Ice Swimming

Getting real about what leads us into the cold

Employee burnout is a real thing. You probably heard about the phenomenon of employees considering new careers in the wake of the pandemic. This “Great Resignation”, also known as the Big Quit or Great Reshuffle began in early 2021. This “reshuffling” of jobs in the United States reached a peak of over 4.5 million employees quitting in a single month in 2021. To put this in perspective, this accounts for one out of about According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 47 million people quit their jobs in 2021, which is about 23% of the labor force. This was followed by 38 million more quitting the following year.

_{By BappleBusiness – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=130005624}

Many productivity and self-help luminaries including Kevin Kelly, editor of Wired Magazine, suggest viewing the bigger picture by considering your mortality.

Above Picture: Kevin Kelly _{By Cmichel67 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=125628365}

Ask yourself: How much time do you have left on the planet to help put work dysphoria into perspective ? Check out Kelly’s website here: Kk.org,

Questions to consider Related to your work

Considering questions like these when at work?

Can I accept the idea that this employee, boss, laborer…Is who I am?

Is this environment where I want to spend much of the short time I have left in this life?

Can I sustain this level of stress and discomfort until I am encouraged to leave the profession by friends and colleagues?

Am I in survival mode?

Are people laughing with me or at me?

I threw in the last one for laughs, but the above questions are real for me, and I suspect others in the professional world sometimes ask these questions of themselves.

Fatigue, dread, and feelings of hopelessness are real signals that something is wrong and necessitate change. NOTE: If you or someone you know are really having a hard time with mental health, there is no substitute for getting professional help. The National Institute of Mental Health has reliable resources and can inform you about what steps to take to get help.

If you can identify with the experience of distress at work, you are clearly not alone. Part of my interest in assembling this blog is prompted by coping with the stress of working on a career transition.

What Can you do Immediately to Promote a Clear Perspective? Remember balance.

Unless in a snow cave, you have heard balance is important. According to Liz Moody, in her book, 100 ways to Change Your Life, Which is available on Amazon at the moment for 22.40 in Hardcover.

which is full of clever, actionable advice, and remarkably, includes cold water immersion therapy, you need to balance your work on a foundation of 4 pillars. These are composed of:

Adequate sleep: this can be highly variable. Some people really need a lot more than others. It’s not just 8 hrs for everybody.

Proper diet: Lots of plants required. If you have not heard about gut microbiome research results check out: Information from the National Library of Medicine about gut health’s connection to mental health. Check out more information here at Ice Swimmings.

Exercise: This can include cold water immersion, but there are a ton of other options.

Social Contact: Good relationships. Having strong connections with people who contribute to your dynamic and rich life.

Moody writes that we are always struggling to balance atop a foundation built of these crucial support pillars, which I think is an insightful metaphor. If one pillar is weak, a whole cascade of problems is possible.

Being alive means you’ve had problems finding success with most or all of these, but when they are properly built and in sync: This creates a recipe for powerful growth.

When the pillars of health are twisting and swaying on the eroding sands of life, you can’t be the best employee, boss, manager, operator…etc. First determine, Is this job knocking down my pillars of health. If it is you may need a change.

If the foundational pillars of health are crumbling, and that is causing you misery at work; Shore them up. Make an improvement in one place and build on that success. Just like with a building project. If the floor of your house is sagging, you need to prop it up using a tool like a jack and then get to work on stabilizing the foundation. Let Ice Swimmings be your jack. That’s the facts, Jack.

Takeaways:

1. Your job is not a built in part of you.
2. If necessary, You can quit and you are not alone.
3. Consider the 4 Pillars role in your life and work.
4. Make changes if needed.

Dear reader, More about the work/life balance and quitting your job is expcted in later editions of Iceswimmings.

Please let us know if you have thoughts or ideas about topics for other editions or more we should include about burnout.