Course 2: Becoming a 7 Cups Leader - (Discussion #11) Avoiding Burnout
7 Cups is founded on a community of passionate volunteers who lovingly dedicate their time to providing support.
You may face what is called burnout during your journey. You may have already faced this in your real life. Burnout is very real and must be recognized. You can't help fuel someone else when your tank is empty, after all!
To address and learn about burnout, we have created a slidedeck on how to avoid burnout.
Activity: Please read it through and in the replies, tell us what you learned, and what you will do to stay healthy and avoid burnout!
Then, please reply to 3 of your peers in this thread with encouraging or supportive words!
After completing the course quiz, please proceed to this post!
This post is brought to you by the Leadership Development Program Team, find out more information about the program here.
if we want to do everything at once, it can lead to burnout. always wanting more and more at once is not good. only one a day. and occasionally retreat to self-care.
@Mankka
Very good!
@Mankka
Excellent advice. Thank you for sharing :)
@Mankka
I agree
Question : Tell us what you learned, and what you will do to stay healthy and avoid burnout!
Answer : I learnt the importance of self care. I learnt that more than a few days of self care break, it is more helpful if we practice it on a regular basis (daily or weekly). I learnt it is ok to feel burnout and become a bad leader at times till the time we know how to deal with it and get back to our better phase.
To stay healthy and avoid burnout I will set weekly (if not daily) time for self care break. I will ask for help to cover for me meanwhile. I will seek feedback on whether I'm coming off as irritated or frustrated because very often we tend to not see what's going on with us until someone else points it out. I will do more stuff offline, connect with my people outside of 7cups. I will sleep well. Sleep is medicine.
@peacefulWarrior10
I love it! What a wonderful response! I totally agree that sleep is incredibly important to make sure that you remain healthy! Asking somebody to help you is another amazing idea!
@cocoakrispies121
Thank you so much ♥️
@peacefulWarrior10 good thinking: practice good self care every day. That can help us stay in the "good leader" mode. Thank you for sharing.
@peacefulWarrior10 That's a great approach, Warrior! Thanks for sharing ~
@peacefulWarrior10
I couldn't have said it better myself. Sleep is medicine! People need to remind themselves of that more 🙂
@peacefulWarrior10
Great idea about asking for feedback. It will help us to take another person's perspective. It can be so difficult to see what's happing in yourself - it helps to get some guidance from others.
@peacefulWarrior10
Excellently written. Thanks for this awesome answer!
What I learned:
I learned about the effects of burnout, and how that could affect my performance as a leader.
What I will do to stay healthy and avoid burnout:
- Remember to log off and spend some time offline everyday
- Take self-care breaks whenever I need to
- Know my limits and do the best I can, but not overwork myself
- Say no if I can’t commit to something
@NorahListens
Very well done!!
@NorahListens those are important points. Thank you for the reminder. I need reminders on self care.
@NorahListens Thanks for sharing~
@Heather225
Please read it through and in the replies, tell us what you learned, and what you will do to stay healthy and avoid burnout!
To bring it to the point for me, I can only be helpful to others, I can only feel well in my own skin when feeling relaxed. Showing the signs of burnout will make me a hard person to work with and that's not what I want for others neither for me. I do like working, the work here is fun to me, motivating and helps me to stay confident. I need to make sure that I am not staying on the site late so that I have enough time to enjoy the evening since bedtime is 10 pm for me. Currently I am doing the mbsr course which I find very helpful.
@amiablePeace77
It's great that you want to be of service to others, and realize that you cannot fully be to the benefit of others of you burn yourself out!
@Heather225
To avoid burnout, it is really important that we do self-care. Burnout can cause us to be less productive, less happy and less effective. For me to avoid this happening, I will make time each day to exercise and get fresh air to help reset my mental state to a balanced equilibrium.
@KindnessMatters2020
those are really good form of self-care. thank you for sharing! 
I learned that burnout is caused by a perception of uselessness and low self-value, and it leads to becoming detached and cynical in an attempt to protect one self. I will be aware of my own limits and take time for myself when needed.
@SophieWX That's great you can be aware of your limits to take care of yourself.
Ilearned that sometimes we rush into roles too much and forget about ourself. It's important to take care of ourselves and remember why we are volunteering. If we are feeling burned out we can take some time off to reflect on our work and our boundaries. We cannot give what we don't have!
@Ginevra962
Excellent point, we can't give what we don't have! That is a golden rule to follow :)
@Heather225
I knew about burnout, but never considered it as chronic. I’ll slow down and take regular time offs to make sure I don’t burnout.
@YoungMonastic007 I hope you find slowing down to be beneficial!
@Heather225
I learned the signs of a burnout because I did not know those before, and in order to reduce the chances of burning myself out I should take more self-care breaks and because I already engage in daily downtime, but I don't take very many self-care breaks. Probably a week long every so often, but those are very spread out, and I realize I overwhelm and burn myself out more than I thought I did.
I did find it interesting that we're encouraged to log out for a few days in general, I'm wondering if some of the 'gamification' aspects of the site need to be examined to align with that.
Unfortunately I find chronic stress just isn't possible to avoid due to illness, some of that is present all the time. I do try to limit the effects, nap when needed/I can, etc.