Careers and Stress Counselling

What is Career related Stress?

Career related stress is stress that is the product of the workplace or is impacting your ability to function normally in the workplace. Each individual has their own perception of stress and what their stressors are. Therefore, there is a wide variety of reasons for stress that is formed by negative environments or incidents within the workforce. This can range from difficulties managing customers and workload, or feeling bullied by colleagues, to the more extreme, such as viewing the death of a colleague within the workplace. Outside factors can also impact your ability to function and can cause unnecessary stressors in the workplace, such as relationships and financial hardships.

Why does it exist and effect people this way?

Stress is an emotion that can influence every aspect of a person’s life, it is not secluded to those within a workplace environment. Stress is the strain felt on a person’s mental or emotional state when under the influence of high-pressure situations. It is impossible to avoid all stressful situations, especially in a workplace. Being in these high-pressure situations for long periods of time can begin to lower one’s resilience towards stress, causing each situation to become more stressful than the last. This is one of many reasons as to why people have different experiences when in the same environment.

The importance of taking action

When experiencing high levels of stress for extended periods of time, this can negatively impact on an individual’s ability to function inside and outside a workplace setting. With the workplace, an individual may begin to avoid doing certain tasks, or rushing through them despite poor quality. Employers may view this as negligence and serious consequences may follow, such as docking income, or even dismissal. This can be extremely detrimental to a person’s lively hood and mental health. More importantly, long periods of stress can begin to change how feel about your career, often beginning to resent it rather than enjoying it. This can lead to a lost sense of self, which can lead to further mental health problems. Before reaching this point, it is important to seek help to discuss possible ways to alleviate the stressors.

Our friendly staff are here to chat to you about our Careers and Stress Counselling service and how it may be of benefit to you.

How we can help

Okay counselling is dedicated to providing a unique and tailored Careers and Stress Counselling service to all clients by using a variety of social work theories to enforce practical methods. For optimal customisation, only theories that can be adapted for the needs of each individual client are utilized. More often than not, work related stress can begin to impair self-confidence, leaving an individual feeling low about their inability to handle expected tasks and situations. It is important to begin restoring an individual’s self-confidence as this will greatly assist in managing stressors inside, and outside, the workplace.

Okay counselling will implore empowerment and strength-based theories that focus on an individual’s strengths to build their other skills. Another major impact of work-related stress is burnout. Burnout refers to when an individual begins to feel depleted and exhausted from work that used to be enjoyable.

Before an individual is completely burnt out, there are signs that indicate possible future burn out, such as becoming cynical and irritated, lack of concentration and satisfaction, and trouble sleeping. Receiving counselling during this time will benefit your emotional and physical state in the long term.

Burnout results in further negative impacts on physical and mental health, and can also result in resentment towards that particular workplace. This is an overwhelming experience and can leave many feeling lost and hopeless, which can lead to negative coping mechanisms, such as excessive drinking.

Treatment options for burnout are available, however, in the early stages, clients will benefit most by resting with a few days leave from work. For working through and recovering from burnout, it is important for the individual to set boundaries and allow themselves some time and space to recover.

Recovery from burnout is not a fast process and requires slight changes in workplace practice and lifestyle to prevent future burnout. Okay counselling can assist in implementing these changes and creating a safe environment to ensure recovery.

Please contact our friendly staff to have a chat about how we can help.

Common Questions

My colleagues experience the same situations as me, why am I the only one experiencing stress?

Stress, and the situations that cause them, varies depending on the individual. What one person finds stressful, another may find calming. Stress is completely unique to you and your experiences, therefore others might not find similar situations as stressful and vice versa.

If I have burnout does that mean I need to change my career?

Not necessarily. Treating burnout does not require major changes in your personal and professional life, rather, slight changes around how to expend your time and energy. If you feel that even with treating burnout, you’re still not enjoying you career, maybe you can discuss this with an Okay counselling professional.

Does burnout mean I am weak-willed?

Absolutely not! You pushed yourself to work harder than you needed to, which resulted in burnout. Burnout is not easy to achieve, therefore, you must have worked within a stressful environment for an extended period to get to this point. This is not weak, rather it seems that you have prioritized work commitments over your health. Discussions with an Okay Counselling professional can benefit reprioritising your physical and mental health.