How to Deal with Change Fatigue

Continuous change over the past two years has workers feeling drained. Leaders are still using quick and nimble adaptation to navigate their teams through a persisting unpredictable market. But more companies are learning about change fatigue and the effect it has on productivity and innovation. Leaders are starting to address the downside of constant change at the organizational level. Some are bringing in better models for continuous learning and forming evolutionary corporate cultures. 

If you’re waiting for these things to happen in your organization, you as the employee can manage your experience with change fatigue. Here are four ways to reshape how change affects your performance and quality of life. 

#1. Set Clear Expectations with management.
 

In a high-pressure environment, managers are focused on the goals they have to meet. Workers take more responsibility to clue in the manager about realistic expectations. For workers, this is a great opportunity to become more assertive and take more agency over the way their workflow happens. Make sure you’re in agreement about the timeline for implementing another change.

Let your manager know how the added learning and implementation effort will impact you, and ask then and ask them what they can do about it. Change overwhelm can happen when burnt out, or near burnt out, employees assume that nothing can be done to mitigate their circumstances, so they don’t ask their managers for help. In reality, most managers would rather find a solution than lose an employee to change fatigue and burnout. 

Managers, just like your spouse or your friend, can’t read your mind. It’s up to you to advocate for yourself. It may be something as simple as sharing with your manager your preferred working style that allows you to work more comfortably and efficiently. Deadlines and milestones might need adjustment or something else can come off your plate to focus on the change initiative. You can use the next proposed change as an opportunity to learn how to speak up and make sure your manager’s expectations align with a healthy work capacity for you. 

#2. Manage your boundaries.

It’s possible you could be contributing to your feelings of change overload. If you make a habit of taking on more work than is healthy and maxing out your capacity, then you’re likely agreeing to proposed changes and effectively adding them to your plate. If this is you, it could help to talk with a professional coach who can help you get to the root of why you reach for more work even when doing so costs your health and well-being. If you can get a handle on why you feel you need to overproduce, whether it’s an issue with your self-worth or your fear of missing out, or something else — you’ll learn to override your unhealthy tendencies and set better boundaries for yourself. 

A lot of workers in today’s post-pandemic labor market are in another camp. They overrode their healthy instinct to hold their healthy boundaries to temporarily address extraordinary challenges posed by the global shutdown. Today, economic uncertainty continues along with supply chain issues and geopolitical conflicts. These all keep companies in the throws of change, and their people stuck in overdrive. Some workers feel like it’s unacceptable for them to set boundaries going forward in their current role. A coach could greatly benefit this pool of workers as well.

It will take intentional dialectical work to ratchet down the rapid response messaging in the brain. A coach can help workers to hold boundaries effectively in the middle of a high-pressure work environment, while still being a team player that makes a difference.

Here are some most popular skills that many TaskHuman’s users, including both leaders and employees are working together on:
– Workplace Boundaries: Establish clear, firm boundaries in your job. Learn how to communicate your needs around time, capacity, support, and more.
– Values Alignment: Ensure that your actions support the central values of your organization. Develop a thorough understanding of your team’s core principals and embed these ideas into your everyday tasks.
– Motivate Your Team: Learn the best techniques to inspire and energize your team. Build lasting motivation that drives greater performance at work.

Schedule a demo to learn more.

#3. Create a daily ritual to set yourself up for success. 

The frequent change can make workers feel like they’re always in a catching-up state with no level of predictability to their work. The right morning ritual can help to mitigate the stress caused to workers in these highly volatile environments. Studies show rituals have huge power to reduce stress levels in uncertain times. It’s not as important what the ritual is. Simply doing the same thing at the same time can improve your mental health because it introduces a constant to the sea of variables and gives your mind a hint of comforting predictability.

Some career coaches recommend starting the morning with a centering practice. Try this out:
– Close your eyes and listen to your breath
– Breathe for five minutes. During this short period of time, center your mind on what matters most to you and what you need for that day at work.
– Then, conger up positive feelings by thinking about five things you’re grateful for in that moment.

Other morning routines might include a workout, a journaling session, prayer, or a cup of coffee and avocado toast. Make it yours, and make it systematic to see results. 

#4. Manage your work-life balance.

With so much going on at work, it’s imperative that you give yourself the rest and recuperation needed to keep pressing on. Fatigue can often turn into an unhealthy cycle. You’re too tired to make good use of your downtime, so you stop working out, stop meeting with friends, and stop reading or painting. The thing is, removing those things actually results in more exhaustion.

Non-work activities help to clear the mind and energize workers. During habitual times of change, try as hard as you can to keep exercising and doing the things you love. Sleep also plays a critical factor in your ability to cope with the stress caused by constant change. So make sure you’re giving your body enough time to wind down before bed and adequate sleeping hours.

Our Solution

TaskHuman is no stranger to change fatigue. One of our most impactful coaching services deals with mitigating the effects of change overload. From personal and professional aspect in life, workers are finding great relief with help from the expert coaches on our coaching platform. TaskHuman aims to restore and envigorate employees one company at a time.  Learn more.