Avoiding Burnout as a Restaurant Manager - The Three Batteries - Emotional

Let’s review what we have discussed so far about the three batteries. Each of us has three different types of batteries that we use to get us through our day, our body battery, our mental battery, and our emotional battery. At night, our body battery is replenished through sleep, and our mental battery is recharged as well, so long as we get an adequate quality sleep. We can condition our bodies to not only recover from the day easier but improve our capacity for great work through physical exercise and avoiding technology. Now’s the time to talk about the third battery, the emotional battery.

Everyone’s emotional battery is different. Some people seem to never have their emotional battery depleted at all. Some seem to have their battery completely run out after 10 minutes of being awake. This battery is going to be very specific to you, and you will have to find your own ways to recharge and condition these, but I will try to point you in the right direction so you can discover these.

I personally do not have a very strong emotional battery. I usually spend more time on my emotional battery both in recovery and conditioning more than the other two batteries. When I lose my body battery and my mind battery, I cannot rely on my emotional battery to keep me going. When I get physically and mentally tired, I get angry, depressed, impatient, and snappy. In a job where we are required to always be the leader in stressful situations, it’s imperative that I understand my emotions and how to manage them. As I have conditioned my emotional battery, I know that I have been better at relying on it, and it has only made my job better.

So here’s how I do it. When I get tired, I must rely on inspiration and motivation from external sources. I may have to listen to a song that pumps me up or watch scenes from an inspiring movie. A scene that always seems to get me through is the death crawl scene from Facing the Giants. These play on my emotions and put me in a position where when my body and mind are tired, my heart can bring out what I need to perform.

When we have emotional stressors in our personal life or even at work, our hearts get tired. If you have a breakup or a death in the family, you must find ways to recover from the emotional blow. Don’t be afraid to cry if you need to. Nowadays, I think all of us have a story of having cried at work. Crying seems to release a lot of the emotional weight and let us get through, at least for the rest of the day. At the end of the day, listening to a stand-up comedy routine or watching a silly movie are great ways to bring you back to a place of rest in your heart.

If you are an extrovert, try to find a way to spend time with your friends. This may be all you need to bring yourself back to baseline. Go spend a night on the town and enjoy your time. Obviously, if you’re and introvert, you need to spend time alone. Maybe you just need to cuddle up with a book or your cat or dog. If you like your family, spend time with them. If you don’t like your family, don’t.

Once I get myself back to baseline for my emotional battery, it’s time to condition that battery. Usually that looks like confronting difficult problems we’ve been putting off while we are in a good headspace. If we are in a good headspace while we tackle emotional deficits, we become stronger emotionally, which is something we all could do a better job at.

So how do I condition my emotional battery? Prayer, meditation, and journaling. Obviously, you’ll need to pick and choose what you need to do for yourself. If you don’t believe in God, prayer won’t help you very much. Meditation has been a lifesaver to me, but I’m not going to sit here and pretend like it’s the be-all-end-all for everyone else. However, I do believe that each and every one of us can benefit from journaling.

Journaling is a great tool because it slows down and organizes our thoughts. Be sure to title your journal entries to try to focus on the topic at hand. Think of a trouble you have and spend about 20 to 30 minutes writing on the subject. Do it un-distracted. Don’t have any videos playing in the background or be interrupted by your phone. Just relax and write out the situation and how you feel about it. It may be a great experience the first time, but don’t expect every time to bring a great result. It’s just like therapy – sometimes we feel good leaving therapy and sometimes we feel much more shaken up. But that’s the point of the process, you need to shake up your emotions so you can inspect them and work on them. If you are consistent in your journaling and turn it into a habit, your brain will soon learn how to do it naturally in the heat of the stressful moments at work. Soon you will have much more organized thoughts naturally, and organized mind leads to an organized life. An organized life is a very happy and successful life.  

No matter what emotional conditioning practice you adopt, it’s important to be consistent with it. The consistency of the practice is where the hard work really is. As quoted from my favorite TV show, Bojack Horseman, “It gets easier but you gotta do it every day. That’s the hard part.” Developing the habit of taking care of ourselves in the same way we take care of those we love or in the same we take care of our job is the ultimate way we can find success. This job is difficult, and it will test your heart. Therefore, be sure to love and care for yourself too.