I think it is generally around this time of year when the grind of football meets with the beginning of basketball and soccer, not to mention the pressure of the impending holiday season, when most of us are just looking for an opportunity to take a deep breath, much less a break. Coupled with crazy schedules are the pressures of maintaining a life and balancing personal responsibilities. It can be frustrating to the point of ...BURNOUT.
Athletic trainers in most settings do not get an "off-season," and burnout is a real issue facing our profession. We often feel we work too much, get paid too little and it begs the question "Is this worth it?"
Well? Is it?
Athletic training loses many young professionals to burnout. What can we do to curb that trend? What needs to happen?
Less hours?
More pay?
Greater public knowledge and improved overall perception of our role in health care?
All of these would be great, but would they really decrease burnout?
I try to take full advantage of my weekends off, and thoroughly enjoy my holidays away from work by spending time with family and chilling out. I take work, and life, as it comes and make sure to prioritize and this really helps me. Work is important, but it is not most important.
What are some things you do to prevent burnout for yourself?
What do you suggest the profession do to decrease burnout overall?
3 comments:
One good way to prevent burnout is to join your professional organizations. One of our committee goals is to create a good support network of professionals, and foster open communication among all members. The SWATA Young Professionals Committee has sponsored a new SWATA initiative for eMentoring.
If you need advice or just looking to reach out, then start your search here:
http://www.swata.org/committees/mentor_list.php
Thanks for the post, Carissa. I think alot of people in our profession, especially in this time of the year, have some of the feelings that you described in your initial post.
Avoiding Burnout
A continuation in the little yellow “…for dummies” series.
First, a little about myself. I am 26 years old, I have been married for 6 ½ years to my husband, Josh, who is also an athletic trainer. Josh works for a 5A HS and I opened a new 3A HS this year. We have no kids but our 2 dogs might as well be spoiled rotten children! I have always been warned about burnout in athletic training. For this reason, I am cautious that my husband and I work hard at staying happy in our careers. I would like to share some things that have helped us stave off burnout:
Know what your local organization is and go to the meetings. This is a good way to meet new people and to catch up with old acquaintances. One thing that BVATS decided to do was to meet at a different location for each meeting. Each athletic trainer will ‘host’ a meeting at their place of employment. This way you get to show off your own facility and you get to see what other athletic trainers do differently than you. This might spur on ideas to help boost your own program!
Get involved with people outside of athletic training. Plan to attend a social event that your religious organization is hosting, meet up with a college buddy, or call a sibling or parent and have them meet you for dinner one night. This will break up the monotony of seeing the same people every day and you can have a conversation that centers on something other than work.
Take a ‘Sick Day’. I know, I know, you just feel like you can’t take a day off. Well, I did this year and it felt great! Physically, I could have gone to work but I was getting sick and was drained. I took the day off and the coaches gave me a hard time about it but I felt like I was 110% the next day.
Get out of your house and do something for yourself. Get a massage, manicure/pedicure (yes, even guys can enjoy this), go to a movie…
Get out of your office! Walk the school/hospital grounds. Just get outside and walk around for a minute. If you need to justify this to yourself, then go to the football field and look for gaping divots that need to be addressed.
Plan a trip/vacation. And don’t fall into the trap of calling a CEU conference your vacation…even if it is in South Padre! If you have a family, then go on a ‘family only’ trip. If you are single or don’t have kids yet, go with 2-3 other people that you like to hang out with. Josh and I do this all the time and it is so much fun!
Prioritize and get a reality check. I know that this sounds corny, but I have a 1 page worksheet that simply reveals your individual set of priorities. When I filled out the worksheet for the first time, I was shocked at how out-of-order my priorities were. I can’t say that I have it all perfect now but at least I know what I need to work on. If you would like to see the worksheet, email me and I will send it to you (jkwoodall@bryanisd.org).
These are just my thoughts on the matter. If you have anything to add, please put it out there so we can all avoid the burnout bug…especially as we start the spring semester! Hey Jeff, maybe we should get together & write a series of those yellow ‘…for dummies’ books!!!
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