5 Truths About Burnout All Chefs Should know

Work-life balance and mental health are the buzzwords of our era. Usually, they're thrown around by people who work 40-hour weeks from home in their pajamas. You, however, are a chef and you can't expedite service on Zoom or email a steak to a guest. You have to be in the kitchen, where no one is coming to save you from excessive hours. It’s on you to take control and make a change for yourself.

Realistically, no chef is going to work a standard 40-hour week. But that doesn’t automatically imply you’re destined to work 16-hour days, every day, for the rest of your life. The goal is to work strategically within the time frame you schedule and hit your targets, not to slave away by default or guilt. Time spent and efficiency are not always the same.

1) Working harder doesn’t always work

When you’re responsible for everything the light touches, it can be ultra stressful, like a pressure you can’t shake off. A common mistake chefs make it to use their time and bodies as collateral, i.e., working harder, for longer.

The problem is that more time and harder work is not always the solution. Often there’s an unseen solution, operational adjustment, delegation issue, or something else, that can change the entire workflow of the kitchen like a ripple effect, making everything easier.

But solutions can feel obscure when you’re in the weeds and you habitually just work harder, for longer. This becomes a negative cycle, because when you’re burning yourself out, it’s with the delusion that you’ll stop when the results change. But they usually don’t, so you don’t.

Another issue popped up? You’re coming in early. Issue with your team? You just stay until close, just in case. How about food cost? Is it screwed up? Well, just work your days off.

The reason the “add more time and work” method doesn’t work is that it’s non-specific. General doesn’t fix anything. Specific action applied to specific issues fixes the problem. You need to get yourself into a position to see the bigger picture more consistently, and out of the grind that keeps you running on the treadmill.

2) Anticipation is a Superpower

Simply put, the business isn’t going to stop to give you time to think, and the pressure will never go away. So, you have to organize it before comes, and prioritize it, or else you will drown in it. The ability to anticipate is the sixth sense every great chef has.

Everything that happens should be written down and scheduled, planned and communicated. If not, expect turbulence. As a chef, you don’t have time to wait and see what happens down the road, you need to project it and plan for it.

Ten thousand different things are happening all at once at any given time and the way you organize these details, in advance, is going to determine how well you handle them. We’ve already stated that you cannot just throw your body at problems like a meat sack, so the logical answer is to get ahead is by looking ahead and planning for the right outcome.

You can only control what you can organize. Everything outside of that scope is a curveball. The more you can see, the more you can manage. Otherwise, you’re stepping onto the field, and you’ve got no game plan, and you don’t know what you’re up against.

3) Delegate or Die

If nobody is there to help you, then you might be in the wrong place. But if you’re surrounded by people and you’re a leader, you need to understand that it’s your responsibility to organize the workflow and train others to manage their own responsibilities. If you’re too friendly to delegate, nobody is swooping in to save you. Do it for yourself.

Clear communication of objectives, tasks, priorities, values, and everything else is the most important part of leadership. The more information your team has, the better they perform.

When you’re delegating, you’re also teaching and providing one-on-one time with people that lifts them up, allowing them to increase their value for themselves, which in turn creates more value for you. Delegating is not just barking orders, its teaching, developing and training.

You are physically incapable of doing all the work, and if you can’t walk away, there’s a problem. You’re not being a tyrant because you’re giving commands in a kitchen. You’re doing your job as a chef. Don’t be timid. Don’t feel bad about it. Just be firm, effective and respectful.

4) Everyone is replaceable.

This isn’t to disrespect you, but to make you value yourself more than your boss does. If you’re a chef and you work for somebody else, what do you think will happen if you completely burn yourself out? If you grind your mind and body down so far you can’t function anymore? The answer is uncomfortable but true: They're going to find someone else to do your job. It happens all the time.

That’s why using your time and body as collateral to achieve an endless stream of operational targets is a losing strategy that nobody will stop you from doing. They’ll see how hard you work, and then they go on about their day, knowing that you’ll handle whatever is needed. No sweat. You’ve got it.

The problem with this strategy is that your time is not replaceable and your body is not a machine. You get tired, and you need to recover. Throwing yourself at every task and problem every day is the fastest way to burn yourself out for little return. And you do have to ask yourself; is it worth it if you can just be replaced?  No. So, decide to take care of yourself first

5) Your boss doesn’t own you

Owners and bosses deserve respect because ultimately, they bear the burden of the business. In most cases, they spent many years to earn a position, or took the risks involved that most people would not take to achieve a dream. By and large, what they want and what they expect within the walls of the business or pertaining to their brand, is the law. What’s more, they have every right and responsibility to have expectations of their leaders and team members.

However, this authority often permeates far beyond the basic operational needs of the business and creates a culture where chefs think they need to completely submit to the person who employs them in unhealthy ways. This creates a paradigm where you feel the need to ask for everything, and they effectively control your life.

Does your boss require that you’re in the restaurant every second of every day? Do they show you respect? Do they respect your time off? Do they have realistic expectations for progress and performance? Are they willing to work with you because they value you and the working relationship? Are there boundaries at all?

Often, chefs work excessive hours and completely forget their own families, needs, health and boundaries because they’re afraid of their boss’s reaction if they don’t slave away. They’re afraid of “not being there” or God forbid, not being in superhero mode. Just because someone writes your paycheck doesn’t mean they own you.

You don’t need to ask permission to take better care of yourself. Keep it simple, if you manage the standards properly, control your numbers, and hit all your targets with minimal issue, then do what you need to do for your health. Just maintain professionalism.

Choose to Change Course

Most of the time, chefs burn themselves out for controllable and avoidable reasons. They could stop, but often they’re over committed and blinded to the solutions. Part of the narrative that chefs should avoid going forward is that they deserve that kind of life.

If leading a kitchen were easy, everyone would do it. But it’s not easy and everyone can’t do it. If you’re a chef leading a kitchen, make yourself a priority along the way. You deserve a life better than what the status quo dictates, and what the food media depicts.

There’s no point in running a great restaurant, or having a great service, if you just feel like shit afterwards. There are too many great things about hospitality to operate in a way that breaks you down.

Decide that you’re going to control what you can and be the best you can be. Don’t accept anything less for yourself and understand that you don’t have to sacrifice your health to succeed.

P.S. - Good health is a result

It’s safe to say that good health is the opposite of burnout, right? So, just like nobody is coming to save you from working hour eighteen for the seventh day in a row, no one is going to tell you to eat properly, sleep for 7-8 hours per night, and stop the bad habits.

Good health is a result, which means that you pay it forward. It’s not a light switch you can flip on and off, like hitting pause so you can still do unhealthy things.

Your life and career are happening at the same time. If you want a fighting chance to be at your best, not only so that you can feel great, but avoid the burnout that plagues so many chefs, then you need to prioritize your health. Life and career are really the same thing.

Mental and physical health are also packaged up and sold together. One impacts the other. How you feel emotionally is in many ways directly related to how you take care of yourself physically. So, considering you’re moving, working and pushing forward non-stop, treat yourself like an Athlete.

Take a minute to read the following article for proven tips on how to be healthier as a chef:

CHEF: Be an ATHLETE

https://www.otherclubcoaching.com/post/chef-be-an-athlete