Burnout, Boundaries and Communication Styles.

Ready to learn your communication style, set your boundaries, and reduce your risk of burnout?🙌

Communicating effectively isn't always easy and can even be quite stressful for many of us. It is a skill that needs to be developed and worked on. Happio is here to help you advance your communication skills to the next level and reap the benefits!👏

👉 What are communication styles?👄 Communication has been defined as the process by which individuals exchange information through a common system of signs, symbols, or behaviour (“Communication,” 2013). Each of us has our own communication style and this can change depending on the situation. Our communication style has been identified to be influenced by earlier period experiences (Wood, 1976). Today we’re going to be exploring three of the main communication styles, these include passive, aggressive, and assertive communication. Having an assertive communication style can help you to reduce your risk of burnout as you are able to effectively communicate your needs and boundaries, and then stick to them✅.

Let’s take a look…

❌ Passive communication - This involves you prioritising the needs, feelings, and desires of the other person you are communicating with, even at the expense of yourself. You do not express your own needs or stand up for these needs. This can result in you being taken advantage of, and the other person may not even be aware they are taking advantage as you have not effectively communicated your needs.

❌ Aggressive Communication - This is where you only focus the conversation on your own needs, wants and feelings. You ignore the needs, feelings, and wants of others. This can come across as bullying in terms of being disrespectful to others, being unwilling to compromise, frequently interrupting, speaking in an overbearing tone, and becoming easily frustrated.

✅ Assertive Communication - This communication style places importance on both your needs and the other person involved in the situation's needs. You stand up for your own needs, desires, and feelings but you also listen and respect the needs of the other person. You listen without interrupting, express your needs clearly, and are willing to compromise.

👉Communication Style Examples I have included an example of how these different communication styles may look during some workplace interactions that can lead to burnout:

👆 Scenario 1 - Your boss asks you to do something outside of your job role. This is a big inconvenience for you. ❌ Passive - “Um, yeah, I can do that. Is there anything else you need me to do?”. ❌ Aggressive - “Absolutely not, no way! That’s not my job, why would I do that?”. ✅ Assertive - “I am unable to do that as I have my other tasks to complete and I don’t want the quality of my work to suffer because I am spread too thin”.

👆Scenario 2 - Your boss has asked you to stay late, but tonight you have plans with your partner. ❌ Passive - “Yes I can stay late, I’ll change my plans”. ❌ Aggressive - “Are you crazy? I don’t want to, I have more important plans”. ✅ Assertive - “Unfortunately, I have important plans this evening that I am unable to change”.

👉 Boundaries and Communication. Adjusting your communication style can help you to effectively communicate your needs, feelings, values, and wants. You will be able to express your boundaries to others and be able to stick with them. If you would like more information on setting boundaries then please take a look at the previous post titled “Learn to say NO to say YES to you”. If you are able to communicate your boundaries then you will be able to live your life in accordance with your values. Communicating assertively can help you to put your mental well-being first and help you to reduce the risks of becoming burnout or to help you with your burnout recovery. If you would like more information on burnout please take a look at our previous posts titled “Occupational burnout” and “The Twelve Stages of Burnout”.

👉 Why is it important to know your communication style?🧐 🔷It can help you to increase your self-awareness. 🔷It allows you to set your boundaries effectively. 🔷It can encourage you to identify your own emotions during the communication allowing you to recognise your needs at the moment (e.g., I’m communicating aggressively because my feelings are hurt so I need to self-soothe and revisit this interaction). 🔷It helps you to communicate what you want to say more effectively to the other person. 🔷It can help you to better handle disagreements which can often occur due to miscommunications. 🔷Being aware of your communication will provide you with the best chance of success in production and life (Sherman, 1999). 🔷It allows you to create good and lasting relationships with others (Bocar, 2017).

👉Effective communication checklist✍️ To help you improve your interactions, I have included a checklist. You can think about the items on this checklist the next time you are communicating and identify what you are doing well and any areas you can improve upon. In your interaction did you..

✍️ Clearly express your boundaries, needs, and values? ✍️Use appropriate language for your audience? ✍️Listen actively and concentrate on what is being said? ✍️Ask open questions to gain information? ✍️Demonstrate you are listening? ✍️Use appropriate body language? ✍️Respond appropriately to other people’s body language? ✍️Check you have understood and have been understood? ✍️Seek clarification where necessary? ✍️Correct misunderstandings? ✍️Reflect on your performance? (Ali, 2017)

If you are experiencing difficulty with your communication style and would like to learn how to communicate more effectively or assertively or, are at risk of or experiencing burnout then please take a look at our new 6-week online “Overcome Burnout” programme!👏

🤗Remember you are not alone, Happio is here to help🤗