Why Self-care Is Not Enough To Stop Burnout

Self-care has become a buzzword in recent years, especially in relation to women and burnout prevention or recovery. We see images in the media of women taking bubble baths, indulging in luxurious spa treatments, and practicing yoga in serene locations. While these activities are useful, and provide temporary relief from stress, they do not offer a deeper level of self-care that high-achieving women need to prevent burnout.

True self-care involves paying attention to what your body, soul, and mind need to thrive. It goes beyond temporary stress relief and requires a deeper level of self-awareness and understanding of your values and limitations. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at why traditional self-care isn’t enough to stop burnout in high-achieving women and explore what they should do instead to help them prevent burnout.

The Problem With Traditional Self-Care

Many of us are introduced to self-care through commercials advertising the latest beauty treatments or meditative exercises. These things do have their place and help to relieve stress in the short term but are unlikely to have a lasting impact, because they do not address the underlying issues of burnout.

Some widely promoted self-care practices are even time-consuming and expensive, making the notion of self-care appear inaccessible to women who are already stretched thin.

The truth is that self-care has a lot more to do with how well you respond to your needs than how much you spend on yourself. Responding to your needs can take on different forms, such as picking up on burnout triggers and responding with decisive action, creating healthy boundaries with work and personal relationships, or scheduling time for relaxation.

So, if you want a more sustainable and impactful approach to self-care to stop burnout, here are four key practices you can incorporate in your life today:

Know Your Values

True self-care involves knowing your values. It’s important to know what is truly important to you and to set boundaries around that. This means being intentional about the next steps in your career and choosing your partner, friends, and business goals. When your goals are aligned with a deeper sense of purpose within you, you set yourself up for success. By focusing on what truly matters, you can make more informed decisions about how to spend your time and energy. This will help you avoid burnout and achieve greater satisfaction in life. Not sure how to identify your core values? Check out this article for an exercise on how to identify your personal values (Using The Personal Values Card Sort Method To Set Goals by Eleanor Foxx )

Grace Your Pace

As high-achieving women, we often feel pressure to be everything to everyone all the time. This can lead to feelings of guilt and overwhelm, which can ultimately lead to burnout. It’s time to give yourself some grace with your pace in life. Instead of trying to do it all, it’s important to go back to your values and focus on what’s truly important to you right now.

This means allocating your time and energy to the things that matter most and being present in each moment. When it’s mommy time, be present with your children or family. When it’s work time, be present with your colleagues. And when it’s me time, be present with yourself. By being intentional with your time and energy, it can avoid the stress we often feel with guilt-tripping about how we are spending our time.

Know Your Limits

It’s important to know your limits. We all have our unique set of abilities and limitations, and our bodies and minds operate differently. It’s essential to understand your body and mind’s rhythms and times and use them to your advantage – work with them, not against them. If you are going through “that time of the month” and need some more time to rest before taking on a big task, then do that.

It may require manoeuvring your workload or schedule to work at your optimal times, putting in a little more when you can, and knowing that there will be downtimes when you can’t give as much. By knowing your limits and working with them, you can avoid burnout and maintain a healthier balance of life.

Do What Brings You Joy

Finally, true self-care involves allowing yourself those moments of joy and pleasure in the little things that bring you joy. Doing what brings you joy is one of the most effective forms of self-care. Engaging in activities that make you happy can help you feel more relaxed, fulfilled, and energized. It can also help to reduce stress and anxiety, which are major contributors to burnout.

Whether it’s painting, playing music, hiking, or cooking, everyone has activities they enjoy doing. However, when we’re busy or stressed, these activities are often the first things to fall by the wayside. We tell ourselves that we don’t have time or that we should be doing something more productive. But neglecting the things that bring us joy can actually have a negative impact on our productivity and well-being.

Research has shown that taking breaks to engage in activities we enjoy can help us be more productive and creative when we return to work. This is because doing what brings us joy activates the reward centers in our brains, releasing dopamine, a neurotransmitter that makes us feel good. When we’re feeling good, we’re more likely to be motivated and focused.

In addition to boosting productivity, engaging in activities we enjoy can also help us feel more connected to ourselves and others. When we do things that make us happy, we’re more likely to be present in the moment, which can help us form deeper connections with the people around us. This, in turn, can help us feel more supported and less isolated, which is essential for preventing burnout.

Traditional self-care is not enough to prevent burnout in high-achieving women

True self-care involves knowing your values, avoiding guilt trips, knowing your limits, and taking your moments of joy. By focusing on what truly matters, being present in each moment, and nourishing your soul with small moments of joy, you can help avoid burnout and achieve greater satisfaction in your life. Remember, self-care is not just a temporary fix – it’s a way of life that helps you sustain a healthy, balanced lifestyle. So, what can you do differently to practice true self-care?

Feature image by Filadendron from Getty Images Signature