Burnout

Ask me, I’m an expert. Anything you want to know about burnout. Been there, done that.

To be sure, burnout is not always something that can or should be avoided. Almost every student in professional school ends the exam period completely drained in body, mind and spirit. Those who fight forest fires twelve hours a day, seven days a week, for weeks on end, find themselves to be dry husks of humanity when the last embers are quenched. Battlefield exhaustion is the stuff of legend. The truth is that there are times and situations where you simply must burn the candle at both ends until there’s nothing left.

But mostly we don’t need to do that. Mostly, burnout happens as a result of bad choices. Bad choices about priorities, about planning, about boundaries, about misalignment. Stephen Covey nailed it when he said, “Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.”

Marissa Mayer says perceptively “Burnout is about resentment. Preventing it is about knowing yourself well enough to know what it is you’re giving up that makes you resentful.” This is the kind of burnout which leaves us with ash in our mouths, the knowledge that we gave up too much of what’s important in exchange for…. for… for… For what? It’s the sense that we got suckered into a bad transaction, ended up exhausted, lonely, and unfulfilled, and there’s little to show for it.

Burnout occurs more frequently for those who are in the wrong place in life, who are doing what they are told they have to do, not what they were meant to do. Those who know and live in the center of their Giftings are far less likely to burn out, because what they are doing actually energizes them. Those who have figured out how to align their Giftings to serve the specific Needs of others find themselves in reward loops, not doom loops.

Those who live and work in their Giftings and who align themselves with the matching Needs of their clients discover that not only is their work enjoyable and energizing, but it is rewarding. Rewarding both emotionally and financially. Because of this, they find themselves having enough – enough satisfaction, enough money. They don’t need to be slaves in the galley, nor squirrels on the wheel. They have the space to have a life.

Finding oneself frequently burned out is often the clearest signal that one is in the wrong place in life, particularly in professional life. When there’s no joy, no reward, but rather resentment, disappointment, and “never enough”, it’s time to stop and take stock. It’s time to ask, “Why do I keep ending up in this place?”

Do we need to talk?