Stand Up For Your Mental Health: The Link Between Self Advocacy and Burnout
In my coaching work, I see a lot of people who want to move into more fulfilling and better paid work. Many of my clients work very hard only to be told they aren’t ready or they haven’t yet produced the right kind of results to get a promotion.
Some have taken on more work in an attempt to prove themselves and feel burned out as a result. Others have given up on their dreams and quietly quit. They are struggling to get what they want from their lives and careers, and often feel resentful as a result.
A common theme with my clients is feeling overwhelmed. They are unsure of how to move from where they currently are to where they would like to be. My areas of focus with my coaching clients are career progression and leadership development through the lens of self-advocacy and mental wellbeing.
In this article I’m going to explain the link between burnout and poor self-advocacy, and provide some tools and strategies to help you improve your self-advocacy skills.
The Downward Spiral of Self-Advocacy and Burnout
When I talk about self-advocacy, I mean two things:
Outwardly cheerleading your successes at work, ensuring people know what you have achieved and don’t take credit for or downplay your ideas
Being your own internal cheerleader, for example by speaking positively to yourself, giving yourself a break when you need it, and celebrating your successes
When we don’t self-advocate we end up doing more work in a desperate attempt to prove ourselves. We work longer hours to keep up with increasing demands. We don’t take care of ourselves because we don’t have time. We end up overwhelmed, drowning in a sea of endless work, with no light at the end of the tunnel.
When we are overwhelmed by work and life:
We lack the energy to believe in ourselves and speak up. We are more likely to back down when challenged or talked over in meetings
We can’t strategize for a promotion because we don’t have time to focus on longer term career progression and build a case for ourselves
We don’t have the time or energy to network and raise our profile with the right people
Self-Advocacy Skills to Prevent Burnout
Here are my best tips to help you self-advocate at work…
There is an ‘I’ in TEAM
People who struggle to self-advocate often tend to be great team players. You may find it difficult to step back from the team and shout about your own contributions, but, if you don’t, someone else will. Here’s how to be both a part of and apart from the team.
Watch Who You Believe
Some of us are entirely motivated by feedback from others, and some of us couldn’t care less about anyone’s opinion but our own. Here’s how to find the balance between internal and external motivation so you can accept feedback without allowing it to define you.
Stand Up for Yourself
It’s time for your inner voice to stop running you down whenever you make the smallest (or even the biggest!) mistake. Here’s how to switch your inner voice from negative to positive.
Get Some Perspective
It’s normal to feel like everything is bad when you are stuck in a moment of despair, but the truth is, the only constant is change. Here’s how to step back and gain a ‘through time’ perspective on your problems.
Give Yourself a Break
If you don’t have time for a break, you REALLY need a break. That’s not a suggestion, it’s an order. Here’s how to build breaks into everything you do.
Define Your Purpose
Perhaps it’s been a while since you asked yourself why you do the job you do. What purpose does it serve, and does that purpose still serve you, ten or twenty years into your career? Here’s why it helps to check in with your Why from time to time.
Cut Back In
When you are often spoken over in meetings it negatively impacts your self-esteem. In this article I explain how to deploy your Interruption Shield and bring the conversation back to you when someone tries to steal the floor.
Accept Yourself
If you don’t accept yourself, no one else will. Here is how to be completely and fully yourself at work without actually watching Netflix in your undies eating ice-cream from the tub.
Be Your Own Cheerleader!
No one you work with is paid to amplify your successes—it’s your job to highlight them to others. If you don’t blow your own trumpet to yourself, your manager, and your colleagues, you will burn out before you get the promotion or pay rise you deserve. It’s time to be your own cheerleader.
