STILL TREATING BUSY AS A BADGE OF HONOUR?

When I was burning out, “Busy!” was my go-to response when people asked me (casually or not) how I was.

There were whole conversations that revolved around how ‘busy’ we were, because invariably my ‘busy’ response evoked a “yeah, me too!” in reply.

Now, I’m not saying we WEREN’T busy. Indeed, ‘busy’ was code for a lot of other things we perhaps didn’t want to admit to.

If we’d been brave enough to be honest, we’d have perhaps answered, “Overwhelmed!”.

“Paralysed by too many priorities.”

“Sleepless with stress about outrageous expectations.”

But “busy”, said with a wry smile and a little shrug, conveys something else also.

It conveys “working my arse off and hoping somebody notices and offers to help.”

It says “always relied upon to pick up other people’s slack without complaining.”

It says “how I can comfort myself I’m valued in the absence of any tangible recognition, reward or thanks for my work.”

Sometimes it says ‘victim’. Sometimes it says ‘martyr’. Sometimes it says “too tired and strung out to actually think about what I’m saying and busy says it all.”

If you’ve been using ‘busy’ as a badge of honour to remind yourself or others that you’re making an important contribution…
If you’re using it as shorthand for ‘help, I’m drowning!’…
If you’re using it in sad solidarity with somebody else you observe is struggling with their workload…

Let’s work on replacing ‘busy’ and its ‘exhausted’, ‘frantic’, ‘chaotic’, ‘overwhelmed’, ‘desperate’ subtexts with a new approach to managing your workplace stress.

Because ‘busy’ can be a red flag for ‘burning out’.

There’s a free masterclass on preventing burnout in your teams and in yourself, now available to help you.

You can find it here.

Much love to you,
Karyn x