When you’re burnt out at work, conventional wisdom says to pull back so that you can recover.
I just wrote a series called The Busy Season Survival Guide that ended with a post about Rest and Recovery for when you’re starting to feel burnt out, but you still have to show up and work. Even then, a large portion of that post is about finding small opportunities for rest and recovery. This means pulling back to some degree.
That post left me wondering… What if you can’t?
When we’re stuck, we need to either change the circumstances, or change how we think about them.
Changing the Circumstances
Lately I’ve been largely writing on the assumption that for whatever reason, the heavy workload that leads to burnout is tolerable, manageable, and worthwhile to you.
Sometimes it’s just not, and that’s a very personal choice!
My next post gets into what makes burnout tolerable or not. This might provide some food for thought as to whether or not it’s worth it for you to push on (but perhaps commit to some internal or external changes).
We can all agree that being in a constant state of burnout is unhealthy at best. If you’re stuck here, something needs to change. It could be the job itself.
(Bonus tip: sometimes if you’re going through a really tough season, planning an exit strategy is just enough added motivation to get you through it. Once you’re through it, do you still feel the same?)
That being said, there’s nothing wrong with challenging the status quo right where you are to see if you can make your work life more supportive.
If you can’t change the circumstances (or you don’t want to), then you’re left with the challenge of changing your relationship with them.
In other words, you might need a mindset or perspective shift.
The first part of the Guide is Breaking Down Burnout, where we talked about the internal and external factors that might contribute to the stress that leads to burnout. Let’s spend some more time with these concepts.
Turning Inward: What Are You Contributing to the Burnout Recipe?
This isn’t necessarily about “zonking yourself out” so that you feel better about your egregious work schedule. It’s more about gaining an understanding of the internal factors that contribute to your burnout.
With that understanding, you can figure out your next steps by deciding for yourself how much is enough and making informed decisions about your next steps!
Break out your journal and put on a cup of tea:
- Examine what is pushing you to work so hard. Is it merited?
- Consider your underlying beliefs about your relationship with work. Do you still agree with them?
- Identify your challenges in pulling back to rest. What can be done about those?
- Create more autonomy by reflecting frequently about the “big picture” that your efforts fit into. What’s the big “why” behind it all?
Which of these factors are internal versus external?
- Is your boss very demanding (external)? Or are you a perfectionist (internal)?
- Do you believe that to be a good employee you must crush through a ton of overtime (internal)? Or is it actually in your job description to do so (external)?
- Are you expected to be available 24/7 (external)? Or do you just feel the need to be, just in case (internal)?
Where can you challenge the status quo?
- What would happen if you took a mental health day, and where is the evidence?
- Do you need increased pay for this amount of work? Alternatively, would you take less pay to have a more relaxed approach to work?
- What “unwritten rules” are worth breaking?
Hopefully in exploring these, you can get a sense of whether there’s some internal work you could do that would help alleviate the stress, or you’ll have an idea of what would need to change circumstantially to better support you.
To figure out how much is enough, you’ll need to evaluate how much of the current circumstances you are willing to accept. Particularly, how much is a legitimate opportunity for growth and how much is just encroaching on your personal values.
Turning Outward: Contextualizing the Demands of the Workplace
It’s hard to objectively evaluate your circumstances, because you’ll always feel a certain way about them internally. For example, it’s not just say the 24/7 on-call requirement that is the issue, it’s how you feel about that type of availability, and how it supports your values and aspirations.
We feel that there’s a personal element to it.
I think it’s worthwhile reminding ourselves why workplaces operate how they do, and how that can contribute to burnout. It’ll help bring a little bit more objectiveness back to the discussion on what you’re comfortable giving.
Let’s assume that your workplace is otherwise nontoxic.
Corporate organizations want to get the “most” out of their employees.
Corporate organizations push you to work as much as you can, as hard as you can. It’s not personal, it’s by design! A highly efficient, successful organization wants to encourage the best from their employees.
In theory, the employees would also want to get the best out of themselves, so it should be a win-win situation.
But their goal is never actually to burn you out. It’s important to understand this, especially if you’re having trouble pulling back out of the feeling of obligation.
Burnout is a byproduct of the “highly efficient, successful organization” running with leadership that might be a little out of touch combined with employees whose boundaries could perhaps use a bit of bolstering.
So know your limit, work within it, and try not to be too heavily influenced by your corporate environment if that is not for you.
The leadership team is there for a reason.
The leadership team is probably composed mostly of members who have their capacity for hard work and tolerance for stress to thank for their success (at least in part). Remember that these are actually a select few, and the select few likely share a relatively narrow but similar definition of success, which happens to align with their organization’s best interests.
That’s why they’re now in leadership.
There’s nothing wrong with this at all! What is wrong is assuming that you should have the same capacity, tolerance, and definition of success as your leadership team.
You could, but you don’t have to.
We aren’t all wired the same way, nor do we all share the same definition of success!
You must remember as well that organizations need to replace their leadership, and people in leadership positions tend to want to reward those who are especially hardworking and “giving” with their time and resources to the organization. Usually that’s employees that work the same way they did and share the same values.
Those colleagues totally exist! They can crush through burnout because it’s worth it to them. They want to “make it”, they see the value in it, and maybe they thrive under pressure. Rightfully, the organization celebrates their tenacity.
With all of this encouragement, it’s easy to think that this is what we should want, too! We tend to “follow the leader” for much of our careers, only to discover (several rounds of burnout) later that it’s just not for us. This is a perfectly acceptable conclusion.
Okay – we’ve looked inward, and we’ve looked outward. I think now is as good a time as any to ask again:
How much is enough?
