What is Burnout?

You used to love your work.  You remember a time where the hours flew by and you were energized by focusing on the task at hand.  You didn’t mind working through lunch or staying late into the evening.  You’re good at what you do and it feels good for others to see the good work that you do and compliment you on it. You were high-producing, meeting the most challenging goals and deadlines. And you were not only proud of the work that you did, but felt like you were connected to your coworkers.

But things are much different now.  You’re tired.  All of the time.  It doesn’t help that you’re not sleeping at night.  Or that your work days feel like they’re approximately 39873 hours long.  You feel “unmotivated”. You’re cynical and cranky. You feel like you spend more time at work spinning your wheels, trying to get things done, instead of actually accomplishing a task.  Part of this is because it’s hard to concentrate and part of it is because you just don’t like your job any more. Your head hurts. Your stomach aches. And you can’t remember the last time you had an actual conversation with your favorite coworker. At least, not one where you weren’t both complaining about your job.

Although burnout has been studied for decades, the World Health Organization made it an official diagnosis in 2019. And, while it was considered a “syndrome” at that time, many are wondering if it can now more accurately be called an epidemic.  Post-COVID 19 pandemic, we hear and see about burnout EVERYWHERE. 

Broadly speaking, burnout is considered to be a state of exhaustion, associated with work, due to ongoing stressors, while lacking adequate resources to address the stressors.  Oftentimes, the exhaustion leads to cynicism and a reduced sense of efficacy.  

What it looks like in everyday life is work that is boring, monotonous, and unchallenging, leaving you uninspired. It’s a lack of control of your work and your work environment, with no sense of autonomy. It’s an environment where you are not rewarded for the work that you do - a lack of recognition. A lack of respectful treatment.  And, even more subtly, an environment that lacks a sense of support, closeness, and teamwork.

It’s too many responsibilities and not enough help.  Sometimes this is a lack of resources. But, if we’re honest, sometimes this is because we’ve given the illusion that we don’t need help. We certainly don’t ask for it. And before we know it, we’re over our heads and overwhelmed.

Sometimes, the burnout is from our own need to control and our inability to delegate. Burnout can be fueled by our own perfectionism and tendency to overwork ourselves to get to that perfection when, in fact, there is no such thing as perfect.

Burnout isn’t an all or nothing condition, where you’re either burned-out or you’re not. It happens along a continuum. There are periods of time that we are more or less burned-out. Burn out on less intense levels can lead to what we now call quiet quitting – not going above and beyond, or doing the bare minimum to stay employed, in an effort to conserve resources and gain a sense of autonomy. When burnout leads to complete exhaustion and overwhelm, it necessitates time away from work and its stressors.

If it sounds like burnout has a lot in common with depression, you would be right, although burnout is not considered a mental health diagnosis..  In fact, many call burnout the depression of the workplace and there is some overlap – including low energy, lack of focus, and trouble sleeping.  The first step to alleviating burnout, though, is taking time away from the work environment and the activities there that cause stress, whereas easing depression symptoms can be much more complicated than that.

I would argue that recovering from and preventing future burnout is actually more complicated than simply taking time off.  It’s more complicated than the tips on setting boundaries and the nebulous suggestion for “self-care” that you’ll find when you read the countless search results that come up when you google the topic.

So this month, we’re going to dive into some of the deeper things that lead to us being burned-out, so that we can address burn out at the root.  Join us for tips on how to incorporate a nourishing sabbatical to bring a 5-minute break into your days.

Call Harper Therapy today at 813-434-3639

Check out Yolanda’s book on burnout at yolandaharper.com