What is burnout?
According to Merriam Webster, burnout is “exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration.” For the purposes of this article, I am talking about emotional burnout, which is not the same as physical burnout. The tools and teachings in this article are incredibly helpful, but they won’t replace proper sleep, nutrition, etc.
That being said, emotional burnout can take many shapes. Even when you’re getting eight hours of sleep a night, you can experience emotional burnout that feels like exhaustion. Other times it might look like emotional volatility or isolation or an edgy fury brought on by any kind of obligation or expectation. It could be a headache, or stomach distress that comes and goes but never really resolves, or just a sadness that you can’t seem to shake.
But that’s just how burnout presents. To really understand what burnout is, we need to look at why it happens.
When I ask people why they’re burned out, they usually say it’s because they’re working too much. Or they’re working too hard. Or their manager has ridiculous expectations. Or they’re just experiencing too much stress. Or company culture is toxic. Or their industry is just bananas. But the reality is, burnout isn’t about any of these things.
This is why some people can work for 12 hours and end the day feeling energized, but other people can work for 20 minutes and feel completely exhausted.
The work doesn’t create the burnout. The boss doesn’t create the burnout. The company culture or the industry norms don’t create the burnout.
So, what does cause burnout?
Burnout isn’t a work issue. It’s a fuel issue.
Because burnout is what happens when you try to fuel excellent work performance with negative thoughts and feelings.
What does this mean?
This means trying to use feelings like shame, anxiety, and guilt to get yourself to take productive actions and do good work.
Now, I want to be clear that it makes total sense that so many of us try to do things this way, because this is how most of us were taught to do things by our families, teachers, and culture at large. We’ve been taught that the way we get ourselves to do things is to yell at ourselves and discipline ourselves and tell ourselves how terrible we are if we don’t do them.
Even though fueling yourself with negative feelings doesn’t feel good, most of us are terrified to stop doing things this way. We secretly think that being hard on ourselves is the only way we can do the big things we want to do. We think it’s how we get shit done and that if we stop, everything we’ve worked so hard for will fall apart.
The problem is that when you create results with negative fuel, you burn yourself out. Moreover, your accomplishments don’t feel good, because your brain associates them with all the negative emotion you felt along the way.
This is why we can have all the gold stars in the world and yet feel uncomfortable and unworthy every time we look at them. To us, they’re not symbols of triumph. They’re symbols of anxiety and guilt and shame. We look at our accomplishments and feel like imposters. We think if we were really, truly good at what we do, then we’d be able to enjoy our accomplishments. But we have that part backwards. The reason we can’t enjoy them isn’t because we’re not good enough - it’s because we’ve conditioned ourselves to associate our efforts and accomplishments with feelings that feel terrible.
Stop and think about this. How many accomplishments do you have that, when you think about them, feel like shame or guilt or anxiety? For me, this used to be pretty much ALL my accomplishments. I’d look at things I’d done, even things I’d succeeded at, and I’d feel awful. My brain would say, yeah, you did that, but … it could be better, you didn’t actually apply yourself, so and so’s was better, etc.
So, if the work isn’t the problem, and it’s all about thoughts, feelings, and how we use them as fuel, then what’s the solution?
The solution is changing the fuel. Burnout happens when we use anxiety, shame, guilt, and other negative feelings as fuel. It’s like burning coal. You can get results, but there are side effects. Instead, we want to shift to a more sustainable energy source. This will look a little bit different for each person, but here are some fuel sources that I have used to great success: commitment, courage, integrity, joy, and curiosity. Sustainable fuel doesn’t have to feel amazing. Sometimes operating from integrity or courage can also feel a little scary. But it’s a different kind of fear than what we get with anxiety. Anxiety says, I have to or something bad will happen. Integrity says, I want to because it’s what I believe in, even if I am also scared.
How do we use these feelings as fuel? We change the story. We go from a story of anxiety, guilt, or shame to a story of commitment, courage, etc. Here’s what’s interesting. What we do might be exactly the same. Sometimes it’s not, but often it is. And yet, it will feel totally different. When we take action in our lives and careers from integrity, for instance, from who we want to be at work no matter how everyone else is acting, that feels good. It feels empowering. It makes us want to keep taking action and keep showing up. It doesn’t deplete us and leave us feeling worn out and resentful.
Here are some examples:
Guilt says: I should keep working on this even though I’m tired.
Commitment says: I will do 30 more minutes of work on this and then I’ll ship whatever I have at that point.
Anxiety says: I have to go to that meeting or they’ll think I’m not working.
Courage says: I am willing to feel some discomfort and say no to the meeting because it's not the best use of my time.
Shame says: Don’t tell them you don’t understand what they just said.
Curiosity says: What if I can do a better job by being willing to ask?
While most of us were also raised to believe that feelings are fluffy, they’re not. They’re the key to doing killer work without burning out. Even if you’re rolling your eyes right now, try changing the story. See what happens. You’ll be amazed.
To review: burnout is not a work issue. It’s a fuel issue. When you try to fuel good work with negative feelings, you will create burnout. We solve burnout by shifting to better fuel. Better fuel looks different for different people, but some fuel feelings that I’ve seen be highly effective are commitment, courage, curiosity, joy, and integrity. If you’re at a loss, ask yourself, what are the reasons I want to do this? You’ll either find some positive fuel or you’ll find an opportunity to create more alignment.
Want some help shifting fuel sources or teaching this work to your team? I’m currently accepting 1:1 clients and speaking engagements. Learn more here.