When someone has a burnout and you are just an onlooker, it is often difficult to know how to help them. Often, we try to give tips or to talk to them, but nothing seems to help. In this article we give you some tips and tricks which can help you to support someone with burnout.
Helping loved ones: may I give advice?
Often it is so that people with burnout do not respond well to advice. You try to help them, but they feel like you want to control them. What you can do instead, is to give them ideas. This is something you can do with the help of 'I-messages', meaning you say everything as it were from your own perspective. So instead of saying "you should try this sometime", you can give advice in the shape of saying "I have tried this once, but it will probably not work for you". This way you create a dialogue, and the person will not feel like you are forcing them to do anything.
Helping loved ones: how do I keep a conversation with someone with burnout?
The danger which often lures people with burnout is that they get used to the negative spiral. It often is so that people with burnout focus on negative things, meaning that you will not get the impression that they want to be positive when you are making conversation with them. What you could do, instead of giving advice, is to find things which they do well already. For example, you can tell them how much of a go-getter they are. By naming their sources of strength, your conversational partner might also become more positive and start looking for their own sources of strength.
Helping loved ones: how does '15Minutes4Me.com' help against burnout?
'15Minutes4Me.com is an online self-help program which tries to make people become aware of their sources of strength. They receive daily films and questions, which stimulate new insights. This way they can find solutions which are tailored to their exact needs.
Helping loved ones: how do I test if someone has a burnout?
You can ask them to do the free online burnout test. This test namely shows the scores of burnout, stress, and depression right away!
