Why are we burned out?
The Great Resignation is an economic trend in which employees voluntarily resign from their jobs en masse, beginning in early 2021. In November, a record 4.5 million workers left their jobs, according to the Labor Department's latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover report. Burnout is the number one reason employees cite for leaving their current jobs.
Long working hours can lead to Burnout since we don't give our minds and bodies enough rest. But Burnout is not always proportional to the quantity of the work. Also, depending on how people experience it, Burnout can look different. One person might experience Burnout as the inability to work at all. Another person's experience might not feel good about oneself and the work. The reasons and remedies will vary depending on the situation. The employer, employee, and external environment contribute to the Burnout experienced by the employee.
What is Burnout?
The Mayo Clinic defines job burnout as a special type of work-related stress — a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity.
Five Stages of Burnout
Herbert Freudenberger, an American psychologist, described the progression of Burnout in 12 stages. This was later simplified into a 5-stage version that is described below.
Honeymoon phase
Onset of Stress
Chronic Stress
Burnout
Habitual Burnout
Honeymoon phase
The honeymoon stage is the first stage of Burnout. We won't be seeing the usual symptoms associated with Burnout during this stage. It is usually experienced when you start a new job or a project. You would be excited to try new things, and you might have extremely high productivity rates, optimism, and energy levels. Eventually, you might end up taking up more work onto your shoulders than you should. Thus the cycle of stress begins in the honeymoon phase. At this stage, if no positive coping strategies are implemented, the risks of experiencing Burnout in the future are higher.
Onset of stress
This state starts with the awareness that some days are more difficult than others. Life becomes limited to work and taking care of business, while family, social life, and personal priorities are neglected. Common stress symptoms appear, which affect the person emotionally and physically. You can also notice that your optimism is slowly waning away. Persistent reduced sleep quality, irritability, anxiety, lack of social interaction, and neglect of personal needs are symptoms of this stage.
Chronic stress
The third stage of Burnout is chronic stress, which is developed as a result of the frequent experience of stress. At this stage, the individual would start feeling like a failure and experience a sense of powerlessness. Productivity decreases and the individual might not receive the same appreciation as they used to. The individual might feel demotivated and might feel like a failure.
The individual would experience persistent tiredness, procrastination, and feeling pressured. The individual would develop coping strategies like numbing, withdrawal, procrastination, and other avoidance strategies and rely on creature comforts. The person might get irritated by small things, and sometimes it might be difficult for the individual to regulate emotionally. In extreme cases, the individual might get addicted to alcohol and drugs. The individual will be living their life with the sympathetic nervous system activated throughout the day. It would be similar to living your life in fight or flight mode. Living in a prolonged state of high alert and stress (when there isn't any real reason for it) can be detrimental to your physical and mental health.
Burnout
The third stage is called Burnout itself. If positive steps were not taken in the previous stages, it leads to a state of apathy, where despair and disillusionment occur. People do not see a way out of this situation and become indifferent toward work. At this stage, the individual will be obsessed with problems. They will have a pessimistic attitude, self-doubt, ignore personal needs, G I issues and show behavioral changes. They will start isolating themselves from work and other people. They will find ways to escape from work.
Habitual Burnout
The final stage is habitual Burnout. When you don't take any measures to recover from Burnout in earlier stages, the symptoms will become a part of your life. Symptoms of Burnout cause significant physical or emotional problems, and ultimately these may prompt one to look for help and intervention. The individual will experience depression, chronic sadness, and mental and physical fatigue. At this stage, the individual will start experiencing issues at the workplace and in their personal life. The individual may need professional help to overcome this stage.
The 5 stages of burnout and symptoms. (Adopted from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7604257/)
Reasons for Burnout
There are multiple psychological explanatory models developed to explain the etiopathogenesis of Burnout. The reasons for Burnout are generally divided into internal and external categories. The internal factors address the employee's attitude towards work. The external factors contain the external working environment. Both need to be addressed when we talk about Burnout. This implies the changes need to happen on the employer's side and the employee's side.
An employee with a high work ethic and balance in life can experience Burnout if they work in a place with an unhealthy culture and lack of support. Similarly, employees with perfectionistic striving can make work their center of the universe, neglect personal needs and boundaries can also experience Burnout. During the pandemic that affected the collective's mental health, it was difficult for people to set up professional and personal boundaries. That resulted in higher burnout rates across the globe, regardless of the workplace. Personal life issues can also affect the individual's mental health at the workplace. Companies are including mental health benefits as perks to address workplace issues and recover from personal mental health issues. It helps to improve the employee's productivity.
