The chronically stressful and uncertain nature of our world can lead to feelings of anxiety, sadness, and anger, all of which can significantly impact our attitudes about the world. As we continue facing economic, political, and global unrest (not to mention the pandemic and its domino-effect of ramifications), we are at ever higher risk of experiencing emotional burnout.
Emotional burnout can be defined as feeling exhausted by chronic emotional distress, leading people to feel “tapped out,” numb, and disconnected from themselves and/or others. This burnout makes us especially vulnerable to getting stuck in states of pessimism and helplessness, which can seep into the ways we show up (or don’t) in our day-to-day lives.
If we show up to our daily lives in a state of emotional burnout, we are likely “going through the motions” rather than participating mindfully and meaningfully. In these unanchored times, to create experiences that make us feel emotionally grounded and connected to a larger purpose, we have to rely more on ourselves and less on our external environment; we need to drop anchor in what matters most to us.
Values-guided living involves identifying and prioritizing areas of our lives that provide us with a sense of meaning and purpose. These values can be different for everyone, and can also be domain-specific. For example, when it comes to your personal relationships you may value intimacy and adventure, whereas in your working relationships, you may instead value responsibility and industriousness.
This blog post will focus on how to prevent and buffer emotional burnout by focusing on showing up to your life daily through a values-driven lens. If you are feeling emotionally burned out, taking these steps can help kickstart your anchoring journey.
Identify your emotional burnout.
First, ask yourself what your emotional state has been like recently, and if it has facilitated or hindered your ability to show up to your life in a motivated and meaningful way. If your emotional state is leading to defeating or unmotivating thoughts (e.g., “nothing is easy”) and behaviors (e.g., socially isolating), then you may be experiencing emotional burnout.
Identify what would matter to you if you weren’t feeling burned out.
Imagine that you went to bed one night and the next morning you woke up without these defeating feelings and thoughts. How would you like to show up for yourself and others? What would you want to stand for? What is/once was important to you about how you live your life? Make a list of the values that are most important to you.
Integrate values into your daily life in a tangible way.
Take your values and translate them into tangible acts that can be realistically carried out in your day to day life. If you value connection, perhaps you could go back and reply to the messages your emotionally burned out self has been leaving on read. If you value health, maybe today could be the day where you finally schedule that overdue tooth cleaning your dentist has been bugging you about.
While we know that these interventions don’t change the state of the world, or erase the uneasiness and distress that we feel in response to it, they do help us to stay grounded in larger meaning and connection in our lives; they also prevent us from living our lives through a worldview that is grim or discouraging. Dropping anchor on what matters provides us with opportunities to focus on how we can have agency to create some certainty and feel connected to meaning, even when our environment doesn’t make it easy.
If you or someone you know is struggling with emotional burnout, or would like support around defining and practicing values-guided living, our team at CTWPS is here and ready to help!