A quick note before I move into the post–if you find that your feelings run deeper than just your work, or that the challenges you face are pervasive or problematic across other areas of your life, I would encourage you to seek professional counseling or therapy with a licensed mental health professional beyond the recommendations for approaching your work outlined below.

We all likely know the feeling by now, even if we might still lack the specific terminology to explain it. We’re tired, despite sleeping relatively well. We’re feeling “off,” but we’re not sick. We’re feeling lonely or disconnected, though we still get along with our coworkers and students. We may forget project details or course deadlines, or just find it hard to be excited about starting a new endeavor or covering topics in the classroom that once interested us. Is this burnout, or something else?

As we’ve emerged from the pandemic, there have been countless articles published about students feeling disengaged, or about faculty and staff experiencing burnout, either from picking up additional responsibilities created by the return to campus or from the multitude of seemingly never-ending crises of our age. Most of these articles are good at identifying the overall feeling or broad problem, but aren’t always as clear about the minutiae of those feelings or their origins in our daily lives, and even worse at suggesting solutions for dealing with any of these.

For the past few years, I’ve meandered through cycles of feeling this way and most often attributed it to burnout, but that didn’t really describe what was happening, either. I enjoy my work and have been fairly good at spacing out the start of new projects to prevent the need to rush, so it didn’t really seem like burnout was the best description of what I was feeling. That’s why I was surprised (and a bit relieved) to hear a term that perfectly describes that in-between feeling I had been experiencing, which Adam Grant described as “languishing.”

While similar, there are some important distinctions between burnout, which is often referring to a professional setting, and languishing, which may affect wider aspects of our daily lives, but the biggest distinction is that burnout tends to happen from overexertion or spending too much of our limited time and energy on the work we do. However, even when we are doing the same things in our classes or work that we did pre-pandemic (or sometimes even a bit less), we still feel like we aren’t connecting with our work or with our students like we once did. We may feel that it is harder to find value in guiding students to understanding and excitement about a topic, which is an indicator that we might be languishing rather than feeling burnout.

Languishing can appear in different ways across both our professional and personal lives, but overall refers to a general malaise, a disconnection or lack of energy or motivation, a feeling that things have stagnated and we’ve either resigned ourselves to accept that feeling, or that we are disinterested in things that once motivated or interested us. (https://www.betterup.com/blog/what-is-languish-how-to-flourish)

As the start of the fall term approaches (or any term, for that matter), it is important to take a few concrete steps to evaluate the approach to your courses, both for your sake and that of your students, if you are to identify, confront, and move through these feelings of either burnout or languishing. With that in mind, there are 6 areas to process both in your personal and professional life.

1. Identify the source of your feelings.

What is causing you to feel overwhelmed, stressed, and unmotivated? Once you know the source of your challenges, you can start to address them.

• Identify parts of the course that you’re “burnt out” or “languishing” on–do you not like the way quizzes go? Do you not like a topic or module? Why? Are the papers or assessments not meeting outcomes? Too hard to grade/respond to/write feedback? Are students disengaged or don’t get the concept? Is there another way to cover the topics that would work better?

Once you have identified these aspects of the course, you can better decide on when and how to address them.

2. Set boundaries.

It’s important to set boundaries between your work life and your personal life, but may also be necessary to set boundaries between yourself and your course, or between topics or aspects of the course itself. This could mean not checking work emails or taking student appointments outside of office hours. It also means taking time for yourself each day to relax and recharge, away from work and the classroom.

• Set boundaries with the course–maybe you spend too much time managing the day-to-day aspects. Consider setting up timesavers, like intelligent agents or reusable news items, or time-released modules
• Take some time to evaluate your grading practices. Consider using rubrics, self-graded quizzes/exams, or breaking larger assignments into scaffolded steps that allow for quicker feedback throughout.
• Decide on manageable, realistic changes–not everything needs to be addressed right away. Don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of good.

3. Take breaks.

It’s important to take breaks throughout the day/week/quarter, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Get up and move around, or step outside for some fresh air, away from your course(s).

• Let students know when you’re “unavailable” for contact hours to ensure the course doesn’t become a burden on you or students. Having these healthy, communicated boundaries and breaks also models for students that they should take time to recharge.
• Give students breaks from parts of the course–maybe quizzes are every other week, or assignment/discussion types alternate. If they are struggling at a certain point in the quarter, drop an assignment or a grade to alleviate that pressure all around. Create a system to automatically drop the lowest grade on an assignment, or allow students to skip one discussion post per quarter.
• Give yourself breaks from parts of the course. Use tools like automatic grading in quizzes or randomized quiz banks. Revisit the assignment descriptions, length, and frequency to ensure you are using assessment to meet specific outcomes or extend student contact with materials versus simply collecting items to grade. Consider recording lectures where the material doesn’t change frequently to spend your time working with students on assignments or discussing the materials more organically.

