I wasn't sure what to talk about this week.
It's taken some time to think about what's going to be most
useful for you at this time of the year.
We're approaching the new year shortly.
It's a time of reflection. It's a time of considering our
wins, our strengths and our growth areas.
And for me, it's a time for reflecting on this podcast and
what's been successful, what you've most enjoyed.
And the top three episodes right now are the Attachment Informed
episode, How to Stop Social Workers Leaving the Profession
episode and what we're going to talk about today, burnout.
In the last episode we talked about the 12 stages of burnout.
But today, even if you are not feeling burnt out, I'm going to
give you some real life practical tips, Things that I've
done to manage burnout because I've been there several times in
my career and I've coached so many social workers this year
who've experienced burnout. So I think it's still important
to have this on the agenda. And whether you're feeling like
you're almost at burnout, you're in the stages of burnout or not,
this episode is for you. So let's talk.
Can I just say I feel like we're a family?
I meet so many of my podcast listeners when I'm out and
about, or I get messages from people who listen to my podcast
on LinkedIn or Instagram and it's just amazing to meet you
all. So reach out to me, say hello,
tell me what you're enjoying, tell me what other episodes that
you like, and remember that I have a podcast subscription.
If you go straight to the description in my podcast right
now, you will see a link and there we will give you more in
depth insight and personal stories from me.
On that note, welcome to Dear Social Worker.
I'm your host Lisa Ann and today we are going to talk about
navigating burnout and give you practical self-care tips.
Which is key for 2024, right? We're not going to repeat the
same behaviours, we're not going to repeat the same actions and
thoughts. We're going to grow.
We're going to walk into the new year ready to go.
So I'm going to give you practical tips.
It's just a short episode today. If you haven't listened to the
last episode talking about burnout, I highly recommend you
do that. And that episode ended with
saying, if you're at a place where you've got complete and
utter emotional and physical collapse, you know, what do you
do, what do you do then? And I'm going to give you some
tips right now that are going to help you with that.
So without further ado, let's get into this now.
For me, when I experienced burnout, I couldn't even open an
e-mail. And what I mean by that is my
brain couldn't take in any more information.
I was completely overloaded. I was completely overwhelmed and
I had no idea, no idea how I was going to get myself out of it.
I literally just laid down because I couldn't even watch
TV, you know? I was completely and utterly
exhausted through and through. So the first tip I'm going to
give you, and one of the first things I did when I was able to
return back to work was plan my holidays in advance.
I planned my holidays in advance, so I went straight to
my diary as soon as I got back to work and said right, I need
to plan 2 days off here, a week over there, two weeks here, and
I went through the whole year and I made that happen.
Now, I didn't have any form of plan as to what I was going to
do on those breaks. Those breaks served 2 purposes.
One purpose simply was to remind myself that I needed a break
because I will go through the air booking my CP conferences 6
months in advance all the time and I would not be thinking
about where my break comes in, what my needs were.
So it served the first purpose of reminding myself I needed a
break, and secondly it served the purpose of actually taking
the break. So I will book long weekends and
then I would have a one week holiday or A and and a two week
holiday. I was agency so I had a little
bit more autonomy around that, but I would highly recommend as
soon as you step foot into your office next week, or if you as
soon as you open your laptop next week, book your holidays in
advance. Just put them in the diary.
Even with nowhere to go, it's going to put you in a different
mindset. It's going to give you something
to look forward to. It's really going to help you
plan yourself. Care, the second thing that
everything centres around when it comes to burnout.
And if you're experiencing burnout right now, the one thing
you're going to need when you return is boundaries.
Boundaries for yourself. OK, we're going to need to build
some fences now, right? It might just be half a fence
instead of a full fence, but we're going to start building
some fences, because you need to be able to look after yourself.
And in order to do that, you're going to need boundaries.
And some of those boundaries are about using the word dare I say
it, using the word no. Using the word no has so much
power for you. It's not about anybody else.
It's not about everyone else. It's simply about looking after
you. So sometimes it's going to be
no, I can't book a meeting in that time.
