trouble making compromises)
Causes for burnout in social life:
- Problems with family or friends
- Loneliness or a weak social environment
- Collapse of familial and social bonds, causing growing anonymity and impersonality
- Unclear life planning (caused by unsecure market situation) making people uncertain about their life
- The growing complexity of processes in modern life leads to stress and a loss of autonomy, because we are dependent on machines and specialists which may not always be available
- Being pressed into particular roles causing you to only be able to manage and define certain sections of your life, which is often overstraining
Organisational-psychological causes and causes in work life:
- High workload / chaotic, high-pressure environment
- Conflictual role (not being able to pick your clients, dealing with difficult clients)
- Work seen as a source of satisfaction and therefore ever higher expectations are put on it
- Feeling like you have little or no control over your work
- Lack of recognition or reward for good work
- Monotonous or unchallenging work
- No clearly defined goals or success criteria
- Experiencing indifference when talking to colleagues (or receiving no advice/support)
- Having to do time-consuming administrative work
- Being unable to handle clients satisfactorily because of a lack of time or organisational causes
Symptoms:
Characteristic features of burnout generally include physical and emotional exhaustion. Also, prolonged physical and mental performance and lack of motivation are among burnout symptoms. Al less known symptom is not being able to relax and missing the ability to recover from work. Symptoms can be divided into different phases and differ between the early stage of this condition and the actual burnout. When burnout is established, the symptoms can be further divided into physical, emotional, and behavioural symptoms.
Early stage:
- increased commitment to certain goals
- non-stop working towards relaxation or recovery periods
- work becomes main purpose in life
- feeling indispensable and perfect, thus reducing the value of colleagues and making yourself unpopular
- hyperactivity
- not paying attention to one’s own needs
- suppressing failures
- restricting social contacts in certain areas, e.g. clients
- neglecting partner and friends
- chronic tiredness and exhaustion
- sleep disorder
- states of anxiety
- lack of concentration
- seeking distraction and comfort in addictive drugs
Actual burnout:
Physical symptoms:
- changes in appetite and/or sleeping habits (sleep disorder)
- frequent headaches
- back pain and muscle aches
- loss of appetite
- weakened immune system
- feeling sick a lot
- feeling tired and drained most of the time
Emotional symptoms:
- lethargy
- unpunctuality
- fear of rejection and conflicts
- (erratic) mood swings
- decreased sense of satisfaction and accomplishment
- cynical and negative outlook on life
- loss of motivation
- sense of failure and self-doubt
- feeling helpless, trapped, and defeated
- loss of motivation
- detachment – feeling alone in the world
Behavioural symptoms:
- addiction to the internet, e-mails, or telephone, etc.
- food, alcohol or drug abuse to cope
- taking out frustration on others
- procrastinating, taking more time to get things done
- isolation from others
- skipping work, coming in late and leaving early
- withdrawing from responsibilities
Individual prevention:
There are certain steps you can take when you start notice early signs of burnout in your everyday life. Most importantly you have to give yourself enough time to regenerate and relax. Look for compensation methods that help you relax, such as sport, music, or other hobbies you might have. If you are religious, prayer or meditation might be suitable to help you relax. The main point is to redirect your attention away from the stress areas through mental or physical activity. Direct your attention instead on your mental, emotional, and physical needs.
It is very important to identify sources of stress at your workplace and defuse them. As the causes for burnout are to be found mostly in your work life, a key point is to maintain or develop the necessary distance between your work and private life. You should try and consider your work life from new perspectives and get rid of unrealistic or inappropriate ideas. You also have to try and correct ill-suited processes to give yourself more room – develop a more realistic time and work management that will lead to a better working experience for you. If none of the aforementioned methods are successful, even changing the workplace can be considered, if necessary.
In the end, the causes for burnout very much depend on the individual and are very diverse. The way out of burnout and prevention methods are equally diverse and differ a lot. The most important thing to keep in mind when trying to prevent or find a way out of burnout is to create some space for your own needs and pay attention to your emotions and body and take them seriously.
