It’s become the American corporate way to work ourselves into a burnout situation and then have to recover. The harm in this repetitive process is it starts to affect our physical, emotional and mental health in the long term.
Enjoy these 3 simple burnout solutions covered in three parts:
- Know the difference between being excellent and being perfect.
- Maintain your perspective on what matters the most to you in life.
- To thine own self be true!
Know the difference between being excellent and being perfect.
Perfectionism will produce burnout every time! Perfectionism can negate your excellent behavior or work product. Don’t get caught up in the unhealthy pursuit of something humanity can never achieve. The danger of the “P” word is focusing on non-value-added details that will not serve us or those around us better. Excellence on the other hand, is the pursuit of “being outstanding or extremely good” as Google Dictionary would describe it or “a talent or quality which is usually good and so surpasses ordinary standards” according to Wikipedia.
Professional Example: You have a document due to your boss with ideas for serving a client better. You had the document prepared yesterday which took you 2 hours, but have spent 4 hours today adjusting margins, reformatting tables and searching for the best word replacements to ensure your ideas sound impressively complex. Your boss just paid you $900 at your $225/hour bill rate for being a perfectionist after already paying you $450 for excellence. See number 3 below about leveraging your skills and the talents of others. Getting a $20/hour individual to reformat, if you insist on this, would have cost you $40 instead of $900 given their efficiencies and lower rate.
Personal Example: Your 9-year-old is a baseball player and is quite talented. She hits a double and a single in the same game that results in a teammate going home each time and thus assisting with 2 runs for the team. She also struck out once and hit a pop fly that was caught resulting in 2 outs for the team. As she approaches the you after the game, you look at your daughter with beaming pride and say “Good job, but better luck next time. Let’s work on your swing and eye to prevent those pop flies and strikes”. Your daughter will not be interested in continuing in her talent if perfectionism is the goal and not excellence!
Post this and tag @legalbackofficeus: “Be Excellent, but don’t sacrifice yourself or others on the altar of perfection!” #excellenceoverperfection
Part two will focus on maintaining your perspective on what matters the most to you in life.
Action Challenge, should you choose to accept it:
- Create a list of the top 3 things that add the most value to your business. Create a list of the top 3 personal areas that are most important to you. Example: Professional-bringing in new clients, strategic planning, and nurturing existing client relationships. Personal- spending time with my significant other and kids, training for cycling and volunteering locally.
- Starting Sunday, start tracking your time in a spreadsheet or on paper by general categories of how you spend your day and do this for two weeks through Saturday including your personal time and professional activities.
- After two weeks, add the total time in each category to see how much of your effort is going towards professional top 3 areas and personal top 3 areas of value.
- Repeat this practice until you are spending the majority of your personal and professional time on the Top 3! For professional coaching in this area, check this out!
