Dear friend,
Most of us meet burnout at some point in our working lives. The usual advice is to take more breaks, exercise, spend more time with family and friends, or reflect on how the work serves our larger goals. These can ease the stress for a while, but unless we look into what is actually causing the burnout, we tend to stay in its grip. And one of the worst strategies of all is the common one: ignore it, bury yourself in more work, and quietly plan your exit.
If you are burning out, do not suffer in silence, and do not just plan to slip away. Burnout is not a death sentence. It is a wake-up call. To help you listen to it, I want to offer four dimensions of burnout, so you can diagnose what is really going on and what to do next: physical, emotional, existential, and cultural.
The first is physical, and it is rooted in your biology, in lost sleep, poor nutrition, too little rest, water, or movement, sometimes worsened by a medical issue you have been ignoring. Ask yourself honestly whether you are caring for your health or neglecting it, and what new practices your body is asking for.
The second is emotional, and it comes from enduring ongoing distress or mistreatment. If you will not confront a draining situation, bullying, say, you pay for it in burnout. The work here is courage: to have the conversation and change the dynamic. Ask whether there is a conversation with a colleague, partner, boss, or client that you have been avoiding, and what nonsense you have been tolerating that is wearing you down.
The third is existential, and it shows up when you are getting results but finding no meaning in them. The way through is to reconnect to the purpose beneath the work, to reframe, or to seek guidance. Ask who you are really serving, what your work adds to their life, or what work would feel genuinely meaningful to you.
The fourth is cultural, a communal infection of bad moods, resentment, resignation, anger, frustration, selfishness, that takes hold when a group convinces itself that it is a victim of its circumstances. Moods are contagious, and whole teams and organizations can be carried off by a degenerative story. Ask what bad moods are spreading through your community, where they came from, and how they manufacture waste and stuckness. Then begin, together, to name them honestly and to speak about the new moods and practices worth cultivating instead.
So if you are burning out, ask yourself: which dimension is this? What am I committed to doing about it? And whose help will I ask for? Whatever you do, do not suffer silently and plan to peel away. Changing jobs or teams will not, by itself, cure it.
With care,Saqib