Summary:
As freelancers we are constantly worried about getting enough jobs to earn money and not loosing important clients; furthermore, we also have very limited means of sharing experiences with colleagues. This, combined with the constant pressure of time and results, makes us particularly prone to burnout. Moreover, having to perform tasks that are difficult to manage or meaningless and no receiving any appreciation from co-workers may fuel burnout.
While most regular workers can start to relax and leave work behind them as soon as they head home, freelancers mostly already work from home and the end of their work day is often just going into the next room. Irregular breaks, unnecessary long working hours and a lack of separation between your private and work life are further causes for burnout. All this can quickly add up, without the person actually noticing, and lead to burnout.
Try to notice the early signs of burnout in yourself and take measures against them. Look for a healthy balance between your work and private life. Taking regular breaks, sticking to fixed office hours and learning to say no are probably the best pieces of advice to avoid burnout.
Further reading:
Author Bio:
René Seidel
I am 24 and studied translation at the University of Applied Sciences in Zittau and at the University of Salford, and have worked at a translation agency for half a year. Three years ago I founded and was part of a team of translators under the name of “lingoprime”. After this team broke up, together with a fellow student, we decided to establish a translation business called “Word & Sense”. I am currently writing my final dissertation and working part-time as a freelance translator, while getting our business ready to able to start working once I finish my studies this autumn.
Email: R.Seidel@reneseidel.de
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/word_and_sense
About the author
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Mr. Seidel,
I read with interest particularly the list of signs in the early stages of burnout. Do you mind including a list of resources you used when putting this article together? I think that those resources would be great for further reading.
Regards,
Nadine
PS: I believe in the beginning maybe you meant to use “manyfold”?
Hi Nadine,
thanks for your comment.
I mainly used German sources (as I am native German), which were: http://www.burnout.net/ and http://www.burnoutzentrum.com/. The only English source I remember using was: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/burnout_signs_symptoms.htm.
But I am sure if you simply google burnout you will find a lot of interesting pages with content to read up on.
Glad you enjoyed the article.
all the best,
René
PS: No, it is actually spelled manifold. 🙂
One learns something new everyday. Thanks for the prompt reply!
-Nadine
It’s an interesting post with a lot of great concepts and guidelines to follow! A great point about the article is that it encourages readers to pay attention to both your emotions and body and respond to them appropriately. In general, however, the symptoms given are difficult to distinguish from depression, which could also be a real possibility, particularly if you have been working long periods. I personally have experienced burnout in my medical career, during my IT career and during freelancing, and I think it’s equally as important to know how to recover from burnout – some people are prone to it and have to learn the hard way (me included) but you can recover using your own resources and carry on. Thanks for a great post!
Hi Sarai,
thanks for your comment.
You are certainly right that most of the symptoms can be related to depression as well as burnout. Also, depression could be seen as an early stage that may develop into burnout when it is not treated.
Recovering and prevention go hand in hand here, I think. The techniques and activities you can use to recover from burnout are similar to those you should employ when you are trying to prevent it.
Glad you enjoyed the article.
all the best,
René
Hi Rene – I totally agree! One has to be prepared to change your lifestyle and approach to work in general, otherwise you will always fall into the “burnout trap”. I think life experience goes a long way. I’m glad to see this post generated discussions and responses – it was good of you to pick such a focal issue.
Hi, René,
All in all, a good eye-opener for those of us who are subject to the pressures of freelancing, which can, and actually do lead, to suffer burnout. However, I would take exception of some of the symptoms mentioned, which to me are rather causes than symptoms, such as for instance, second line below the heading “Symptoms”: ‘Also, prolonged physical and mental performance…’. To my mind, “performance” in this case would be classified under “causes”, rather than under “symptoms”.
And I would have one recommendation, as a professional translator, that you don’t rely too much on your spellchecker because it can lead to embarrassing gaffes. As, for instance:
“Irregular brakes, unnecessary long working hours…” and “Taking regular brakes, sticking to..”. I believe you mean “breaks”, not “brakes”?
