How to Deal With Burnout (Concluding part)

3. LEARN WHEN TO SAY NO TO WORK.

If you face an unrealistic workload or some other persistent problem in your workplace, discuss your situation with your employer. Whenever possible, offer solutions that meet both your needs and those of your employer. Reassure your employer of your commitment to your work, and explain what you are willing to do; but be clear and firm about what you are not able to do.

Use foresight and be realistic. If you want to work less, your employer may expect you to accept less compensation. Anticipate risks such as the threat of job loss, and be prepared to respond. Remember that your prospects for finding a different job are better while you are still employed.

Even when you have reached a mutually agreeable work arrangement with your employer, you can expect to be pressured again to take on more work. What can help you to remain firm? Keeping to the commitments that you have made. Doing so might give you leverage to ask your employer to do the same in return, including keeping your workload within the agreed limits.

4. RENEW YOURSELF.

Even when your work is free of major problems, you may still have your share of stresses, difficult people, and unpleasant situations. So make time for sufficient rest and balanced recreation. Remember that recreation does not have to be expensive to be refreshing to you and your family.

Cultivate interests and friendships apart from your work, and avoid defining yourself by the type and amount of work that you do. If your identity and self-worth come primarily from your work, then you will find it difficult to minimize the role that work plays in your life.

Can you really make the changes needed to deal successfully with burnout? Yes, you can.

The Lantern of the Photuris Firefly

THE lantern, or light organ, of a particular Photuris firefly is covered with jagged scales that dramatically enhance the brightness of the light that the insect produces. * Jagged scales Consider: Researchers have found that tiny scales on the lantern surface of some fireflies form a corrugated pattern, somewhat like overlapping shingles or tiles. The scales tilt up at one end by just 3 micrometers —less than one twentieth the thickness of a human hair. Yet this tiny tilt lets the lantern shine almost 50 percent more brightly than it would if the scales formed an even surface!

An Overview of Indonesia

Land Straddling the equator between Australia and continental Asia, Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago. Most of its more than 17,500 islands feature rugged mountains and dense tropical forests. With more than 100 active volcanoes, it is also the most active volcanic region on earth.

PORTRAITS FROM THE PASTIgnaz Semmelweis

IGNAZ SEMMELWEIS may not be a household name, yet his work has benefited most modern families. Born in Buda (now Budapest), Hungary, he received his medical degree at the University of Vienna in 1844. On taking up his post as assistant to a professor at the First Maternity Clinic of Vienna’s General Hospital in 1846, Semmelweis faced an appalling reality —more than 13 percent of the women giving birth there died from a disease called childbed fever. Various theories as to the cause of this disease had been proposed, yet no one had solved the mystery. All attempts to reduce the mortality rate proved futile. Troubled by the spectacle of numerous mothers suffering a slow, agonizing death, Semmelweis determined to find the cause of the disease and prevent it.

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