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SO WHATdo I DONEXT?

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A lot of people think burnout is failure, that burnout prevention is endurance (just try harder and don’t succumb), and that burnout ends when we change jobs.

But burnout is just information - and it’s on you to make meaning of the message.

Most of us weren’t taught how to do that, though. So poke around here if you’re curious about what your burnout is telling you and if you want to start your own experiments in burnout recovery.

And If you want more personal guidance, schedule some time with me to see if working together would be the right next step.

Until then, happy poking.

What the Fog?

Am I stressed, overwhelmed, or something more?

Maybe you're not sure it's burnout. Maybe you're just really tired right now — more than usual, for longer than makes sense.

You don't need a label. But chronic stress tends to leave some pretty recognizable signs. If a few of these have been true for you lately, it's probably worth taking a closer look.

Tired in a way that sleep doesn't actually fix
Snapping at people you love, more than you'd like to admit
Brain fog that makes daily tasks feel like you’re doing surgery with astronaut gloves on
Overthinking and decision paralysis
Mind running multiple threads at once, rarely quiet
Feeling guilty about resting — or calculating "the most productive way to rest."
A quiet "why bother" feeling that's crept into work or things you used to care about
Doing all the “right things” and still feeling like nothing is working
Imposter syndrome louder than usual

Read the full article on self-assessment → know what you're actually dealing with.

It’s True: Almost everyone misses early burnout.

Because early burnout feels like the opposite of burnout. It feels like the climb towards the top of the rollercoaster, except you don’t know it’s a rollercoaster. You just think “this is new and challenging as hell! Can’t wait to continue this miraculous never-ending ascent!”.

And most people miss the next stage too - because it feels like what we’ve come to accept as “normal” in this always busy, always rushing, always at capacity, always keeping the people pleased but no one is actually ever fully pleased, modern world.

No wonder most people only recognize burnout, if they ever do, it its deepest stage - the chronic functional freeze, or the body riots, the seething resentment, the cognitive fog.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We can learn to see the signs earlier. And the first step is a reality check on where you actually are.

Where am I?

Burnout isn't a switch that flips. It builds in stages, and most people don't recognize it until they're well into Stage 2 — and rarely act until they’re in Stage 3 and are considering antidepressants or a leave of absence… or they get laid off.

You can also move between stages within a single day — which is part of why it's so disorienting. Research by Christina Maslach has been mapping this since the 1970s, and one consistent finding is that burnout is reversible at any stage. It's a biological process, not a personal failure.

Workplace Burnout

Burnout isn’t just from OVERWORK

If work is where you're feeling it most, Maslach and Leiter's research points to six conditions that consistently set the stage for burnout when they go sideways:

Too much work with not enough time to recover
Little real say in how you do your job
Effort that goes unnoticed or unacknowledged
Nobody at work you actually trust
Decisions or processes that feel unfair
Work that doesn't line up with your values

You don't need all six. Two or three, sustained over time, is usually enough.

AND: Managers burn out at higher rates than anyone else on the org chart — and research shows their stress transmits to their teams and stays detectable for up to a year. If you manage people, your burnout isn't just your problem.

Want to learn more? Check out these articles or hit the button below to learn more about speaking and training

Learn More About Workplace Culture Speaking + Training

Downloads and DIYs

Dip a toe into self-guided burnout recovery, prevention, and resilience with these curated resources of my client’s most requested topics.

Ready to do something different?

Start here.

FLOURISH Burnout Recovery Process

Click here to download
Workbook: Personal Burnout Map

Click here to download
Detailed Stages of Burnout Table

Click here to download
eBook: The Parent You Want To Be: Compassionate Guide to Parents' Big Feelings

Click here to download
The 3-page Quick Version! The Parent You Want To Be: Compassionate Guide to Parents' Big Feelings

Click here to download
eBook: Freedom from the Fire, A Compassionate Guide to Burnout Recovery

Click Here to Download

“DON’T HALF-ASS TWO THINGS, WHOLE-ASS ONE THING.” —RON SWANSON, PARKS & REC

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