Feeling tired of your job?  Maybe your feeling tired in general – and not just at work!  We all feel tired from time to time.  Sometimes, we just need more sleep or maybe we have been working out too hard or we are coming down with a cold or something or maybe there is a bigger health issue going on.  But sometimes many of us experience the general malaise of “tiredness” that seems to follow us one day after another no matter how much sleep we get.

 

It’s a feeling of tired that’s a mixture of a few key ingredients such as:

 

• a handful of low energy (maybe you’re just not feelin’ that pep in your step)
• a cup of powerlessness (every aspect of our life seems to constantly tug at us – especially our job, our house, our kids, our partners – all of them wanting more from us than we seem to have to give – and all of them tugging at us all at the same time!)
• a dash of cynicism (you might think “I can’t give everyone what they want – and if I could they wouldn’t appreciate it – they’ll just be right back at me wanting the next thing”).
• (maybe even) a pinch of bordem (every day looks the same – and yet we crave for something “exciting” to happen – but what?)

 

Mixed altogether – you might feel downright burned out – your spark is just gone.  How can you get it back?

 

Over the next several weeks I am going to share with you the signs that you may be on the path to experiencing burnout.  Plus I will offer you some food for thought, compelling questions and some exercises about what you can do to get on a path to recovering from burnout and even preventing another round of burnout in the future.

 

Here’s a hint about how to start overcoming one of the markers of burnout – exhaustion…

 

“The result of genuine devotion is inspiration, a word which properly understood is the opposite of fatigue.  To be fatigued is to be dis-spirited, but to be inspired is to be in the spirit.”  From A Course In Miracles

 

This quote offers the chance to think about not what inspires you – but what are you truly devoted to?  Devotion is a key path to inspiration (and to ascending from non-health related fatigue).  Devotion is defined as “profound dedication; consecration”  and “earnest attachment to a cause, person, etc.”  The cause and effect relationship is clear in this quote:

 

devotion ———->  inspiration

 

vs.

 

dis-spirited (to deprive of hope/enthusiasm or to discourage) ————-> fatigue

 

There may be things you may think you are devoted to but if a sense of inspiration is not experienced in return, are you truly devoted?  Inspiration is not something you need to seek – it is a by-product of your devotion (of your hope/enthusiasm – maybe – of your courage).  Another way to see devotion is to see it as honoring something.  So with this offered perspective…

 

Think about your job – what would honoring your job look like to you?