Mortgage loan officers are known for being joined at the hip to their phones and computers. Their CRMs, phones, files, and emails are the pulse that keeps them informed about what their clients are doing.

In the rare times that LOs are able to pull away from the desk, it’s not uncommon to see them still plugged into work at a kid’s game, traffic, vacation, and pretty much anywhere they have data. This adds up to an overwhelming amount of stress over a long period of time.

Their dedication makes sense when you consider that an LO has the ability to make a life-changing amount of money if, they can put in enough work in hours. Unfortunately, all the money in the world won’t save someone from burnout. 

Tons of loan originators are out there making the big bucks, but not every LO is functioning in a truly satisfying and sustainable way that lets them enjoy the amazing life they’re building. Sound familiar?

As a mortgage professional, you don’t have to accept burnout as an inevitability. You can actually get on top, stay on top, and stay motivated by understanding how professional burnout happens. 

The key to burning bright while others burnout, out is in adopting the right loan officer tools.

5 Ways to Prevent Burnout From Ruining Your Career:

1. Every Few Hours You Should Refocus to Avoid a Burnout Spiral

You and I both know that there is a long list of people waiting to hear back from us, at any point of the day. The trick to staying on top of that is to realize that you can’t put off unplugging until every last person has had their concern heard, or you may never rest!

One loan officer strategy for preventing burnout I recommend is taking short 10-minute “vacations” during the day. If a few 10-minute breaks don’t sound doable, you can still benefit from short breaks. There’s actually a ton of science behind the concept of the productivity-boosting “microbreak”

Consistent microbreaks have been shown to:

• Reduce stress

• Boost productivity

• Change someone’s attitude about their job

• Prevent injuries from sitting in a desk 10 hours a day

• Increase concentration

The best mini-vacation is the one that takes your mind away from the “office” environment while stimulating your senses. Not sure where to start? You can actually use some short mindfulness exercises to charge up before your next power sesh.

Try this:

• Go outside, and find a spot where you won’t be interrupted. Close your eyes and open your ears. Listen to the sounds of the environment around you, maybe there’s wind rustling through the trees, children laughing, or birds chirping. 

• Next, start to focus on what physical feelings are making themselves known. Feel the warmth of the sun on your cheek? The scent of freshly mowed grass or pollinating flowers wafting through the air? 

• Lastly, you can slowly open your eyes and begin to absorb the wonders around you. This includes the sapphire sky, the evergreen grass, jeweled flowers, and even a wet sidewalk sparking in the sun.

Now if you don’t have the ability to step away for a deep moment of meditation, you can try some other activities. At Empower LO, we brought in a ping-pong table and a Foosball table for a mental break from screens. These fun pastimes get your heart racing, shake off the stress, and even help with a little bonding around the office.

Our office also has a bookshelf stocked with self-improvement, health, happiness, marketing, sales, leadership, motivational and inspirational titles to help people expand and improve their lives away from whatever challenges they’re trying to fix in their inboxes at the moment. It’s a great way to unwind while sharpening the mind.

2. “Work-Life Balance” Isn’t just a Catch Phrase 

You want to give your best to your clients, right? It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that running yourself into the ground will show your dedication when really your clients are paying for it. Burnout will hamper your ability to offer your expertise, problem-solving, and creative abilities.

Taking bigger bites than you can chew will actually cause you to get less work done than you’re capable of.  It’s okay to love your work, even be a little obsessed with it, but you can’t let yourself be consumed.  

What does work-life balance look like? For many people, it looks like being able to compartmentalize their personal and professional lives, but this is easier said than done.

Which loan officer strategies below can you incorporate into your life to recharge without compromise:

• Intentionally schedule relaxation and family time. That means putting your phone away, maybe even in a locked drawer if you need to physically remove yourself from the alerts and notifications.

• Listen to some podcasts or music, without checking your phone.

• Make a habit of leaving everyone you spend time with better than how you met them, this includes spending quality time with friends and family

• Try to find some enjoyable hobbies that take you away from your screens, yes that means video games are out. Mortgage professionals are often spending over 10-12 hours a day in front of a screen and the battle against “screen fatigue” is real.

Work-life balance isn’t just about how you’re spending your time while you’re awake. A balanced life includes a balanced sleep schedule. 

Many LOs get into trouble here because of the sheer amount of time they spend in front of their screens. If you find yourself sending out emails right up until your head hits the pillow, you might be setting yourself up for burnout.  

According to the Cleveland Clinic, using screens right up to bedtime is bad because:

• Your mind stays too psychologically engaged to really relax.