Hi Nelida,
in this case performance can be seen as a symptom because you feel like you can work non-stop and get a lot of things done with no effort, which only later turns into other symptoms, such as headaches and muscle pain. Performance equals stress in this case, which is a symptom for burnout. So, you are right as well – it is a cause to certain extent but also a symptom you should try to notice.
About the breaks/brakes-issue: I actually have all my articles proofread by a native speaker before publishing, as I do not trust spellcheckers very much. It seems she missed those two mistakes. But that seems to be an issue that Catherine could easily solve by editing the article.
Thanks for your comment, Nelida.
all the best,
René
Thanks for your prompt response, René. Now I see what you meant about “performance” as a symptom. I understand that you see it as a sort of hyperactivity that will, and ultimately does, result in burnout.
As to the “break/brake” issue, it has already been diligently corrected (although that was not the only thing that your proofreader missed, as for instance “commitment ‘for’ certain goals” should be “commitment ‘to’ certain goals”, I believe.) But I don’t want to sound schoolmarmish, and wish, in closing,to commend you for writing on such a significant issue for all freelancers, but especially for freelance translators – who live practically “chained” to their PCs, laptops or mobiles (an umbilical cord, or lifeline, that we still have to discover how to cut…and not die trying!). Have a nice weekend!
Dear Rene:
This is a very good article and it relates not only to work but the modern world has been developing. The drive to success in all spheres of life, without paying attention to emotional and physical health to human beings can also been in politics and international affairs, in much larger proportions of course. The blatant disregard of international law by countries or blocks can also lead to upheavals such as the current ones. Balancing the imbalances both individual and globally requires looking inside us and outside of us and this takes time and faith.
Thanks for your comment David!
Indeed the concept of burnout can be related to a lot of different topics and in general it is about keeping the balance and look beneath the immediate environment.
all the best,
René
Good article on a topic of growing concern around the world. Burnout is such a complex, confusing and misunderstood state that you can slip into it before you know it. It’s then a long slow road back to full health and engagement. But becoming aware is a great first step and knowing that there are other people out there who understand really helps too – so it’s good to see well researched articles like these.
Maureen
http://www.Job Burnout Support.com
Hi Maureen,
Thank you for your comment.
You are certainly right: It is easier and takes less time to take breaks early on and prevent burnout than to suffer from burnout and try to overcome it and get back into a normal life. Becoming aware is very valuable in order to not have to go through a long recovery.
all the best,
René
Great post and stress and burnout are part of a continuum. I specialize in treating burnout in physicians where it has been very well studied. It is important to realize that burnout is a risk in all of us … especially for those in the helping professions and all entrepreneurs (where we have chosen a real crazy person to be our boss 😉
Here are some resources to understand and prevent burnout based on the medical literature and research in preventing burnout for doctors.
http://www.thehappymd.com/physician-burnout-resources/
Thanks again for the post!
Dike
Dike Drummond MD
TheHappyMD.com
Hi Dike,
it is great to see a comment from an actual MD.
Thanks for the list of resources – although the articles are about burnout in physicians, everybone can find some really valuable thoughts and hints there.
Thank you very much for your comment.
all the best,
René
Nice article, Rene. Any solutions if someone (freelancer) got burn out? I would wait for the next inspired article.
Hi Yopi,
If you’d like some free information on tackling burnout have a look at http://www.jobburnoutsupport.com.
I hope it helps,
Maureen
Hi Yopi,
thanks for your comment.
If you got burnout the best is of course to seek medical help.
Apart from that the recovery can be tackled in a similar way as the individual prevention outlined in the above article.
Identify stress sources and take breaks – when you actually suffer from burnout the breaks will be a lot longer of course. As written above, the causes, symptoms and the recovery depends very much on the individual so there are no ready-made solutions that I could give to you.
all the best,
René
I just remembered that Jill Sommer wrote a very interesting post in her blog about burnout last year, I added it under Further reading.
Hello René
Tks for the wonderful post. It describes the feeling we (my husband and I, both translators) have had during the last months. I’ve just shared it on my blog (http://mtorres-tradutores.blogspot.com.br) and on my Facebook (Miriam Torrês).
Regards
Miriam and Ian
Brazil