It's my break time or it's my day off.
I knew someone who actually put in their diary at lunchtime and
it was a recurring, what do you call it, a recurring subject in
their diary. And all they did was make sure
between 12:00 and 1:00 that they would not be having any meetings
every single day, Monday to Friday.
Now, for me, even the thought of that, that seems unmanageable
because you know what it's like when you're dealing with crisis
intervention. So I would probably put it in
three times a week just to allow for.
So that flexibility. When things do become a
priority, however, that's what worked for that person.
That was their boundary. Do not book anything in my diary
between 12:00 and 1:00. It's lunchtime, end of
discussion. And can I just remind you, no,
it's a complete sentence. Don't need to add anything to
it. OK?
I've got three resources that can help you.
And then I'm going to be out of your way for this week's
podcast. And next week we'll talk about
something else. And you know something?
I'm actually creating a podcast episode for Christmas Day.
Christmas Day I think falls on a Monday.
I think it does. I'm on Instagram live right now,
so let me know, does Christmas Day fall on a Monday?
If it does, then you will be having an episode that day.
And I would like to confirm, yes, I do have boundaries and I
will not be recording on Christmas morning.
It will be pre recorded, right? So three resources that are on
Amazon right now that can help you set up for 2024 and to help
you navigate the burnout that you may be experiencing.
Thank you for confirming Christmas Day is on Monday.
Thank you. The first thing is the self-care
journal for social workers available on Amazon under the
author name LA Edwards. And this journal is going to
help you plan yourself care for the year.
And the way that it's designed is that it's got tick sheets
really easy. So you tick what type of
self-care. You can probably hear the
turning of my pages now, what type of self-care you're going
to navigate for the week, you just tick it.
There's nine types of self-care. And underneath that you're going
to write what they are that you're going to do.
So for example, Monday you might say have my lunch break.
Saturday you might say go and see a friend, and Sunday you
might say have a long bath. It's that simple.
And then at the end of the week you reflect on what you've
completed and what you want to do the following week.
It's really easy, really simple, but it helps you stay on track
with yourself, care and create boundaries, creating that space
for you to think about what you need to do to stay on top of
your mental health and prioritise yourself care most of
the time. I've seen in my experience that
I've through coaching and in my experience as a social worker,
it's very difficult to do that on your own because your mind is
full of all the work that you need to do, right.
Your mind is full of the crisis intervention and navigating the
management or navigating peers, navigating all the work that
you've got to do, phone calls, emails.
But when you've got a resource that you can turn to that where
you don't have to think, you literally just ticking to say,
OK, this is what I'm going to do and this is my reflection that
I'm going to do on that, then that is what's most easier for
you. For those listening on Instagram
and asking, it's called the self-care Journal for Social
Workers and it's under the author name, LA Edwards, which
is my author name and it's on Amazon right now.
If you want it from me directly, send me Adm and I'll sign it for
you and I can send it to you. That is not a problem.
The next one I'm going to recommend to you is this one
called the Mood Tracker Journal. The Mood Tracker Journal under
the same name, LA Edwards and it's an A4 size journal which I
love. And this journal is going to
help you track how you're feeling in the back of the
journal, you're welcome. In the back of the journal, you
have a list of emotion words which are going to help you
identify what you're feeling. Most of the time, and most of
the problems that we have when we are stressed, when we are
burnt out, is that we are unable to truly describe what we're
feeling, and that is because our emotional literacy needs to
grow. That is because we haven't given
birth to and given life to certain words which pinpoint
with accuracy exactly how we're feeling now.
Once you are increasing your emotional literacy, you're
improving and enhancing yourself awareness and therefore you're
in a space where you can truly have some good deep reflection.
Now with this reflection, this is what you have in your mood
tracker journal. So you write how you're feeling
for that day in the journal. You've got three emotions that
you write for. Then you're right, I am feeling
like this because and you outlined 3 reasons.
You reflect on that and then we bring you to the present tense
and look at, OK, what are you looking forward to tomorrow?
Now I have found the Mood Tracker Journal really helpful.
