Taboo no more: Moving beyond burnout

Google searches for “burnout symptoms” hit an all-time high in May 2022 in a challenging economy faced with a lingering pandemic, according to Harvard Business Review.

It’s a topic of significant importance for professionals across industries, especially given the stigma around talking about and seeking help for one’s challenges and the risk of being seen as ‘not able to hack it.’

Burnout isn’t a medical diagnosis. The World Health Organization describes burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

The Mayo Clinic also considers burnout as a kind of work-related stress — more specifically, “a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity.”

Research has indicated that factors unique to individuals, such as personality traits and family life, can affect who experiences job burnout. Depression can be at play as well.

Whatever the underlying cause(s), burnout can impact your mental and physical well-being. Symptoms can show up in obvious and more pernicious ways. The Mayo Clinic cites various questions to consider, including:

• Have you become cynical or critical at work?

• Have you become irritable or impatient with co-workers, customers or clients?

• Do you lack the energy to be consistently productive?

• Do you find it hard to concentrate or get started on your work?

• Do you lack satisfaction from your achievements?

Emotional consequences from burnout will usually be accompanied by physical changes in the body, which over time can lead to serious health issues. HelpGuide.org highlights the physical symptoms of burnout, including:

• Feeling tired and drained most of the time

• Frequent headaches or muscle pain

• Change in appetite or sleep habits

• Lowered immunity and frequent illnesses 

If you are experiencing symptoms noted above, working with your doctor, a mental health professional or a coach can help put you on a path to offset the negative implications of burnout and take charge of your overall well-being.

I will share that the symptoms above resonate with me in a very personal way. I experienced burnout not just once, but twice, in ways that echo some of these observations. You can read a short version of my story here or watch the in-depth talk that I gave to AcademyWomen on the topic of burnout here.

Spoiler alert: my story is not particularly unique or special. As psychology and Eastern and Western spiritual traditions have shown, the phenomena I’ve described manifest in various, but largely predictable ways, for many of us.

They’re anchored in the human condition. At the heart of this is the reality that our personalities develop in service of our ego, whose main role is to protect us from perceived risks and dangers rooted largely in our childhood experiences.

Left unchecked, our ego – cloaked in the nuances of our personality – is more than happy to run the show and call the shots in our lives. And the ego is sneaky, master ventriloquist. It’s been around a long time and its voice sounds like our own.

Most of us tend to “live inside our heads.” In addition to being preoccupied by our nonstop thoughts, we often fixate on our worries, standards and expectations.

In reality, many of the standards and expectations that we constantly holding ourselves to aren’t even our own. Rather, they are based in others’ judgments that we have tacitly accepted or have subconsciously taken on as our own since they feel like what we “should” do in life.

This is particularly important since, as humans, we are wired to default to being guided by our minds, which can work for or against us.

The good news is we are not our personalities. Even if you love your personality full-stop, it’s not your true nature.

With that said, if we don’t connect the creativity and power of our amazing minds to the wisdom of our body and the love within our hearts, we cannot live from a place of wholeness. We can’t connect with our true self.

Why? Because living fully requires the alignment of these three centers of intelligence: mind, body and heart.

So, what enables this alignment, this harmony of mind-body-heart?

It comes from: 

1.     Getting curious about understanding how you’re wired. This includes:

• Mindsets and behaviors that hold you back (e.g., overused strengths that then become liabilities under stress).

• How you can better harness your gifts and strengths for the benefit of yourself and others.

2.     Taking responsibility for how you choose to live.

3.     Being intentional about where you put your focus and spend your time.

Like a plant that needs water to survive and thrives with the right type of food, this process requires awareness and attention as well as a willingness to cultivate self-acceptance and vulnerability.

Simply put, self-development is a learning and growth journey that is well worth investing in over time.

As you experience momentum and feel the benefits, it becomes self-perpetuating. You just need to start.

If you’re already on your way, I encourage you to recommit to the journey and let things unfold for you over time.

You can do this by continuing to:

• Strengthen your ability to stay present in good times and bad – don’t dwell in the past or worries of tomorrow.

• Develop the ability to tap into your own innate wisdom, heart and curiosity – don’t be afraid to dream and imagine the possibilities.

• Use these ideas and insights to take action by experimenting and learning along the path – or paths – that are showing up for you.

As you do so, I will share that I believe the challenges and struggles we encounter are presented to us for a reason.

• Often, they are indicative of something we are meant to explore or experience in order to learn and grow and/or to support others’ own development.

• Sometimes the provenance of our struggles and difficulties will never be fully known or understood.

It is valuable to learn to be comfortable accepting and playing in that mystery.

And don’t expect perfection. Type A achievement-minded “drivers” take special note. In fact, the quest for perfection is a wolf in sheep’s clothing; it is the antithesis to enabling growth. And who has time for that?

Your fierce life awaits.