• The blue light from your screen suppresses melatonin to throw off your internal clock. The blue light from your screens suppresses your production of melatonin and throws off your internal clock. 

• Getting alerts about stressful information can delay REM sleep. 

When screens control your life, you’re sleep-deprived, foggy, and getting hit by sleepy spells at the worst of times. Letting screen time overlap your bedtime routine can cause you to get less than eight hours of sleep. 

If you listen to the experts at the National Sleep Foundation, that’s a recipe for burnout. According to the National Sleep Foundation, regularly getting less than six hours of good sleep a night, is one of the best predictors of job burnout.  It’s harsh, but the truth is that being glued to your phone can slow down and hurt, your career. 

3. Set Clear Expectations from the Beginning

You’re allowed to set expectations for your colleagues, clients, employees, and yourself. I know you want to be the “yes” person, the one who is available and dependable. We’ve all been told how “being there” is the way to keep business coming back to you. Now there is an important distinction here, between being available and being valuable. Setting expectations and having boundaries allows you to offer your very best work, instead of just “filling a seat.” 

The simplest expectation to set centers around your working hours. Most loan officers think they have to be available 24 hours a day because we have the technology to enable that. In truth, people will respect your business hours, if they know they exist. Setting specific office hours that you post in the signature of your email account is a quick and easy way to ensure people know when you’re available. This actually alleviates irritation and anxiety on their end,  because they understand why you aren’t immediately responding. 

Now to a tougher expectation. It is 100% okay to acknowledge that some clients require too much monitoring, effort, and time for it to be “worth it” Clients who expect you to ALWAYS be on call around the clock may simply not be worth the loss of productivity they cause you. Clients that always push their lack of preparation onto you, can be a problem.

Stay with me here, think about that realtor who always seems to call you in a panic because they need five approval letters, yesterday. The same goes for those “dud” agents that solely send you pre-approval requests packed with obstacles. 

I know, I know, it can be unthinkable for a mortgage loan officer, especially one who is just starting out, to consider dropping a client. However, it pays to be realistic about protecting your brainpower and energy for your business, now and in the future. Always, always, always do the “burnout math” to decide how much you can lose by investing too much in certain partnerships.

4. Celebrate Your Achievements Even the Small Ones

A great way to avoid burnout is to stay positive! The mortgage profession isn’t exactly associated with the fine life of popping champagne and dancing on rooftops but the truth is that big and small things are happening every single week that deserves recognition. 

It’s important to take time and acknowledge hard work. At Empower LO we have ingrained this concept into the fabric of our company. We PRIORITIZE celebrating our goals and successes together in our weekly sales meetings. Every big win for one of our clients is a bragging right for us. At the end of the quarter, we take an early Friday and go celebrate outside the office!

5. Outsource Your Workload Smartly 

5. Outsource Your Workload Smartly 

For LOs it can become addictive to take on too much, there’s no glory in this though. You may feel like you’re the only one who can handle the workload because your clients are counting on you. In reality, there’s likely a variety of tasks that you can push onto someone else’s plate while you take care of the core work of your business like closing deals and building partnerships.

It’s not realistic to expect to maintain a breakneck pace, especially if you’re pushing hard without a break every day. It’s easy to max out your 40-50 hour work-week on “paper pushing”, you have to be careful. What’s more, you’re not only wasting mental energy on projects that you dislike, while neglecting the work that will grow your company.

Being off-balance with your ratio of “busy work” to “growth” work is a major reason many LOs burn out or fail. The secret is finding that sweet spot where you’re spending at least 80% of your time doing the parts of your job you like the best.

Some of the easiest tasks to outsource while you focus on core tasks are:

• Collecting documents

• Managing email

• Building your brand

• Generating leads

• Initial lead contacts

• Setting appointments

• Writing blogs

Shifting your work off your plate doesn’t necessarily mean hiring staff. Many LOs don’t have the resources to do at. In our technology-friendly world, there are some fantastic software tools that easily handle simple tasks.

Parting Thoughts on Avoiding Burnout as a Loan Officer

Try incorporating some of these loan officer strategies and tools into your day to day life and watch how your level of recharge changes. Experiment and find the right stack of techniques and solutions to help you avoid burnout. 

High income may tempt you to push yourself to your limits, staying maxxed out like that isn’t sustainable. Your ambition needs balance to thrive properly.

Are you looking to scale your business without pushing yourself over the edge? 

Empower LO has wonderful things to offer. You can schedule a live demo of our done-for-you lead-generation system and see for yourself how a “hands-off” approach can bring in more clients and add HOURS of productivity to your week.

Thanks for reading, we’ll see you at the top!