Burnout: Fatigue, frustration, or apathy resulting from prolonged stress, overwork, or intense activity, without compensating fun or time for reflection.

We motivate others to be all they can be, to live their dreams, exercise, eat well, follow career paths with passion, live with intention, and yet what happens when we experience “coach burnout”?  Here’s a quick self inventory of your personal and business life, and some suggestions for changes.

Quick Check:  These Signals Sound Familiar?

1. Loss of confidence; growing self doubt; declining self image.
2. Loss of energy – “can’t get started” or “can’t follow through” feeling.  Everything seems like a strain.
3. Persistently avoiding necessary coach-business tasks.
4. Feeling overwhelmed by the coaching sessions as well as your coaching business.
5. Feeling lost.

If you checked a couple, then –

Personal Issues:  What’s Going on with You?

1. Isolated?  No one to talk to?
2. Over-focused?  The only thing important in your life is your coaching business?  Every up and down in the business tears you up?
3. Letting physical fitness go?  Careless nutrition?
4. Not organized enough?  Problems managing time and materials?
5. Not meeting your personal needs for calmness and comfort?  Letting stress get out of hand?

What’s the Plan for Yourself?

1. Contact – Set up a regular lunch with someone upbeat.  Join one or more groups, personal or business.  Seek out support!  Pick a mentor, and contact them.  Get yourself a coach!  Get a work-out partner.  Join a once-a-month dining group.  Reach out!
2. Balance – Consciously cultivate hobbies and interests.  Painting.  Writing.  Gardening.  Music.  Theater.  You choose!  Really get interested. Give them enough “weight” that you derive deep satisfaction from them, and can lose yourself in them.
3. Health – A good rule of thumb is 30-60 minutes of serious exercise at least three times a week.  A little crème brulee now and again is OK, but you know the drill – grapefruit juice, bagels, fish, salad, chicken pasta, one glass of merlot, and all that.  Are you doing it?
4. How to Be Organized in Spite of Yourself – This is the title of a book which starts out by suggesting that two core problems are indecisiveness and procrastination.  So – make a decision as to what you are going to do with that pile of paper on your desk, and make it now!
5. Stress – Get sensitive to your own stress levels.  As you see your stress moving into the orange and red zones, take action.  Teach yourself to regularly inject refreshing “pleasant events” into your schedule if you get stressed so you can come back to issues with a new frame of mind.

Professional Issues:  What’s Going on With Your Business?

1. Have you promised more than you can deliver?  Are you realistically stretched too thin?
2. Are you ending up week after week as a lone wolf, trying to handle everything on your own?
3. Are you running out of clients?
4. Are you violating boundaries with clients?  Are they starting to infringe on your personal space?
5. Are you getting into repeated conflicts with clients?

Could These Changes Help Your Business?

1. Be Realistic – Promise less than you deliver!   It’s easy to over-predict your effect when you are worried about gaining business.  But, in the long run, from a reputation as well as a job strain point of view, it’s way better to end up accomplishing more than you promised.
2. Surround yourself with knowledgeable, insightful, supportive colleagues – a benchmark is 20 people you could draw on for support.  Get specific help with burdensome tasks – e.g., accounting, mailing, filing, etc.  Don’t go it alone!
3. Don’t Panic – The way to gain clients is m-a-r-k-e-t-i-n-g.  That’s right – go out and shake some hands, and give people your business card.  People can’t refer to you if they don’t know you exist.
4. Boundaries – Coaching is a little more personal than therapy, and coaches are pretty sociable, but even so things can go too far.   Just let your clients know you have limits.  You can be assertive in a professional and warm, but firm way.  “Superman” is a comic book for a reason!
5. Three tips for avoiding misunderstandings with your clients:

a. Choose clients with life challenges for which you are well-suited; 
b. Choose clients who really want to work on themselves; 
c. Don’t put up with much personalized blaming and complaining!

Immediate Burnout Coping Plan

1. Call a friend for coffee!  Especially one who understands your challenges and goals.
2. Review motivational or humorous ideas – attend a seminar, listen to a recording, watch a film, read a book or article.
3. Go for a long walk or exercise, and just forget everything for a while!
4. Journaling -- write down what’s bothering you, and then blue-sky what you’d really like!
5. Go someplace for a half day – the beach, or a spa, and just unwind.

Overall– Try to set up your life and coaching business so that they flow pretty freely – you feel good, you receive reasonably substantial compensation for your coaching, and you are genuinely interested in what you do.  Set this process as a goal or vision for yourself.  Then, as you discover problems, trouble shoot them, and see if you can’t find the source of the strain.  Then, redesign your system so the problem is resolved, or at least is less of a problem.  Aim for a kind of breezy, fun, efficient existence.

Of Course – The interesting thing about burnout assessment and correction plans like this is they read well, but the trick is doing them!  If you just can’t get started, you know what to do…call a life coach!

This article is co-authored by:
Beth Griffith, Certified Life Coach: www.bethgriffith.com; 949-249-1036; bgriff@cox.net
Steve Davidson, PhD is a licensed psychologist in practice in Newport Beach:  949-233-0234; sdavidsonphd@sbcglobal.net