Covid has delivered rapid changes in the past few years, leaving us figuring out the best way to navigate this different terrain. One big challenge is dealing with burnout, which is on the rise in many industries. Dr. Zeina Ghoussoub, Relly Nadler, and Dr. Naim El Aswad posit how common it is in the helping professions, defined as those jobs that nurture the growth of, or address the problems of a person’s physical, intellectual, emotional, or spiritual wellbeing including medicine, nursing, psychotherapy, psychological, counseling, social work, education, life coaching, and ministry.
Defining Burnout
The World Health Organization defines burnout as an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has been unsuccessfully managed. It is characterized by three interrelated components: exhaustion, a negative view of the job, and oneself. It is mainly related to an occupational context, and some would argue should not be used to describe experiences in people’s lives related to personal issues like parental or caretaker burnout.
Let’s explore the three components of burnout further:
1. Feeling of energy depletion or exhaustion. Excessive fatigue of the mind, body, and soul is the natural stress response. It is the feeling of running on a battery in the red because it will shut down at any time whether you want it or not. This can contribute to insomnia, high blood pressure, vulnerability to illness, and mood disorders. But burnout is more than working long and hard and feeling spent; there are two other components.
2. Negative, hostile, or cynical feelings related to the job. You become more distant from the job; you may do the bare minimum; you know you are not doing your best because you have reduced your level of care for the work. This dislike, disengagement, and disconnection directly lead to increased mistakes, decreased productivity, loss of vitality, and poor performance. The mental distance from the job has you doing the bare minimum rather than your best.
3. Negative evaluation of your effectiveness. You can make it personal, think your struggles are about you, and have nothing to do with the job or context. You may think, what is wrong with me, why can’t I handle my overwhelming situation, and not want to let anyone know that you cannot deal with the intensity. The implication is that you have to somehow make it work rather than change the circumstances. These feelings of despair can lead to a loss of motivation, anxiety, and even depression.
How burnout differs from stress, languishing, and depression
Burnout is not the same as stress. We can be stressed about a situation and not have burnout, especially if we do not have the presence of all three components.
Burnout is not the same as languishing. Author Corey Keyes coined this term, prevalent during the peak of Covid, because it triggered a loss of our beloved routines, connection to others, and a sense of emptiness and stagnation. We feel aimless, joyless, and experience an absence of wellbeing because we are not functioning at full capacity. When we are languishing, it seems like we are muddling through, similar to the feeling captured in the movie Groundhog Day. We have dampened focus, motivation, and excitement for the future. This general feeling of blah is not just related to work, but to our personal lives as well. Instead of bouncing out of bed early, we lie there aimlessly. It can be a risk factor for depression because it stays under the radar and can slowly slip without intervention.
Burnout is not the same as sadness or depression. Sadness is usually temporary and tied to one specific event, your friend has moved, your kids are going to college, you change jobs, and you feel loss. This is normal. It is also not the same as depression, which is a medical or clinical diagnosis where you feel sad in many areas of your life; you have a gloomy filter through which you view the world, all is gray, and you have lost all interest, nothing seems intriguing, engaging, or hopeful. You can feel despondent, drained, and worthless. It can be debilitating to have a functioning life; one of the best interventions is to speak to a professional to get proper help.
Burnout Causes
Christina Maslach, a Burnout pioneer, points out six causes or mismatches in a person’s life that can lead to burnout.
1. Excessive Workload. This is when the job demands are so high that they exceed your human limits. No matter what you do, there is this pervasive feeling that you cannot keep up, and are always in over your head. Your resources (time, equipment, information) are insufficient, so it feels like an impossible gap to close.
2. Lack of Control. This relates to how much control (actual or perceived) you have over your work, and how you pick your assignments and choose your work. How much decision-making power do you have to do things you think are right, effective, and necessary? How you can improvise, innovate, course correct, and find better ways of doing things. It can be demoralizing when you do not feel empowered to exercise your best judgment; you feel micromanaged or the weight of rigid policies holding you down. When there are all kinds of changes made to your project, and you find out that nobody has ever asked you, it can feel demoralizing.
