What to Do When You’re Burning Out
Are you on the road to burnout? Here are the signs of burnout, its root cause, and what to do about it.
I’ve been on the road to burnout at various times in my life. Each of these experiences was challenging, unsettling, and at times quite painful.
But once I stopped resisting change and allowed myself to be curious and engage with what was happening, I entered a process that proved to be both profound and transformational.
Signs that you are burning out present a precious opportunity for you to reflect on your values and dreams, reinvent yourself as deeply as you are willing, and reorganize your life to be more aligned and purposeful.
I hope you will seize that opportunity.
In this article I share common signs that you’re burning out, my perspective on the root cause of burnout, and suggestions for what you can do to move through this difficult period and transition into your best life.
Signs that You’re Burning Out
There are degrees of burnout.
Mild burnout is a persistent feeling that something is out of alignment in your work or personal life and that you’re getting worn out.
Full-on burnout can emerge as serious physical, mental, or emotional health crises. These are often interconnected.
For instance, a friend of mine who’s the founder of a tech startup ended up in the hospital with heart palpitations. After running a series of tests, the doctors concluded that it was stress-related. Sure enough, once he completed an especially intense period of funding negotiation, his symptoms subsided. Still, there were lessons learned and lifestyle changes that he recognized he needed to make.
Here are some common signs that you’re significantly burned out:
A high baseline level of anxiety, fear, and/or ungrounded excitement.
Lack of joy and purpose and/or depression.
Physical health symptoms, including insomnia, digestive issues, autoimmune issues, etc.
You’re numbing yourself (consciously or unconsciously) with addictive substances such as food, alcohol, caffeine, sex, gambling, drugs, porn, TV, etc.
You’re either underperforming at work, or you are running on adrenaline, working too many hours, and overperforming in an unsustainable way.
You lack a healthy balance of self-care and social time, and your relationships and wellbeing are suffering.
Other people are concerned that you’re burning out. Often we’re the last ones to acknowledge it.
The sooner you catch the signs and address the underlying issues, the better.
The Underlying Causes of Burnout
Conventional understanding is that burnout is the result of working too hard.
My experience – both personally and from working with burned-out clients – is that overwork is a symptom and that burnout is a sign that something is out of alignment.
Discovering what is out of alignment and at what scale and scope, and how to bring it back into a new alignment is the puzzle for us to solve.
It could be your job, your career, or your approach to work.
It could be a relationship, or relationships, or your entire way of relating.
Often in a period of major burnout, multiple areas of life (i.e. work, relationships, health, family, living environment, finances) are “off” in some way.
But we still haven’t gotten to the root cause of burnout.
My perspective on the root cause of burnout begins with the belief that we have souls that are a source of personal wisdom. For me, this belief is experiential. It is spiritual yet non-dogmatic, non-religious, and highly pragmatic.
I think of our souls as our essential organizing energy that enables us to evolve and will gladly guide us in the direction of greatest learning, growth, and service.
This guidance comes from intuition and other forms of knowing, such as the quiet whisper we hear in the back of our heads when something is (or isn’t) right for us.
When we’re listening to and following our souls, we’re healthy, happy, and productive. When we don’t, we fail to flourish.
Burnout at its root is a sign that we’re out of alignment with our souls.
Our job is to listen and have the courage to follow our soul’s guidance into a new alignment.
My 4-Step Soul Solution to Burnout
Thankfully, our souls are practical. They give us advice that we can listen to and act upon, and their best advice also satisfies the evaluation criteria of our rational minds. In response to a great soul solution, we might think, “Well, that’s unconventional, but smart!”
Step 1 – Create Time and Space to Listen to Your Soul.
Remember my belief that overwork is a symptom – not a root cause – of burnout?
Often we overwork in an unconscious attempt to avoid slowing down, creating space in our lives, and really listening. Why? Because at some level we’re afraid we won’t like what we hear.
But we still need to listen to our souls about what’s out of alignment and what needs to change.
