Burnout: What Is It and Where Did it Come From?

The term “burnout” has gained popularity in the last few years. We hear warnings about it, and symptoms like it’s a contagious disease. 

But it’s not, it’s just a disconnect between your daily actions and your soul’s purpose. 

There’s an unbearable level of exhaustion that comes from living life by the limiting rules that society has constructed for us. Have you ever gotten up and felt like someone hit the repeat button on your life? “Is it Tuesday or Wednesday?” you ask yourself, but you can’t tell because every day is the exact same experience. 

Running on this never ending hamster wheel can be tiring, but sometimes we can’t see it until we crash. Whether it’s an existential crisis, a reckless night that leads to self sabotage, or a physical illness, life will show us that we can’t continue this way.

If you hate your job or where you’re at in life, you may not know what to do. The only thing that is clear is that you need a change.

If you love what you do, that’s great, so do I! But I’ve learned that the passion I’ve had for my career left me blind to the fact that there is more to life than just that, there is an unlimited amount of experiences to be had. You can love something, enjoy it, and then move on to another.

So, burn out. What does it feel like?

Dread. Like your body feels so heavy that you drag your feet to get to work and are too drained to do anything afterwards. It’s leaving for lunch and fantasizing about driving as far as your car will take you. It’s being excited about a flat tire because hmm…. I just might not make it in today.

Okay, those are pretty extreme. It can also be feelings of anxiety, nervousness, and fatigue. It may appear to you in a plethora of ways, we are all different in how we feel discontent.

So how do we wind up burnt out when we pursue the career we always wanted? I had my first feelings of burn out in the first year of my career, and I wondered how I’d gotten there so fast. The truth is that I’d been working for years to get to where I was. My life decisions to this point were rooted in my attachment to his outcome: to a job, a position, a title. I had glorified it, and it fell short of all my unrealistic expectations.

I invested time, money, and energy into learning a skill that I thought would bring me value. Yet all it lead to was work, to a position on the hamster wheel. There I was working for someone else, for hours that I couldn’t dictate, with little to no benefits. I had strived to work in a system that didn’t allow me to move.

Have you ever worked with someone who just gets up one day, loses it, and walks out? This is an obvious consequence to working in a space that is out of alignment. The dangers of burnout that we don't see, however, is the self doubt that can creep up, the poor decision making, the mind fog, anxiety that doesn’t leave when the day is over, depression, poor quality of work, and decreased creativity and learning.

Bring an awareness to your feelings throughout the day to see if you’re experiencing burn out in your career choice. Are you excited for your day, are you seeking expansion in your role? Do you have the passion you did on your first day in the office? Or are you tired and working from a place of obligation?

I found that writing down my feelings in the moment allowed me to look back on my daily experiences and gauge whether or not those were aligned with the life I am striving to create. Acknowledging where I am has led me to take action towards where I want to be.