5 Steps for REALTORS® to Avoid Burnout

Due to sometimes-demanding client relationships, Realtors are especially at risk of burnout, but there are ways to make work life less stressful.

By Josh Sherman | 5 minute read

Burnout is a serious occupational hazard for Realtors. 

In the first two years on the job, 80% of Realtors experience some form of burnout, which the World Health Organization defines as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

Burnout can stem from a variety of circumstances. According to the Harvard Business Review, these include unmanageable workloads, hostile or inequitable workplace environments, inadequate compensation, and more. “Overwork is the biggest cause of burnout,” says Jennifer Moss, author of The Burnout Epidemic and Unlocking Happiness at Work. She cites a WHO study that found overwork kills about 750,000 people per year. “Anything over 55 hours [of work per week] is considered detrimental to your health and that could lead to cardiac disease, obesity, diabetes, and early death,” she adds.

Burnout is a struggle that the author and public speaker knows all too well. The former co-founder of a tech startup, she experienced burnout first-hand, and, five years ago, began researching the phenomenon. “Burnout has catastrophic impacts,” she says of her findings.

How to Tell if You Are Suffering From Burnout — and What Realtors Can Do to Avoid It

Often mistaken for depression or anxiety, burnout is instead a potential cause of these mental-health conditions, says Moss. Because it can be difficult to identify — and is not currently considered a medical condition itself — burnout can go unnoticed and unchecked until it becomes a much larger issue.

However, there are a few telltale signs to watch out for. Extreme fatigue is one. “It’s not just tired — it’s depleted,” she explains. “Things feel like a slog.” This fatigue begins to negatively shape your outlook (sign number two) and, eventually, your performance on the job (sign number three). “You feel a sense of helplessness and hopelessness,” says Moss. 

Realtors in particular, are prone to burnout. “When you’re in a client-focused type of role, you’re sort of beholden to the client at all times, and it’s hard to set boundaries because there are expectations,” she says. So how can Realtors avoid burning out?

Moss suggests that employers are ultimately responsible for creating a positive workplace culture. “The root causes of burnout are systemic and institutional and societal, and all of the self-care is not necessarily going to fix burnout,” she adds.

 However, there are still steps you can take to mitigate the risks of burning out. Here are five that Moss recommends:

1. Cut your meetings shorter. 

“We want to really focus on time wealth, and that means incrementally adjusting things, taking 10 minutes off of every meeting,” she says. “You can’t solve overwork by listening to rain for 15 seconds or taking a bath, but you can increase your time wealth,” says adds. If you’re the one calling the shots, lead by example. You’ll benefit — and so will your employees, colleagues, or clients. “Whenever you finish a meeting early, let people go. Bring people into meetings when they need to be, and let them go when they don’t necessarily need to be there,” she says.

2. Don’t dine al desko. 

Dining al desko — that is, eating lunch at your desk — is an easy habit to fall into, but it’s one you should break, suggests Moss. “People are just sitting in the same place, or taking food on their car rides to places as they’re moving from client to client,” she says. Instead, you should stretch your legs and go out for lunch, all the better if you can do so with a colleague. Moss says there are multiple benefits to engaging with a colleague away from your desk for as little as 20 minutes per week: “[It] can improve your well-being, it reduces burnout, [and] creates better cohesion.”

3. Take a daily “frivolous 15.”

“I say to everyone they should give themselves a frivolous 15 every day, which is 15 minutes to just do nothing,” says Moss. This is a great time to clear your head and stop ruminating on work. While Moss says you could use the time to just kick back and relax, she provides an alternative that sounds more fun: “Go and do something that feels very indulgent for 15 minutes a day and just enjoy it, do it guilt free, and it’s hugely rejuvenating.”

4. Stop working “pajama hours.”

“We’ve seen this huge increase in pajama hours, where people are up at 10 O’clock at night in their bed, and they’re just wrapping up their [work] day in their pajamas,” says Moss. Doing so can increase your cortisol, the stress hormone, and these late-night tasks are overwhelmingly things that can wait for the next day. While most people have used an out-of-office email notification for vacations, Moss recommends taking it one step further: “You can put an automatic out-of-office on every single evening at a certain time so we know clients’ expectations are being managed.”

5. Set realistic targets.

Entrepreneurs, including Realtors, tend to shoot for the moon — but setting targets that are too high can do long-term harm. It’s discouraging when long- or short-term targets regularly go unmet. “When we feel like we have a million things to do, it’s insurmountable and it impedes our cognitive hope — and hope helps us to hit goals,” says Moss.

Each day, Moss recommends, pick a small number of tasks that are must-dos. You may have a lot more on your plate, but singling out these tasks can keep you from feeling overwhelmed and improve your outlook. “Congratulate yourself every time you make that number every day, and it builds that cognitive hope that actually helps us have higher sales, better revenue — it’s really good for entrepreneurs to be able to hit very specific goals and celebrate when they hit them.”