We have all been there – you’ve done your job (excellently, I might add) for a good amount of time now and you’ve reached a level of competency that you yourself might not have envisaged a while back. There’s just one problem – you’re now experiencing burnout and you feel you need a break. In this article, let’s find out how, as event professionals, we can avoid that unfortunate familiar crushing sense of suffocation.
Have A Break
Don’t discount this as mere claptrap because obvious as it might seem, it’s a technique employed by many successful professionals. Taking a sabbatical allows for creative rejuvenation, the imagining of new ideas, or simply to just recharge your batteries.
Take one of football’s top coaches Pep Guardiola. After four trophy-laden years with his home club FC Barcelona, he took one whole year off and lived in a completely foreign New York City to take many deep breaths, recalibrate and recuperate before making his next career move. The result: three more trophy-filled years with Bayern Munich. If it worked for him it just could work for you too.
It doesn’t have to be a full-time sabbatical of course, set aside time, even in busy days where events are around the corner, to just zone out or do something completely unrelated to the execution of your event. Use these spaces to keep your mind refreshed and not overburdened with the singularity of that one event.
Everyday You’re Shuffling
If you forgive me for talking about football too much, I have one more analogy to pull and that concerns rotation. We live in a world and culture that favors specialization and the assembling of a team that knows its assigned roles and performs them well. On the whole, of course, that’s a very successful formula.
But sooner or later repetition can become your enemy. What I would suggest is to shuffle the pack. Just as great football teams have huge squads that can be rotated around to keep players fresh, fit for purpose, or simply tactically flexible, you can mix your team up sometimes and have different people experience different aspects of event management. Don’t do this in a way that is detrimental, though, always mix experience with fresh input. That way, individuals won’t be bogged down by something they’ve down over and over again but can encounter the operations from a different perspective. As a team, this also leads to a more dynamic work ethic as each member finds out more about the holistic nature of your product and having them constantly interact with people who they otherwise have less professional opportunity to interact with can help morale and build teamwork across your company.
Escape the Template
We’ve talked so far about the individual aspect of avoiding burnout. We can also think about it with regards, of course, to the product itself. Quite simply, avoid a template. Look, I understand that after a while your company, as with so many successful others, would have seen a successful recipe evolve. By sticking to the instructions you have developed over time, your company is able to deliver a high-quality, guaranteed-to-succeed product that customers and clients love.
Well, rip the script up. You see, in this column we’ll discuss how to prevent burnout and veering off-script often is a good way to prevent that. Our bonus tip is that this would also prevent your products and events from standing still. And as you know, in this competitive global economy, standing still is going backwards.
Approach each new project afresh. Don’t constantly rely on what’s worked before when creating and executing a new event. Sure, there are things you can always fall back on, but in general it helps tremendously to find new ways to skin a cat. This keeps your staff on its toes, prevents them from slipping into a routine that induces burnout and finally helps your company attain an exciting public face.
Looking At The World From All Sides Now
This can be done by finding a new angle each time. Every time you’ve won a new tender or have a new project in your hands, spend a lot of time researching the client and also what they expect the event to be like. This amount of time spent on product development is directly proportional to the increasing number of ways you will find to tackle the project. This has the advantage of keeping you excited about your work as each new job gives way to new opportunities for experimentation and implementation, learning new things about the world and of life, and keeps you excited about your work.
That’s It
Being burnt out is a horrible feeling, inevitable as it may be at some point or another. With these simple ideas, you will hopefully be able to constantly reignite the fire of being an event professional. This can only lead to bigger, better and more fulfilling events for you and your clients to enjoy.
