"In order to burn out, a person needs to have been on fire at one time." Ayala Pines

What is burnout? And how do you know if you're suffering from it? Burnout is various physical, emotional and mental reactions caused by repeated stress.

Effects of Stress

The negative affects of stress have been documented by research studies. Prolonged, unrelenting stress can produce psychological and physiological consequences including:  Anxiety  Depression  Hypertension  Impaired Immune System Functioning and  Increased risk of coronary heart disease and cancer

Who is at Risk?

Therapists, lawyers, health care professionals and others in various service professions are frequently at risk for job burnout. Also at risk are executives, and those who work long hours or get little fulfillment from their work.

With a greater percentage of single parent families and longer workweeks, more people today suffer from burnout. Single working parents are often stressed from pressures of working equivalent of two full-time jobs. Corporate downsizing has placed increased responsibilities on those who survive, adding more pressure and longer hours. Small business owners are at risk since there are fewer people to do all work.

Certain personality characteristics often make some people more susceptible for burnout. These include perfectionism, idealism and workaholism. People with these characteristics sometimes have difficulty delegating and frequently feel that there is too much work for them to do. Service professionals can suffer from not setting limits with work hours and availability to clients, and from taking work home with them.

"The sun will set without thine assistance." Talmud

Symptoms of Burnout

How can you tell if your are suffering from burnout? If you are experiencing three or more of following, you probably are.

 Feeling overwhelmed  Having trouble making decisions  Short-tempered  Low energy-tired all time  Loss of enthusiasm for work  Increase in use of cigarettes, alcohol and caffeine  Moodiness and irritability  Insomnia  Depression

Tough times. It's enough to cause all of us to stand like proverbial "deer in headlights", mutter "the sky is falling", or else spring into action. The latter would be fine but it's often a knee-jerk response based on what we've done in past. Trouble is that present doesn't look like immediate past.

Whether you're leading a Fortune 100 company, a small department, or an enterprise of one, now is time to hone your resiliency skills. But first, let's update definition of "resilient". In 1824, Webster defined it as: "the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress."

That definition works for explaining metal but not for mettle of human system. Consider this: The compressive stress to an organizational body can be result of bloating mergers. Mergers now meet mania and layoffs distort workloads and customer care. If this is case, resilient organization must carefully think what size and shape will serve it for long haul. Recovering its size and shape might be worst thing!

At risk of insulting Webster, I define resiliency as " capacity to cultivate strengths to positively meet challenges of living; ability to bounce back from adversity while maintaining personal and corporate integrity."

Some key resilient strengths are found in using HOPE as an acronym:

Head talk and Heart walk. Optimism. Purpose, passion and persistence. Energy and Enjoyment.