Always giving 100% is a recipe for burnout — how to find balance

Feeling a little burnout at work or even from your personal life? It happens even to the best of us eventually, but maybe there is a better way.

After we checked in with average New Yorkers, we sat down with Paradigm for Parity co-chair Sandra Quince for her personal experience with burnout, and more importantly, what she learned from it.

It turns out that giving 100% to everything on your to-do list might not be the best way to work after all. Find out why in our second episode of "Why Are We All So Tired?".

And don't forget to check out our premiere episode below:

Related: Secret to a more productive workday has nothing to do with work

TheStreet's 'Why Are We All So Tired?' is sponsored by 5-hour Energy's" Summer of No FOMO."

TRANSCRIPT:

Sandra Quince: I will tell you that years ago I really realized that I needed to do something different when it came to my own personal career and how I was working, I was stressed out. I felt I wasn't happy in the work that I was doing.

My health was suffering as a result of it. And not only that, I was a mom to a young child and a wife and, you know, all the other things that come with being a woman in the workplace today.

And I really had to think clearly around what would help me with balance. And I sort of struggled at times to understand balance, because when you think about balance, you think I have to give 50% here and 50% there, and that's balance. But balance, I realized that wasn't really balanced, that I really need to think about work life integration.

I was at a session one time where there were some senior leaders and those leaders, one was a woman and she talked about the fact that she put everything on her calendar. And when she said everything, she meant everything. And that really helped me to realize that I needed to think about work and life. And there are times that I give 110% at work, which means that there are some things at home that may not be getting done.

But then there are times that I have to give 150% home. And then there are things at work that have to wait or I have to prioritize in a very different way. Because you have so much going on personally as well as professionally, as we started thinking about having every week where one day a week there would be no calls, we would attend.

And I encouraged my team leave the day open so that you can focus on the things that you need to focus on, as well as being able to get work done. And so that was a huge relief to the team. The other thing that we did is we started taking our team meetings and every third meeting we would use it as a brainstorming session.

Leaders and managers have to understand that when you allow your team just to come together and just to learn from each other, pitch ideas, grow together and feel like they don't have to all own just their work, but they can help collectively support each other. That can also be a game changer and it also lessens the stress in the workplace.

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