Invest in your development to avoid burnout
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Learning is something I love doing. I remember from early high school looking forward to new challenges and learning something new. Except in physics class, which I struggled to understand.
We are all hard wired to learn and develop from the day we are born into the world. From learning to crawl, speak and play games, we are voracious in our need to learn and develop. It helps us feel alive.
What happens when we stop learning and developing new skills is something Harvard researchers Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey have studied. They found something that may appear counter intuitive at first. That over work or working too many hours for a sustained period is NOT the major cause of worker burnout.
Working too long without experiencing personal development is the major cause of burnout. This is because we are set up to develop and evolve psychologically and when we stop it’s like a form of soul starvation.
Combine this starvation with working prolonged hours and you experience all the downsides of fatigue and mental exhaustion without the antidote of endorphins that accompany the satisfaction of improving your capabilities.
Taking on a new project is a great way of breaking out of a work rut and awakening the learning muscles inside your mind and soul. Projects have all the ingredients you need to rapidly develop new skills: uncertainty, creativity, grit, perseverance and achievement.
Here are three tips to get you started if you want to become involved in new projects in your workplace:
Become more curious: Curiosity starts with asking why. Kids do it unconsciously because they are sponges to learn. By asking why things are done a certain way you’ll either learn the compelling and good reasons that support things being done a certain way, or problems that exist that need to be addressed.
Ask ‘What if?’: Uncovering a problem is a good first step. Spend some time thinking about and painting a picture of what the future could look like if you solved the problem and how it would be better. Identifying a problem and showing what the future would be like when it’s solved creates motivation and desire to make it happen.
Volunteer to be part of the solution: Leaders love people who take initiative to identify and solve problems that add value. If you don’t have all the skills to solve the problem on your own, ask for help to break it down and create a plan.
To help you think about how to get started, check out my one page project planner, project focus model and project pitch planner. There’s loads of other free resources you can use here -> resources to help you get started.
If you’re looking to get out of a work rut and take on important projects in your workplace but feel you need a boost of know-how and confidence to make it happen – my Private Coaching Program or Group Coaching Program could be perfect for you.
I offer four month programs for both private clients and groups that aims to provide four years development in four months. It’s packed with all the best tools and techniques I’ve used over my 25 year career as a project leader. We use your current context or project as the learning laboratory to test out what you learn after each session to accelerate your development.