Professional burnout. The mix of pain and guilt. Let’s get a bit personal.
“You often feel tired, not because you’ve done too much, but because you’ve done too little of what sparks a light in you”. For me burnout is not about the amount of work, it is about different processes and categories. Just like in relationships.
A healthy and harmonious relationship can only be built on a fundament of equal resource exchange, common values, and plans, mutual respect, and support. Everyone has their personal percentage ratio of these important components. You can understand it only by going within yourself. There is no universal recipe here.
When starting our relationship with a company, we bond with its ecosystem and rules, with its atmosphere, culture, and values.
The real values. Not the ones that are written on the wall at the entrance, nor those on the website. I’m talking about the ones that you see in the communication between colleagues. The ones you observe when you go to the office kitchen to make some tea.
Business stereotypes
You and the company both have a trial period. The time is given to you to understand whether you fit each other or not. But here begins the story of codependent relationships. And at this stage, we all are hostages of business stereotypes.
After all, an employee who often changes jobs is a “bad apple”. “There must be something wrong with him/her, why would he/she change jobs that often?” Right? And if she/he left with a scandal? Who cares about personal boundaries here …
Plus you make the money for a living. The majority of people will be just too frightened to take a step into the unknown. That’s why endurance is the answer. Not the positive way of endurance and patience. More like a constant load that you carry. With time this load transforms into suffering. Where there is endurance, there is always burnout. Dependence and fear also begin their path with endurance.
The moment we start feeling endurance and fear at work, we’ll also start craving for extra support at home. Huge amounts of resources from family and friends are needed to bring back the balance.
Here are some fresh statistics on professional burnouts.
During the COVID pandemic, cases of professional burnouts have increased. 75% of people have felt burned out at work, and 40% have felt so during the pandemic in particular, according to a FlexJobs and Mental Health America survey of more than 1,500 people.
A Glint survey of more than 700,000 employees worldwide found that comments related to burnout doubled from March 2020 (pre-lockdown) to April 2020 (during the lockdown, working remotely), increasing from 2.7% to 5.4%.
1. When you give more than you get.
A simple resource inequality. Speaking about money, about gratitude, and about simple, yet needed “thank you” and “welcome”. About personal respect and respect to the personal space, everyone should have it.
2. No resting time.
When you literally don’t get the minimal amount of sleep for the physical recovery of strength for a long period. Note that, there is nothing about additional joys in life here. I believe that it is realistic to work in sprint mode, but after the race, you need to catch your breath and recover. But when the sprint lasts more than 6 months in a row without days off and holidays, the consequences are guaranteed.
Health will go down the hill faster than Jack and Jill. I didn’t have to wait very long to see the aftereffect. Did the hardcore hustle for over a year, when the hustle almost did me.
3. ASAP tasks that always must be ready yesterday.
Yesterday never ends and no task can be moved or rescheduled. Absolute nonstop mode.
Yesterday’s ASAP tasks usually came from the head office, bringing all the top management soft tissues on fire. Which fire logically spread to the teams. With almost every butt on fire, there were only a few of those who knew how to motivate and how to help their teams. Not to stimulate an already “dead” team. Memories of the 2014–2015 crisis …still remember them like it was yesterday.
4. A job that you have long outgrown.
Non-systematic and non-optimized processes that force qualified professionals to do monkey jobs. And when this type of work becomes 80% for a person who is used to thinking and working with strategic tasks, burnout is already traveling in the elevator and will soon knock on the door. If inspiration has died, then you can no longer push.
You can add an endless amount of reasons. Yet, everyone has their own personal list. Experience is extremely individual. Most importantly, nobody wants to talk about this experience. For it is a shame to burn out! It is a shame to fail!
People want to meet all motivational and PR posts on Facebook, to play a successful and strong superhuman who sleeps 3 hours a day, runs marathons, and moves mountains in business. But somehow burning out is ranked as a disaster and failure!
Moreover, admitting the fact of burning out brings you listening to moralizing speeches from recruiters and employers about your weakness and inconsistency. When answering questions about the gap in your resume that formed when you were just trying to survive, you are forced to make excuses … It’s the impossibility of almost everyone telling the truth and being understood … It is to see the condescending look of “the girl/boy is tired of working”, “still looking for herself/himself” … It is to get up and keep going, even when your professional and personal core is broken. These are hours of therapy, working with your self-esteem, feelings of shame, and guilt. Along with the careful restoration of your self-worth.
What does burnout look like? No, it’s not when you are very tired. This is when you no longer want to live.
P.S. This stage has passed and it’s gone now. Today I work hard and I feel good about it! I found myself, my balance, and my people!
Author: Daria Kushnir
Editor: Lilly Zaremska