It can help to know that you’re in charge. Just because your soul says something doesn’t mean you need to do it completely and immediately. You can be in dialogue.
For instance, if work is burning you out and your soul says “Quit your job!” I don’t recommend stepping into work the next morning and telling your boss you’re quitting.
Ask your soul follow-up questions like “What would that get me?” or “Is there a less extreme solution for me here?”
You can talk to your soul in your head, or write in a journal, or speak into your phone to create an audio message – whatever works for you. You can communicate with your soul in nature, or in your apartment. So long as you carve out the time and space, your soul will be happy.
Step 2 – Design “Burnout Recovery” Experiments
Once you’ve gathered plenty of “soul data,” you can engage your rational mind as you decide what changes are feasible and likely to be the most highly-leveraged for improving your situation.
Here are some examples of what a “burnout recovery experiment” might look like
Get Serious About Self-Care: If your soul is saying that you’re not filling up your self-care tank enough – i.e. you’re putting out more than you’re taking in – you can practice making more time for pleasure and play, and you can ask for more support. Do this for two weeks and see if it begins to restore balance to your body and life and satisfy your soul.
Pursue a Purpose Project: If your soul feels unfulfilled at work because your job is lacking purpose, what if you took on a month-long purpose project? This is how my coaching practice began – as a personal growth experiment – and then it grew into a decade-long career that I will likely pursue for years to come.
Get Honest in Relationships: If your soul is saying a relationship isn’t right for you, the first step is to get honest about what you want and need and have a conversation with the other person about how both your needs and theirs can be met. Then you’ll know what to do next.
Great experiments are manageable, low-to-medium risk, and approved by both your soul and your rational mind. Treat them like any project that’s meaningful to you. Get clear on what you’re doing and the results you’re hoping to see. It can be helpful to gather data through journaling and/or quantitative methods, such as mood tracking.
Step 3 – Reflect on Your Results and Iterate
After your experiment, celebrate that you took courageous action towards recovering from impending burnout, and reflect on the results you’re getting.
If you’re in major burnout, recovery can be a multi-month process, so be patient with yourself. Having an attitude of gentleness is essential.
Each person’s situation is different and nuanced. Your experiment may lead you to make gradual adjustments, or it may lead you to a totally new understanding of what beliefs, habits, and commitments you need to change.
Keep following your path and know that you will emerge on the other side as a far more aligned, joyful, and powerful version of yourself.
Step 4 – Reach Out for Support
I’m sharing this as a fourth step, but it goes along with all of the other steps.
What gets us into burnout are soul-denying habits and patterns that are long-held and largely unconscious. If we could see them clearly, we already would have changed them. So having the support of insightful and compassionate allies is essential.
Friends and family can be helpful, but every time I’ve gone through burnout I’ve sought out professional support as well, generally from a therapist or coach. I’ve never regretted getting this additional support.
Imagine yourself as a rocket ship. If burnout is like being stuck in a low-flying orbit, then support is the rocket booster that propels you to the next higher orbit. It takes an energy investment to get there, but it’s necessary and worth it.
It’s often the belief that we need to do it all alone that burned us out in the first place, so breaking that pattern and reaching out for help is in itself helpful.
Good Luck with Your Journey!
Remember that in this era we live in, you are not alone in being burned out. The world is changing fast, we’re under a lot of pressure, and what’s being asked of us is evolving.
While burnout may not be pleasant, recognize that it truly does present you with an opportunity.
If you embrace it as a chance to say “yes” to your growth and evolution and “yes” to making a long-term investment in yourself, you will soon be giving your next-level gifts to the world in a joyful and sustainable way.
My name is Peter Rubin. After getting undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford and working at two world-class design firms, I followed my purpose and became a transformational coach in 2010.
One of my specialties is working with millennial men who are on the road to burnout. I guide them to work smarter, not harder, reclaim their evenings and weekends, and find fulfillment through relationships, personal growth, and spirituality.
If this is you – or someone you know – contact me and ask for a complimentary zero-pressure consultation. It would be an honor to support you!