Breaking Free from Burnout: Reclaiming Your Joy and Career
How I realized I was in burnout and how I found my way out.
Job burnout happens over a long time. It starts out with small irritations we may ignore until they become so big that it is overwhelming and breaks down the ability to be resilient. It happens to everyone. Studies since the pandemic in 2020 are showing an increase in people feeling burned out at work. In 2024, studies are finding 70% of employees are experiencing burnout in the past 12 months, increasing from previous years.
What is burnout?
Workplace burnout is more than just feeling overwhelmed or stress. It’s chronic stress that breaks down one’s ability to cope and recover. It has become so prevalent that in 2019 (before we all lived through a global pandemic) the World Health Organization labeled it as a “occupational phenomenon” and it is now categorized in the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). So if you tell yourself you are just overwhelmed and its not that bad — stop. It may be burnout.
The six triggers of burnout were categorized by Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter of the University of California at Berkeley and Acadia University, respectively in 2016. For someone to experience burnout, it doesn’t require all six. In fact, just one of the triggers, in a chronic, long-lasting state is considered burnout; though people tend to have multiple triggers compounding their stress.
- Overload of work; taking on too much.
- Lack of control or autonomy.
- Low reward or recognition.
- Lack of community or social relationships.
- Perceived lack of fairness or equity.
- Mismatch of values or expectations.
What are the symptoms of burnout?
I can say from personal experience that the symptoms are sneaky. Chronic stress leading to burnout is a slow, compounding process. For me, it took a year for the symptoms to become noticeable enough for me to realize just how bad it had become. And by the time they did, I felt so worn down and helpless that I hit a point of crisis.
Some of the common signs are:
- Loss of interest in activities or socializing. Low joy. No pride in what you do.
- Lower performance. Procrastination.
- Feeling a sense of dread about work.
- Snappy, irritable or short-tempered.
- Inconsistent sleep.
- Feeling of detachment from self and work.
- Little problems feel like a crisis.
Why most advice on burnout recovery is unhelpful.
Becoming burned out is a slow process and, honestly, so is recovery. While I was struggling to destress and regain my sense of joy, I read countless blogs and articles telling me to take time off work, pick up a hobby, take yoga classes. Worse yet were ones that told me to eat well, sleep better and exercise. Ha!
First, we should all get good sleep, eat healthy food and exercise, every day. Those are the basics to a healthy life. But when you are in a state of overwhelming, chronic stress, those simple tasks may feel impossible to do, or, we may not feel improvement.
And then there was the absolute demeaning piece of advice: Just say no!
Any time I see this as an antidote to burnout, I dismiss it right away. It’s not so simple. Most workers don’t have the option to tell a boss, customer or client, “Nope. Not gonna do that.” And that was true for me. I couldn’t say no to the work I was being assigned and this advice only made me feel helpless and left me feeling like my only option was to leave my job. Not everyone can do that either and, in my case, I didn’t want to.
Burnout isn’t a me problem.
At the heart of all of this advice is the expectation that burnout is the worker’s problem, so the worker has to fix it. But no matter what I did, and trust me, I tried everything, the stress wasn’t going away. And that is because the environment I was working in was causing the stress – and that hadn’t changed at all. I was doing all kinds of things to manage myself but walking into the same situations expecting them to be different. It doesn’t work. (Dive in to the common workplace causes of burnout, detailed here.)
So how do I recover from burnout?
The number one piece of advice I can give anyone struggling with burnout is to talk about their burnout and stress. Get a therapist who can provide an outside view to guide you back to yourself. For me, burnout felt like I was lost in a dense forest of trees and fog, and I couldn’t find the path out. What I needed was someone on the outside of the forest who could guide me through the fog and out the other side. When I talk to others about burnout, they share that therapy was the one thing that got them out of the burnout cycle and on the path to a more balanced life.
Talking to your boss is also important. Letting them know that you are feeling stressed and want to review your workload and see where you can:
- Delegate some work to others,
- Prioritize work and move timelines to give yourself some breathing room, and
- If needed, schedule some time off. One of the best decisions I made was giving myself a day off every other week for a couple of months. It gave me days that I knew I could “come up for air” and recharge.
And finally, seek support from your partner, family or friends. Every month I schedule a lunch with a coworker. We use that time to disconnect from work and connect as humans and they have become some of my favorite times in my workday.
Give yourself grace.
Everyone experiences chronic stress at least once in their lives. The key is in how we treat ourselves before, during and after we experience the burnout. Carving out space for you to rest, recharge and fill your cup are acts of self-care that need to be valued.
