Avoid Burnout On Your Road To Success

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One of the insidious byproducts of pursuing success is Burnout. Freedictionary.com defines it as: An emotional condition marked by tiredness, loss of interest, or frustration that interferes with job
performance.
Oftentimes, you don’t even know it until it’s too late. Sometimes you can feel it coming on and then work to do something about it. But, more common is the realization that it’s approaching, but you’ve already hit the point of no return and just can’t do anything about it. You’re left wondering, scratching your head and asking yourself, “how”. How, if I have so much passion and love something so much can I grow weary of it, unable to push myself any further toward my much desired goal? How could I not have any desire to work at something I want so badly? The only answer to those questions is you’ve experienced Burnout.

Burnout at any level can cause delays in you reaching your goal, or worse, prevent it altogether. What may seem like the roadway to success for a driven person can easily become the roadway to nowhere. If all of
the energy, drive, and desire to succeed is not harnessed and left to run out of control, burnout will soon follow. If frustrations aren’t mitigated in a timely manner and stress is allowed to build, can burnout be far behind? The road to success is littered with well-intentioned, burned out, success seekers. Those who made it all the way on the road to success could surely tell us a thing or two about burnout. Mind you, there are those who have achieved success who had previously burned out, but were able to find a balance and continue. How can you avoid burnout on your way to success? Here are 5 ways that will surely help.

Destination

Ultimately, to get to where you want to be involves knowing where you’re going. You must have a definite destination in mind and decided upon. Better yet, you should express this destination in writing. Knowing where you want to go is important because if you don’t know where you want to be, how will you know when you’ve arrived? “I want to make some sales” and “I want to make money online” are not statements of a definite destination. You need to put it into writing something like you want to make an average of 25 sales per day as of June 1, 2014, or that you want to be making $1500 per month by August 2014. Having a destination and reaching it can give you a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. It will re-energize and refuel you to keep you rolling down the highway to success!

Goal Setting

There are few things in a success strategy worse than having no goals. Goals can be seen as checkpoints or markers on the way to your success destination. Goals are something else you should write down. In seeing them you know exactly what you need to do. Also, you won’t forget them or confuse them with other things. You will need to set and achieve several goals to reach your destination. Examples of goals might be; place five ads on Craigslist everyday for six months, or have three websites completed by the 25th of the month, or become a resident expert in using a specific keyword search tool before 1st of next month. As you can see, each of these goals is something that pushes you closer to your destination. If the goal needs to be tweaked,
then do so. It’s not an exact science, but a perfect guidepost.

Laser Focus

People who are driven love knowledge. Because they know that Knowledge Is Key! So, they soak up everything that comes there way refusing to be overwhelmed, rather filing everything away to use when the
time is right. They learn this today, that tomorrow, and another thing the day after tomorrow. They don’t really have any use for the information at the moment, but it is knowledge and, knowledge is key. They learn how to do this and do that and figure out what’s the best this or best that. Still, there is no need at the moment for what they are learning. (Not a criticism, as I am often guilty of these.)

All of this “getting” unintentionally forces the person into a difficult position of a general focus. The problem with a general focus is that it is not specific. (Deep, huh? LOL!). Knowing things in general is awesome, if
you can apply it to something specific. Otherwise, it just makes you good as answering trivia. So, unless your destination is the Jeopardy TV game show, trivia won’t do you much good. Developing and maintaining a laser focus is truly key. Without it you’re just wondering around not really knowing what you should be
doing. Don’t dismiss opportunities to learn or gather knowledge. But, you don’t have to spend time soaking it in, if you don’t need it for the task(s) at hand. Make note of whatever it is and revisit it later. Sometimes, you may even find that it has changed, which would mean that you didn’t clutter your brain with information that had become obsolete. A laser focus can save you time and energy, simply because you’ll be traveling on a much straighter line than taking all of the “off-ramps” that you do with a general focus.

Time Management

This is one of the most important elements of the five listed here. Time management is the single most flexible thing that can be used to combat burnout. It is never a good thing to spend several hours every day
forever on anything. (Yep, even that!) Not only is creativity and passion eventually stifled, but focus and desire can be smothered, too. On the other hand, if you were to balance the time invested in that passion with other things in life, you could probably do that anything forever.

There is no set time schedule that works for everyone. It would be better for some people to work five hours a day and take weekends off. It might be better for someone else to work three hours a day, every day. Still
another person may feel that once they’re on a roll they can’t quit. So, they work 20 hours a day every three or four days. How you schedule your time is up to you. But, it should be relative to other important things in life and be:

  • Regulated
  • Consistent
  • Achievable

The notion of holidays, vacations, and time off didn’t come about because someone was lazy. It is a proven fact that time away and managed time helps prevent burnout.

Celebration & Reflection

All too often people on the road to success fail to celebrate and reflect on their “lesser” accomplishments along the way, giving them a feeling of not making progress. This sometimes results in frustration and an unnecessary change in focus, thereby, delaying or preventing the arrival at their success destination. If you don’t reflect on your accomplishments, how can you know the value of what you’ve done? If after reflection you find that you’ve achieved some measured value of success, it needs to be celebrated. Don’t overdue here. Making a first online sale or getting that first signup thru the WA Affiliate program is cause to reflect and celebrate. But, all you need to do is pop the top on a cold one or eat some chocolate or knock off work early for the day. Celebrate … and reflect. Where did this sale come from? How did this new sign-up see my offer? What did I do so that all five of my ads made it the whole week on Craigslist? When you realize how you accomplished something, you’ll say, “Great, I’ll do some more of that!”

Celebrating and reflecting can have a domino effect on your ability to achieve success. It can help you feel good about what you are doing, which in turn encourages you to do more.The more you are encouraged, the more you want to continue on your journey. A good way to celebrate your successes is to share them with someone who understands what you are facing or with someone who is supportive of your success. In this case, the more you have involved in your celebration, the merrier.

Burnout is a real threat to success. Burnout is not a threat to be defeated, but one to be avoided. Taking the necessary steps beforehand will keep burnout from ever knocking at your door. Avoid burnout and keep on
rolling on your way to success!

FeeMo

makemoneyfromyourkitchentable.siterubix.com

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Recent Comments

7

Excellent article Feemo. Being the habitual over-achiever type I have to be sure to incorporate relaxation and fun in my work week. Thanks for sharing your perspective.
-Rebecca

Yes, you do! I love this stuff, but I find that when I step away (and I do at least once a week) it makes me yearn for more. It's like a built-in recharging system! :-)

I'm guilty of burnout, but you make some valid points. Time management and focus are two of the things I need to work on most. I know what I should be doing, but I tend to make excuses, so thanks for reminding me :)

Thanks, nathaniell. I appreciate the honest of talking about burnout such as your and Kymee have done. Sometimes we feel like we have to be superhuman to be like the successful people, when in fact, they are subject to the same things we are . . . just with more money. LOL!

Too late....LOL really thanks for this I don't want to sometimes I get real close.

Man, do I know! If my drive weren't so strong, I'd be a Greeter for Wal-mart!

were do I apply LOL

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