What is Burnout?
Burnout is “chronic emotional, physical and mental stress caused by work roles”.
World Health Organisation 2019, officially recognised burnout as a condition.
Have you ever felt burnout; where your work life is consuming you rather than empowering you? You feel like a shell of the person you want to be.
You are not alone. 46% of Australian workers are experiencing burnout in 2022, which is 10% more than last year.
Why? Almost 80% say it’s because of increased workloads, adapting to the pandemic and economic uncertainty. In May 2022, the Australian Bureau of statistics show 2.1 million people lost their jobs in 2021 and those who have picked up the surplus workload with less resources are, on average, working 6 hours unpaid work per week!
Burnout creeps up on us. It happens because we are so passionate about our work that we are no longer being compassionate with ourselves. We keep giving more time and energy to our job and less time restoring our own energy. Work becomes our obsession.
Let’s talk about how it develops and how we can grow through it. Burnout has three distinct stages:
Stage 1 - Honeymoon stage
Like a lit match, our work ignites a passion. It fulfils a purpose, gives us a lifestyle, empowering us to be creative, productive, energised and we are comfortably stretched to test our limits. We have breaks and space to think. Others admire and respect us, which feeds our need to be purposeful and make a difference.
Stage 2 - Stress stage
Like a match that begins to burn its energy source, we begin to feel stress and it becomes harder to keep up. We come home exhausted and have less time to do the things that bring us joy. We tend to use alcohol or other drugs more and we become more irritable. Others see we are doing too much, become concerned and warn us. We can’t see that we are pushing too hard, believing that giving just a little bit more, is temporary.
Stage 3 - Burnout
Like a match that has nothing more to give, we burnout. The work treadmill gets faster. We get sick and we proudly push through. We blame others not doing enough, the workplace not doing enough, the world not doing enough. We can’t get to sleep, can’t stay asleep and only want to sleep. Our work performance is affected and our important relationships with ourselves and those we love suffer…and then we get really sick. We can’t go on. We are burnt out. Rather than work feeding our passion, it has become toxic. It has poisoned us.
Burnout is overwhelming and addressing it seems exhausting as we feel powerless to take control.
Can we come back from burnout?
Yes. Humans are extremely adaptable. Burnout is not the end, it’s a new beginning.
Just as fire burns and clears for new growth, burnout clears for our new growth.
We clear what we don’t want and grow what we do want our lives to be.
How do we come back from burnout?
Excellent question! We chat about it here.