3. Insufficient rewards. When you feel like your efforts are not fully matched with the right rewards – not being promoted to the correct title commensurate with your work, not getting paid fairly, and not having access to the leadership team and decision-making. It is also about not getting recognized by leadership for a job well done or receiving positive feedback. You may not believe there are social or intrinsic rewards for doing something well.
4. Unfairness. It is a basic human need to be treated fairly, we yearn for it in our roles, policies, and practices, so if we perceive that this is not the case, it is a cause for burnout. If we believe there is a glass ceiling, discrimination, and unethical behavior of people getting ahead or promoted by lying and cheating or just by connections and charm rather than by merit, it frustrates us to our core; it makes us feel disrespected and cynical. If we are innovating and others are coasting, yet we are being treated the same or worse, and they are moving forward, that can be painful. It is the classic case of you and your peer getting promoted, but they get the corner office, and your office does not change. It is hard for us to feel engaged by an unjust system.
5. Lack of Community. Your relationships matter more than you might think. Do you feel you have a good social support, somebody to turn to when you need help? Do you trust that others will do the right thing and act respectfully toward each other? When the opposite is true, and you feel like you are working in a toxic environment where everybody is just out for themselves, nobody helps or shares information, people are two-faced and throwing each other under the bus to get ahead, there is bullying, and bad behavior, it is stifling environment. If you feel like you are working in a silo and do not have that many positive connections to your peers, bosses, clients, and partners, your engagement will be dampened.
A big part of community is having psychological safety where you feel comfortable taking interpersonal risks and sharing your ideas and concerns without feeling like you will be dismissed or attacked. If you see something is wrong, you feel at ease to speak up and offer your ideas to improve things and do not have to think you will be retaliated against. Your leadership team listens to you and, even if they disagree, provides reasons for their decisions.
6. Mismatch in meaning, purpose, and values. People want to work at a place with others who share similar values. They want to find meaning in their work and have pride in thinking they are doing a good job and contributing to something. If the job requires you to have conflicts with your values and principles, it will be a losing proposition.
From the work I’ve done with my clients, there are a few more areas that I notice:
7. Lack of development. Experiencing a development plateau, being in a job for too long without encountering the revitalizing effects of your growth. You have the right to expect that working at a company will allow you to be a bigger and better version of yourself, and when that does not happen, it is disappointing. Not feeling like you are progressing can lead to burnout. This is not to say that you should not be proactive in managing your career advancement and expect your manager to do all the work, but there is something to be said for leaders partnering with you in your growth path.
8. Unmet expectations. If you do not have clear expectations for your role from your manager and find yourself constantly guessing and never knowing how you are doing, that can be dramatically draining and can cause you to feel frustrated. It is helpful when a leader provides clear expectations and transparency on your performance without surprises so you can be efficient with your work because you know what’s on the checklist.
9. Personality tendencies. Some people can be more prone to burnout than others. People who do not have good coping mechanisms, people more disposed to anxiety and depression, and some women who are the primary caretakers. If you generally have a hard time saying no to people, if you possess a compulsion to prove yourself, or if you prefer to work hard consistently and do not know how to switch off, you can find yourself neglecting your basic needs of sleep, healthy eating, and social interaction, which is a recipe for burnout.
Being aware of the causes of burnout is only the first step. Thinking about taking preventative measures before reaching that point will contribute to a much healthier existence.
Quote of the day: “Burnout is what happens when you try to avoid being human for too long.” – Michael Gungor, Author.
Q: Where are your biggest job stressors that can most likely lead to burnout for you? Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!
The next blog in this series 2/2 will focus on burnout remedies.
As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to address burnout and create energizing team experiences, contact me to explore this topic further.
How does burnout show up for you?