Even if you love your job, there are bad days at work – sometimes so bad that they cause a major emotional breakdown. Prof VGT shares words of wisdom to navigate out of precisely such situations.
First let’s understand what is an emotional breakdown. Its symptoms include lack of concentration at work, fatigue, a feeling of weakness, uncontrollable crying, confusion, disorientation, and a feeling of worthlessness. There may be loss of self-confidence and self-esteem and doubts over your abilities. Other symptoms are disturbed sleep patterns and a feeling of guilt, despair, and helplessness.
The reasons for having an emotional breakdown can be many – a clash between your personal and professional commitments or an increased workload. Or you may have team members who are unwilling to co-operate with you or managers who refuse listen to your problems.
You may be too preoccupied to notice the pressure mounting. You may not have anticipated certain situations, which then overpower leaving you with no control over things.
Today workplaces are downsizing rapidly and expect employees to be skilled in handling multiple tasks. This naturally increases the pressure on employees and makes the job stressful. The high amount of work handled everyday can lead to burnout. The lack of communication between the management and employees and even between team members can lead to misunderstandings and conflicts and eventually lead to a breakdown.
If you are aware of the triggering factors that cause a breakdown, you must also be aware of solutions to get over these situations so that you do not end up emotionally overwhelmed at your workplace:
- If a clash between your personal and professional commitments is causing stress, then talk the issue over with your boss to arrive at a solution that is mutually agreeable to you both.
- If you feel that workload you are handling is too much, let your boss know and find ways to delegate or share some of your work with colleagues. Learn to pass on work instead of getting stressed by doing too many things at the same time. Another way is to cross-train your subordinates so that they will be able to take on some of your workload.
- When you have too much work on your hand, you may want to work without a break to clear the backlog. This can be dangerous, and you can find yourself facing a burnout unless you take some breaks during your workday.
If you are a manager and are dealing with a staff member showing the symptoms of emotional breakdown, understand that the reasons for their behaviour could be anything from a feeling of burnout to a lack of confidence. Sometimes the reasons could be problems in personal life.
Once the reasons are known, then appropriate action needs to be taken to get the employee to perform as efficiently as before:
- If burnout is the problem, and you cannot possibly reduce the workload, give the employee a variation of tasks.
- Another option can be more leeway to do the job. If lack of confidence is a problem, then give them easier jobs first. This will give a sense of accomplishment and build their confidence.
- Encourage such employees to talk to you, be more approachable so that they can be frank on issues bothering them. This builds their trust and confidence in you.
A better option to dealing with such performance issues in employees would be to prevent them in the first place by keeping employees constantly motivated.
Communication is also important; discuss your problems with your boss or your colleagues. Do not resort to whining but have a simple non-controversial discussion with others. Do not get argumentative during the discussion. The best thing would be to think calmly about your problems and find a solution. Similarly be willing to listen to others when they are venting their problems. Do not suggest solutions but just be a sympathetic listener and encourage them on finding an answer to problems.
When you find yourself facing the same kind of problems at work, try to find a solution rather than allow them to recur. Also try and learn from your mistakes. Try and improve your way of working to become more efficient and handle problems effectively. The support of family and friends can help you get through tough situations or you can seek the help of a counselor.
When you feel that you are on the verge of a breakdown, try to get away from work for some time by taking a holiday or at least do something different from your routine work. Then, analyze your problems, find a solution and come back with renewed vigour.
