Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Alison Coughlan, Grammar Factory Publishing, $29.95.
Workplace mental health is one of the most talked-about issues these days. Demands of work is literally destroying lives, with burnout, mental stress and fatigue being reported at alarming rates. Stigma is still prevalent despite shifts in our national perspectives and conversations on mental health.
So, how does one avoid this type of stress and stay on top of their game? It starts with creating insight, shifting your mindset and building your energy. You need to focus on your energy levels and sense of wellbeing and make some choices that are positive and healthful for you.
Speaker, author, mentor and facilitator, Alison’s practice is grounded in a life-long desire to make a difference and is informed by more than 25 years’ experience in the health and social sectors. Her work also draws on her personal experiences of reaching, sustaining and recovering from burnout, after which she charted a new, more fulfilling and sustainable path for her work and her life.
Coughlan makes a commitment to show the way forward. The scene is set in Part 1 through exploring the insidious and devastating problem of burnout in the health and social sector workforce. Alison looks at its prevalence, causes and consequences, and identifies some of the masks that we might wear when we live and work with the pall of burnout hanging over us in our daily lives.
Part 2 gets super practical as Alison takes you, step by gentle step, through a process of creating a rock-solid plan that gets you from where you are now to where you need and deserve to be.
In Part 3, you learn to “commit to you and to plan for your success”. It’s a chance to regain your sense of self and to reimagine your hopes and dreams. You should do more than survive, but thrive and lead a life that you will reflect back on one day without regret.
Above all, we must reject the notion that burnout is inevitable and adopt new routine systems, processes and practices in our workplaces and our lives that proactively prevent our decline through a continuous focus on building and maintaining our resilience.
