If you’ve been around these parts long enough, you already know that burnout is enemy #1.
HR Brew talked to Bethany Ainsley, an entrepreneur who is no stranger to the ill effects of having an overloaded plate, about her new book, Don’t Burn Out, Stand Out: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Success Without Sacrifice. In it, she explains how aligning her values with her work helped her go from burnt-out to prosperous. HR professionals can learn about the method that worked for her, and hopefully find some peace, too.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell me about the “Prosper” model.
Purpose is the first [component]. Look [at] what your passion is…to help you get clarity around what it is that you’re wanting to achieve within your life so that you’re not heading in a direction that’s actually going to make you unhappy.
The next is called goals: [a] steering mechanism. Once you’ve identified what it is you’re looking to achieve, how do you then be on-track and achieve a goal? Next one is opinion. And so this is about decision-making. So, obviously every decision that we make has a positive or negative consequence. We look [at] making value-based decisions and that can give us clarity and remove the stress or pressure around choosing the right path and making those decisions as well. How do you establish your own values in order to create those value-based decisions?
The next one is body and mind. Looking at things like sleep, physical activity, [getting] outdoors, mindfulness, meditation, gratitude—[all of which] can help reduce stress and also improve our mental and physical well-being. And the next one is called equilibrium. So, this is around trying to follow looking at things like work–life balance.
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The final chapter is reward—what will continue to motivate us?
What are the most beneficial things that HR can do to decrease burnout?
The more awareness that you can give an individual on the choices that they can make, the better because everybody’s unique. Everybody’s needs are different. If somebody doesn’t have the awareness of how to manage stress, for example, how are they ever going to be able to achieve that?
What surprised you while you were researching and writing this book?
It’s probably no surprise, but I think it’s just how little time we take—we have very busy lives—and how little time we take to stop and reflect on how we’re actually feeling and the impacts of what would you in our in our daily job, any obligations every that impacts on things like stress, and our health and well-being.
I think just [taking] five minutes or 10 minutes to stop, pause, and think about how are we feeling, how can we improve our well-being, and how can we implement techniques to do that? I don’t think we do that [enough].
What’s one thing you want readers to take away from this book?
Ideally, I’d like them to take away three key areas that they’d like to make changes in their daily routine. It doesn’t have to be significant changes—it could be small changes—that will make a sustainable impact to their health, well-being, and general performance.