Workplace (External) and employee- related (Internal) factors contributing to burnout. (Adopted from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7604257/)
How to overcome Burnout?
Approaches to treating Burnout depend on the burnout stage and the severity of the symptoms. Changing habits and building a routine for better work-life balance would be sufficient for minor signs of Burnout. But for severe symptoms, one might need professional help.
The initial step would be to understand the root causes of Burnout and take action to overcome them. Usually, it is a combination of multiple factors. After addressing the significant factors of Burnout, develop a plan to overcome the issues. Any habitual or psychological changes require time and consistency to see changes. Special attention is required from a medical health provider for physical health problems.
The way to attain work-life balance is to have balance in different areas of your life. You can categorize your life into seven different buckets. Career, financial, physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, and relationships (personal, friends, family, and significant others) buckets of your life need to reach the state of homeostasis in life. Every human being needs different ways to meet their six basic human needs in various forms at work and outside of work.
Strategies to eliminate internal factors
The internal factors might be different for different individuals. For individuals with perfectionism and high self-expectations, cognitive reframing exercises would help them come out of negative self-talk patterns. Setting up internal and external boundaries at work would allow the individual to have a better work-life balance, thus more job satisfaction. Internal boundaries include 1) intentionally cutting off from work at the end of the day. 2) Have activities/hobbies outside of work. External boundaries include 1) Not oversubscribing to work that cannot be completed in a certain time. 2) Being comfortable saying no when you need to.
Many individuals have negative self-talk going on in their minds about their work. If you cannot change your thought patterns, it is always good to get professional help. CBT-based therapy is a good option for perfectionism trauma.
Strategies to eliminate external factors
An individual usually feels unhappy/unsatisfied at work when their needs are not met at the workplace. Ideally, the six basic human needs need to be met at the workplace. At least some of your top personality needs need to be met at the workplace. If you have unmet needs at the current workplace, try to meet them consciously. For example, if growth is not being met in the project you are working on, try to find projects with growth potential. If a deserving promotion is pending, don't be hesitant to ask for one.
Another major factor for Burnout is the lack of boundaries in the workplace. Boundaries can also be categorized as internal and external. An internal boundary is something you need to set up for yourself. Examples are: there should be a time boundary for work to have an excellent work-life balance. Have a hard stop to your working hours and find some time to do activities outside of work during the 24 hours of the day. Make time for your health, family, and anything you enjoy doing daily. Prioritize your tasks and have a daily/weekly plan for work. External boundaries are related to external factors like working environment, colleagues, etc. A few good examples would be: Be comfortable saying "No" to work beyond your availability. Saying No is not an indicator of bad work, but it indicates that you are prioritizing your time in the right way and direction. Prioritize your needs or work over taking up other people's work.
Even after taking all the necessary steps from your side to eliminate external factors of Burnout, if the issues still exist, then the current workplace or team is probably not the best place for you to work. In that case, it is time for you to work on the exit strategy.
Personal Life and Burnout
Work-Life and personal life are interconnected, and they will impact each other. During the pandemic time, human beings collectively went through a crisis. That spilled into work life. People go through many traumatic events like healthcare issues, loss of loved ones, etc. That will directly affect your work. A healthy workplace would also have systems to address employees' personal mental health. Many companies have mental health benefits additional to the medical insurance. If the individual is going through a difficult phase in life, it is essential to pause and take a break. Suppose you have workplace-related trauma (e.g., abusive past workplace situations, loss of past jobs, etc.). In that case, it is crucial to address them and do a cognitive reframing around the negative experience.
Get your life back into balance
If there is one secret formula to prevent Burnout, that would be to bring balance in all the seven areas of your life. Even if you enjoy your work, make sure you have a time boundary between work and personal life. Have a cut-off time and spend time with your family. Take that PTO; you deserve it! Find an employer who values their employee and their contribution.
As Mark Zuckerberg mentioned in his Harvard commencement speech, It is essential to have a "sense of purpose" in life and your career. It would help if you chose a career aligned with your personality needs. Figuring out one's intrinsic strengths would give you more clarity about your job. Also, have a growth plan for yourself and choose an employer whose vision is aligned with your thought processes and values.