The Impact of Burnout On Your Finances
If you are anything like me burnout has probably become a very familiar feeling. Burnout happens to me when I get overwhelmed with my job and life and find it hard to say no to things that I probably should be saying no to. I hate to disappoint others so I will often choose to push myself past my limits before I ever turn someone down on anything. When I continually do this, I often learn the hard way that I have limitations and I cannot handle everything.
What Are The Impacts Of Burnout On My Life?
My Health
One of the biggest things that I have noticed is impacted by burnout in my life is my health. Lack of exercise, not eating healthy, balanced meals, and not sleeping well all contribute to a decline in my overall health when I am experiencing burnout. When I am stressed and overwhelmed, I easily overlook these important aspects of taking care of my health and begin to suffer the consequences.
My relationship with God
Spending time alone in prayer and reading the word of God is extremely important and is often overlooked in our lives. Although I recognize this is one thing that we should never overlook sadly it is often one of the easiest things for burnout to steal from us. As Christians, we know that we should always prioritize our time spent with God above everything else in our lives. Nothing is more important than our relationship with God and our relationship with Him has a great impact on every aspect of life.
My family
Although I realize that family comes first before my job I somehow always fail at prioritizing family. When I am feeling stressed and impacted by burnout I find myself just trying to get by in life. This often means doing what is necessary to get by and often this impacts the quality time spent with those I love. My daughter is four years old and I do not want to miss important things as she is growing up so being aware of this is critically important to me. She must remain a top priority in my life and I need to make sure that she knows that she is a priority always.
My finances
When burnout is a reality in my life I find that my finances are impacted by many poor financial decisions. I will go deeper in depth about the impact on my finances in this post today but the main reason is the lack of time I have leads me to many bad choices with my money. I pay less attention to things that truly matter and my quick decisions often out of desperation or exhaustion can be costly.
What Are Some Common Impacts of Burnout On Our Finances?
Overdraft fees and late charges for missed payments. This often happens because we do not take the necessary time to calculate and manage our spending or forget to pay our bills on time.
Eating out or overspending on convenience food and beverage items. This is one of our biggest costs when we are under increased stress because we find it nearly impossible to eat quickly or to make things at home
Health problems leading to financial burden as a result of increased stress, anxiety, lack of sleep, lack of exercise & eating poorly
How has burnout negatively impacted my financial goals?
Over the years I have experienced periods of burnout that have led to many poor choices in my life. Burnout usually happened when I was not being careful about managing my time or was feeling overwhelmed financially. One of the big reasons I would become overwhelmed would be that I found it so tough to say no. I always found that I wanted to be a part of things that were going on and could never say no to picking up time at work or hanging out with friends. After repeatedly struggling to say no to others or to find time for myself eventually it would start to show. I found that paycheck to paycheck cycle became so common in these times often leading to overdrafts or missed bills because I simply didn’t stop to review what was going out and coming in financially. My food choices are always more costly during these periods of my life. During these times I would find myself way overspending on convenience foods, lunches or dinners out and wasting food purchased at home. After spending just a short time in one of these seasons I find myself in a cycle of paycheck to paycheck living which soon leads to debt & lack. To avoid living in this type of cycle repeatedly there are a few important things to remember.
Important reminders to protect your finances and prevent burnout
Remember what is most important in your life and learn to say no. Sometimes you have to master the art of saying no and if people get disappointed in your choices you have to be alright with it. Everyone does not deserve your time and there are some things that are more important than anything else. Those things are spending some time alone with God each day, time with your spouse or children, getting rest, taking care of your health and having some alone time for yourself. Without these things life is very different and overlooking these relationships and areas of importance can have devastating consequences.
Always take a bit of time each week to balance your checking account/budget so you can get a good picture of where you are financially.
Exercise is so important to your health. You need to take sometime for yourself daily to walk, run, get active or go to a gym.
Make sure that you are eating healthy and eating more at home. If you find yourself eating out on the go too often this can be both devastating to your health & wallet. Make some changes as soon as possible to how you are eating so that you can both spend less of your money of food and more time preparing healthy meals at home.
