Skip to paragraph six if you don’t care about my life:
As I walk to baggage claim to retrieve my luggage, the music is playing through my AirPods, but I am not listening. I’m too focused on my upcoming work assignment and what challenges the work week will hold. After my luggage is retrieved, I make my way to Avis to retrieve my Intermediate-sized rental car that smells like a futile attempt to Febreze away the smell of Pall Mall’s, and, oh, look, a Cheeto! That reminds me that I need to get snacks for my room for the week, so before I check in, I stop at the local grocery store. My grocery list includes Cocoa Pebbles, Lactose-Free Milk, That’s It Fruit Bars, Chobani Peach Yogurt, Apple Sauce, Pineapples, Gold’s Peak Diet Tea, Protein Bars and anything that is gluten-free and microwaveable.
Finally, I arrive at some variation of a Holiday Inn, typically Express, and I get the spiel at the front desk. “Welcome to the Holiday Inn (Insert any city you can think of) and thank you for being an IHG Rewards Member. Yadda yadda yadda. Would you like a free drink at the bar or the points? I think to myself, my company will pay for the drinks and then say, I will take the points!
If you are reading this, and you work for my company, insert shrug emoji. If you’re reading this, and you don’t work for my company, then you know I don’t drink and haven’t for a long time so you know I’m trolling them. Thanks for reading my blog XPO’ers.
I get to my room, throw my bags to the side, take an obligatory IG Story picture, and FaceTime my girlfriend to let her know I made it in safely. After realizing that I haven’t eaten since I left Michigan, I find whatever restaurant is open and gluten-free. After returning to the hotel, I blog, read, and/or scroll relentlessly down Instagram.
Over the past few years I’ve traveled for work for various assignments, but since December it has become my assignment. Year to date, I have spent over 100 nights in hotel rooms in different cities across the United States. Before taking the role, I spoke to people who have traveled for their careers, and most of them had the same answer: They liked it but after a while, it got old and they burned out. So, this is my official declaration that I am not at that place, yet. However, there have been times when I felt like I almost was.
So, here are some tips to avoid burnout:
- When you get tired of doing whatever you are doing, remember why you decided to do it in the first place. Chances are that reason stills resonates. Write that reason down, meditate on it, spend some time with it. Re-center yourself on it. Your purpose is your purpose, and that probably will never change, but how you achieve it will.
- Imagine if you were tasked to figure out a new way to work every single day of your life. Wouldn’t that be exhausting? I encourage you, and your mind has already been helping you to find a routine. My steps are typically the same when I arrive in any city, as listed in the stuff you skipped above. Our minds are wired for repetition. Unconsciously, it’s how we make sense of a complicated world and filter out unneeded information. It’s not just psychological but physical, as well. Your mind will literally create new neurological connections for tasks you continuously repeat, muscle memory, which makes performing the objective more natural. Finding a routine is extremely important in avoiding burnout.
- The role has perks. One of those perks is having a daily allowance for food. I can literally eat anything I want as long as I don’t go over that allowance, which is generous. So, as you can imagine, I ate, a lot. As you can also imagine, I gained weight, a lot. But, honestly, the weight gain didn’t bother me. What really got to me was eating out every… single… night. That is what I hated most about the role. That was my major complaint! Ungrateful, right? Call it what you want, but that was wearing on me. So, I added the grocery store run to my routine. I just wanted the cereal I grew up with and that snacks that I’ve always liked. I wanted my old thing back. I’m not telling you to go back to your ex-girlfriend. I’m just saying incorporate the best parts of your past life into your new life. Trust me, it goes a long way. Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.
- You cannot pour from an empty cup so you must continuously fill. You are supposed to supply others with your excess, not with what you require. To do that you must connect with your source to ensure you have more than enough. My source is God. I read The Bible. I pray. I meditate. Do whatever you have to do to get in your zone and stay there. You will not maximize your effectiveness running on fumes.
- Exercise.
- Eat right.
- Turn off the TV and read some books.
I was running up against my 900-word limit. Sorry! 893!
Dropping gems as always