I’ve noticed (with the help of family members and my SO) that I’ve become very negative, cynical and drained lately. Reading about burnout, I find all of the symptoms to be true for myself.
My job requires me to work on a single project full-time, and a couple of small side-projects. The management of the project is very chaotic and I feel more and more inadequate for my position. Priorities constantly change and just looking at the week’s schedule in Monday, I can tell the we’re not going meet the set goal by Friday. It has been like that for more than a year. It doesn’t help that I’ve become very pessimistic about the main project’s future.
Outside of work, I don’t have much free time. The little I have, I try to spend with my loved ones. Hobbies and other interests are on the back burner.
As the title implies, I don’t have the option of quitting or taking a sabbatical at the moment.
I know kbin is not a replacement for therapy but I was just wondering if anyone has been through this and found anything helpful other that distancing from their current workplace.
“Sabbatical” is a new concept to me as well. Where I’m from, they are unpaid.
I do subscribe to the idea that you should definitely provide a sufficient value to earn a paycheck and I do like the idea to first look inwards for the problem. I don’t think what you described is a sustainable way to live though. Expectations are external and you don’t have much, if any, control over them. If “not being at 100% of expectations is the same as suicide” for a long period of time, than that mindset itself is suicide. How can you always meet a 100% of something you have no control over?
Don’t get me wrong, I know people’s situations are vastly different and sometimes you do what you have to do at a given time to survive. But if you operate like that for a long-time, I don’t think your psyche will stay intact.
Thank you for sharing!