And I say this with chest, as the young people would say.
I say it with chest and that means there was a time where I
was so stressed and I mean my mind was just all over the
place. I had one of the most high risk
cases that I was managing. I was trying to manage a social
worker who's the managing this high risk case and it was
relentless. Sometimes it happens.
It's just relentless. Every day, every day there was
something happening. My mind just couldn't focus, so
I would wake up early in the morning and that's why I put
these podcasts out early in the morning.
I would wake up early in the morning and I would sit down and
just think about how I'm feeling, reflected on why I'm
feeling like that, and really just put myself back in the
driving seat and be the hero of my story rather than being the
one chasing what I'm feeling. I felt.
No, I need to sit and recognise what I'm feeling, name it, claim
it, reflect on it and move on. And what I found was once I got
that out of my head and got it out of my system, I felt so much
better. I felt so much better.
So if you're listening on this podcast and you're thinking
about ways to manage your mental health, manage yourself care,
manage your way through burnout, and there's something I need to
say about that, I'll try and come back to it shortly.
Getting it out of your head, out of your heart and onto paper or
out of your mouth is most helpful because if you listen to
my Trauma Informed series and if you are a loyal listener, you'll
know that I did three whole episodes on that right recently.
Like last month, you will know that trauma is not just in the
mind. Trauma is stored in the body.
Now don't let the blogs fool you.
You can't think you're way out of trauma.
It's stored in the body. So if you're going through a
difficult time, you need to remember it's stored in the
body, not just in the mind. So we are going through the Mood
Tracker journal as a way of working the mind and the body
and getting it out. Now there are different ways of
getting trauma out of the body. This is not that podcast, but I
just wanted to share with you the reason why I feel the Mood
Tracker Journal is right for you.
Lastly, I haven't got it with me, so sorry to my Instagramers
who are watching me right now. I haven't got the book with me
as we speak in this space, but I do have a copy of it.
It's downstairs. It's called The Social Work
Practice, The Social Work Practice and Well-being Planner,
The Social Work Practice and well-being Planner written by
Ali Edwards again on Amazon. This is the ultimate planner for
social workers, which I believe amalgamates your leadership
development, managing your work tasks and helping you to
prioritise your well-being all in one space.
Because often you either have a diary which is just managing
your work tasks, or you have a personal journal like the Mood
Tracker Journal, right? That's not for work, that's
separate. So often you have Diaries and
journals which separate work and well-being and your personal
life. But my social work practice and
well-being planner amalgamate it consolidate all these three
elements to reflect the holistic life of a social worker.
It's available on Amazon right now under the author name LA
Edwards and you have different pages which help you go through
your week. So it's worked out in weekly
maps where you have a well-being page.
You have a page called the life Admin page, which is those pages
where you may be on the phone or you may be going to the
photocopy and you remember you need to book your car service.
You remember that you need to take your child to the dentist,
you need to book the appointment for that and you have nowhere to
write it. You just scribble it somewhere
and hope that you remember. But the life admin page actually
is a space for you to write that information.
So what you're doing at work, what you're doing at work can
still carry on. And the thoughts that you're
having about home, about where you can fit in all these
different tasks to manage your life.
You've got a page where you can put that information and
organise it. At the end of this planner, and
I'm going to If you go straight to my website,
socialworkcoachinghub.com, you'll see a video of the the
book. But at the end of the planet you
have a resource section which helps you manage and navigate
your way through supervision. There's a section in there for
emotional literacy. There's a section in there for
managing your everyday life as a social worker.
And I would highly recommend this journal to help you walk
into your 2024 with power and being the hero of your story and
being able to navigate, navigate burnout.
You see when burnout comes, what's needed is a system,
what's needed is a resource, and what's needed is support.
Now you have to decide who and what is going to fit into those
systems. I have those three resources.
They're available on Amazon right now.
If you want them from me directly and want me to sign
them, DM me on Instagram at Dear Social Worker Podcast.
I'm on LinkedIn with my name Lisa Ann Edwards or you can
e-mail me info@socialworkcoachinghub.com.
