The degree to which we trust ourselves is an important part of our capacity to resist burnout. When combined with our general outlook about whether the universe is a fundamentally helpful or destructive force, we have an equation that drives our ability to resist burnout.
Burnout
Burnout is characterized by exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. It’s the loss of hope that our situation will get better. It’s the belief that nothing can be done, so we descend into cynicism about the situation.
Our hope is built on the premise that either something outside of us will make things better or we will. There’s little that we can do to change our fundamental outlook about the universe, but it’s possible to change our belief in ourselves.
Fundamental Outlook
We’ve heard about optimists and pessimists and the philosophical question of the half full or half empty glass. Similarly, some of us are wired – through our genetics and our experiences – to believe that the world is a fundamentally helpful place. We believe that things will get better by the sheer fact that the universe will deliver us a solution at some point.
Conversely, some of us are wired to believe that the world is a harmful place bent on our misery and destruction. For those of us who fit in this category, we not only expect that our situation won’t get better, we expect it will get worse – unless we step in to change the outcome.
Self-Trust
Self-trust is our belief in ourselves. It’s our belief that we’ll keep our commitments to ourselves, and that we’ve got the personal agency we need to overcome the challenges that are placed in our way. This trust and determination can carry us through difficult times and even setbacks.
Self-trust allows people who believe the world is harmful to also believe things can get better. The good news is that we can improve our self-trust with two simple steps.
Keeping Our Commitments – To Ourselves
We’re all guilty of committing to one thing and doing another. There’s a subset of us that makes New Year’s Resolutions. Of those who do, the statistics aren’t good about our ability to keep our resolution. Whether the commitment was to exercise, eat better, or do more philanthropy, sometimes we just don’t meet our commitments. However, the question is whether that’s the norm or whether that’s a rare exception.
The more we are conscious about meeting our commitments to ourselves, the more we can believe in our ability to do what we set out to do. Rather than dwelling on the times we miss our commitments to ourselves, we can focus on the times when we do. It’s too easy to dismiss the hard work needed to meet a goal. Once we’ve honored a commitment we made to ourselves, we discount it. If we want to build self-trust, we should keep a list of these successful commitments. This way, we can realize that, most of the time when we make a commitment to ourselves, we meet it.
Personal Power
The truth is we don’t have control of the outcomes. We may have a large degree of influence in some situations and less influence in others, but we don’t control the outcomes. To increase our self-trust, we first realize that we don’t have control – but, with enough influence and time, anything is possible. Consider that the Grand Canyon was carved by a river. It didn’t dig it in a day, and it didn’t have ultimate influence, but the Grand Canyon was carved over time nonetheless.
We can enhance self-trust in our abilities by focusing on what we have gotten accomplished, even when we didn’t accomplish our end goal.
If you want to stop the slide into burnout, one good approach is to learn how to trust yourself more. You can do that by keeping your commitments to yourself and focusing on the things that you have accomplished.
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