Planning For Healthy Living and Longevity in Your Food Service Career.

You made it! You got a job! You are on your way to an exciting and fulfilling career!

But there are few things you need to think about between now and retirement. Taking the time to manage them now is going to be a fantastic investment in your future. Just like focusing on growth in your career we need to start thinking about how we take care of our greatest asset, your body and mind.

Planning for longevity in the Food industries.

If we are going to plan for longevity in our careers, we need to know what we are trying to prevent. To boil it all down into one blanket term, burnout is the factor that we want to reduce during our careers. This isn’t just the mental burnout, but the physical kind as well. Burnout when left untreated will cause people to lose fulfillment and desire to do their job well and the energy to keep doing it at the required pace. Burnout is quite common for new employees in any field and can bee seen as contributing factor for why people leave careers altogether. Here are 4 ways you can prevent burnout from happening to you.

1) Gain perspective from your job:

This may seem obvious but your job is not your entire being. You have many other parts of your life that are just as important from what you do at work. We sometimes forget that our work title does not take value away from who we are as a person. When we take our job so seriously that it clouds our vision, we can start to add on extra stress to our lives. Make sure you continue to do things outside of work that you find fulfilling as you work in your new career. This will keep your perspective fresh and keep you happy at work.

2) Invest in exercise before you become injured or exhausted.

Exercise is considered one of the best ways to have more energy and live a longer life. Many health professionals agree that moderate exercise for 150 minutes per week will reduce the chances of developing many health conditions.

As well, Exercise will give you more energy. But if you don’t already exercise regularly, it’s going to take some time to feel the effects. Think of exercise like a way to give yourself a larger battery that can hold more charge. It doesn’t give you more energy immediately like drinking a coffee, but it will give you more energy over the whole day. Give yourself about 6 weeks of regular exercise before you dismiss this powerful tool.

3) Build your selfcare tool kit.

Just like investing in your health for the good days at work, we also need to create a plan for when things become overwhelming. Build techniques that you can use take care of yourself when things become stressful.  Some ideas could be:

• Have a chill out activity that helps you relax and have fun
• Meditate
• Connect with friends and family
• Create a side hobby
• Have a small vacation

Doesn’t matter what it is, just make sure it is in your back pocket when you need it.

4) Just because you got the job doesn’t mean the hustle is done. 

Life is a struggle in many ways. You just battled your way through many years of schooling, applied for a job, and finally got into your career. This doesn’t mean it’s time to lay back because you ‘made it’. Continuing to learn and pushing your own boundaries will create continued growth for your career. Many students when they leave school and land that first job think they have crossed a finished line and can relax. But having this mindset will just set you up for mind numbing boredom in the long run. Keep pushing yourself with new skills and learning to keep your mind fresh and your passion for the field intact.

There you have it! You are off to a great start! Now start building the ways of living to create a long lasting a fulfilling career!

Author: Aaron McCullagh

Aaron is a kinesiologist and occupational health consultant from Toronto.

Along with over 15 years experience in the restaurant industry Aaron has worked with some of Canada’s largest companies to help employee’s perform better. In turn driving a better business for business owners.

Aaron aims to change how we build awesome restaurant businesses with his business services and online restaurant portal

His Business: https://balancedlifeservices.ca/ is the place to see everything Aaron can do to boost retention in your restaurant.

Aaron loves to discuss human performance and loves to help everyone find their awesome.