4. Delegate tasks.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t be afraid to delegate tasks to others. This will free up your time so you can focus on the most important things. This can also work for your students by having them work in groups, but be sure that the assignments or tasks are well-oriented towards group work to avoid exacerbating the challenges with the course.

• Find existing resources created by other instructors or industry professionals to use in lectures or discussions
• Ask other instructors to share their materials or experiences with a specific course or subject and get their permission to use or modify that material in your own course
• Work with your Instructional Designer for suggestions on updating the course materials or addressing the “sources of burnout/languishing” items from step 1.
• Ask students to work with the Writing Center or other tutoring offices for early drafts to alleviate feedback loops with you and to ensure they are receiving multiple sources of feedback

5. Self Care: Make time for regular sleep schedules and exercise.

Taking care of your physical and mental health will help you recover from burnout or languishing faster, which in turn will benefit your students by having your full attention and efforts in the classroom. Taking care of yourself in the classroom may mean reframing the class objectives to emphasize important concepts or spending extra time on areas with the highest impact for you and your students.

• Return to the parts of your course/field that you enjoy to bring that passion back to your class. Spend extra time on an article or subject you enjoy, or share stories of your experiences as a student or young professional that may help students situate concepts better.
• Help students understand the course in the context of the larger field or the interrelated workings of the world–situate things in meaningful ways so students see the “point” of this specific class or topic better, which overall will help you see and feel the impact your work has on student outcomes.
• Focus on incorporating aspects of teaching or student interaction that enrich you–do the things you like to do as a teacher or that come naturally to you. When students see your passion and expertise clearly, they are far more likely to engage and succeed.

6. Seek professional help.

If you’re struggling to recover from burnout on your own, don’t hesitate to seek professional help (both within your role as an instructor and from a licensed mental health specialist). Just as a therapist can help you understand the root of your emotions and develop strategies for coping with them, an instructional designer can help identify sticking points in your course and work around them or through them.

• Your Instructional Designer can help review course materials, course and module objectives, site layout, assignment pacing and structure, or even review online teaching evaluations from prior quarters to help identify strategies for reinvigorating the course.
• Consider working with one or more of our specialist teams to update media or assignment types with support from the Center for Teaching and Learning staff: Academic Media Production (AMP) or DePaul Instructional Games and Innovation lab (DIGI).

Recovering from professional burnout or general feelings of languishing takes time and effort, but it’s worth it. Here are some additional tips that may be helpful for recovering from professional burnout in higher education:

Connect with others.

Talk to friends, family, or colleagues about what you’re going through. Talking to others can help you feel less alone and can provide you with support.

• Connect with peers: attend campus events, conferences, or workshops, or simply get coffee with a colleague or even former students.
• Spend time talking with your students before, during, or after class–often we focus on getting in, teaching the lesson for the day, and moving on, but taking time to relate to our students and build rapport can often go a long way compared to trying to make the class perfect.
• Find a mentor: a mentor can provide you with guidance and support as you recover from burnout or approach revising your courses. They can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, and they can offer advice on how to manage your workload and stress levels.
• For new or adjunct faculty, meet with an experienced faculty member to talk about their experiences over the years.

Join a support group.

There are many support groups available for people who are struggling with burnout. These groups can provide you with a safe space to share your experiences and to learn from others who are going through the same thing.

• Check with the Writing Center to see if there’s a faculty writing group, or do a consultation regarding your assignment prompts and how students might view them.
• Attend workshops on campus or through a professional organization.
• Visit your Instructional Designer to talk about your experiences with your classes before, during, and after the pandemic to see what may have changed during that time or how your preferences or experiences may have changed.

Take time for yourself.

It’s important to make time for activities that you enjoy and that help you relax. This could include reading, spending time in nature, or doing something creative that isn’t tied to a deadline.

As important as it is to identify languishing as we approach the start of the new quarter, it is far more important to integrate these practices and awareness of our mental state into our everyday lives. The world we knew pre-pandemic is a quaint memory, and we are unlikely to fully go back–think of our current situation as “the new normal” and plan accordingly. However, it is just as important to remember that languishing will affect both our professional and personal lives, and we need to be careful of striking a balance. That is, not a balance that equally foots work and personal responsibilities, but rather a balance based on our overall responsibilities, relationships and personal values. Finally, understand and remember that it is OK to talk about these feelings of languishing and ask for help–both from the Center for Teaching and Learning and other support offices across DePaul (or at your own universities, for our wider partners and audience members), but to seek professional counseling with a licensed professional if these feelings become more common or harder to deal with.