I'll happily sign it and send it to you.
It's cheaper getting it from me, of course, because Amazon have
their own printing prices. But some people prefer Amazon,
so completely up to you. Either way.
You need system, you need support, and you need a strategy
to help you navigate burnout. And you'll need resources to
help you get there. Because what is missing in
burnout is how I view it. It's almost like you're in a
garden with absolutely no fences, no fences, and
everything is coming at you. And in a way, to protect
yourself, You're in fetal position and you're just holding
that position in an attempt for nothing else to get at you.
But it's already too late. You've seen it all.
You've it's coming towards you. You've experienced it.
That work trauma has already happened.
So in order to get through that, you need some form of holes to
calm down the things that are around you, and you need
systems, resources and support in order to do that.
Now for coaches that come to me, it's rare that I actually get a
coachee that is at the stage of burnout.
Usually they work through the burnout and then come then come
to me saying I've still got the remnants of burnout.
And what I'm saying to you is try your best not to wait until
you get to burnout. It's too late.
Your body's already shut down and pulling yourself out of
burnout. That's difficult to do alone.
And that is why I provide the service that I provide through
coaching. And for those who don't know
what coaching is, it's similar. I'm just going to say it's
similar to mentoring. We do one to one sessions and we
look at what is happening for you and help you find your own
solutions through strategic questions.
It's a supportive and safe place for you to be to work through a
difficult and challenging period of time.
Don't wait, we are ahead of 2024 right now.
We're ahead of it. We're not there yet.
That means you have got the power and you have got the
resources to get ahead of next year and how you are going to
keep some of your fences up. It is possible.
Make sure you're booking your holidays in advance, make sure
you're deciding what boundaries you want to set for yourself.
And lastly, I've got resources that can help you.
If you don't want any of those resources you like, forget that.
I just want to skip to the place where I want to have a one to
one session with you. Don't wait.
I'm obviously not accepting clients this side of the year
for programs. I am for one to one sessions for
like one or two one to one sessions, but not for my
coaching programs. But my coaching programs will
start next year. If you're interested or just
want to find out more, you can go to socialworkcoachinghub.com
or of course send me Adm. They're always open.
I'll always answer you. I'll always come back to you.
It may take me a little while now, but I'll always come back
to you. That's what my job is.
That is what I'm here to do. That is God's gift to me is to
help you shine your light. It's such a wonderful place to
be when you realise what your purpose is.
My job is to help you shine your light.
I always say there's two types of people in the world and this
is, this is a famous saying by the TD Jakes, the preacher.
There's people who are the light and there's people who hold the
light for you to shine. Oh, I love that.
I love it. My role is to hold the light for
you to shine. And the way in which I do that
is a through this podcast, B through the publications which
I've just spoken to you about, and C my coaching, the coaching
that Ioffer you. On that note, I'm going to have
to say goodbye because usually my podcast is out 15 minutes
ago. But as I said earlier, I wasn't
sure what I was going to talk about today.
And I thought, you know something?
We're approaching the end of the year.
Let's talk about burnout. Let's give some practical
skills. I'm on Instagram live as I'm
talking to you right now. For those that are listening in
Australia and listening in Germany and Ireland, I see you
all. God bless you have a blessed
week and I would love to know what do you want me to talk
about next year? What topics do you want me to
cover next year? Put them in the Spotify poll and
also send me a message? Send me an e-mail and just tell
me. I'd love to know because we're
starting 2024 strong. I cannot wait for 2024 to start.
There's so many new things that are going to be happening,
including events all throughout the year for the social work
coaching hub. I've been your host, Lisa Rant.
I've got to go because I've got to put my music to this and
still send this out on on the podcast platform.
There's people waiting for this right now.
So Instagram, it's lovely for you to have joined me this
morning. Thank you for joining this
podcast recording. Thank you for those that are
listening online. Remember, you are not alone.
I'm right here with you. Have a blessed week, and I will
be back next week, hopefully at 7:00 AM on the dot.
We'll resume regular programming, then have a blessed
week.