Why are we all burned out? What can we do about it?
Burnout is insidious. It can happen to anyone at any point in their lives, across any area. It doesn’t discriminate and it doesn’t care what else is going on in your life. The problem is, we tend to associate burnout with work. Someone tells you that they’re burned out and we immediately assume that they’re doing 90 hour work weeks, have a horrendous boss, or they’re on a plane every week burning the candle at both ends with a high-flying consulting gig. Rarely do we associate burnout with things like family, relationships, or something fun, like travel. And that’s the thing – it can happen across any area. At least for me, it’s reared its ugly head throughout my life often at times when I was least expecting it.
It might not fit the clinical definition of burnout – I wasn’t at death’s door, collapsing, unable to work. Nor was I suffering overtly. Or perhaps I was, but I just stomached the pain, because isn’t it all just part of life anyway? Good old Slavic immigrant upbringing: head down and plough through. In any case, burnout can show up to varying degrees, in different ways. The question is, if it’s so prevalent -- why does it happen? Why do so many of us suffer from it?
There’s one common denominator that I’ve noticed throughout all of my burnout experiences – and those that I’ve observed. Now, I’m not a doctor, nor a therapist. This might all be anecdotal and just coincidence – but given how common burnout is, and how little we know about treating it (beyond taking an extended break and going on an extended holiday or quitting our jobs and then just going on an extended sabbatical), I feel it’s worth pointing out.
It comes down to needs. Every single time I have suffered some form of burnout it’s been because I’ve been neglecting my own needs.
What are needs? Based on motivational theory in psychology, most famously demonstrated in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, needs start at the physiological (food, shelter, sleep), and then onwards to things like safety, belonging, esteem, and ultimately, self-actualization. More recently, psychologists have identified many types of needs. These have been separated into different categories (Noltemeyer et al., 2021):
Primary needs. Fundamentals like food, water, clothing, and shelter. Safety comes into here too. So, whilst traveling, you will need to solve for water and food, make sure you’re warm and feel safe with a roof over your head (or sleeping bag if choosing to sleep under the stars). Healthcare needs are primary.
Secondary needs. These come second. Examples include furniture, functionality (dishwasher or sink, for example), style of clothes etc. Personality traits dictate many of these. Values like monogamy, having kids or not, living in a quiet place, etc, are further examples.
Tertiary needs. These are the least essential needs (and sometimes wants). A fancy gym, Dior makeup, access to luxury goods, fancy gifts, private school education, holidays abroad, etc - not life and death items - are tertiary.
How does this play out with burnout?
Well, if I ignore my needs, and those needs are important to me (consciously or unconsciously), and I ignore them for a prolonged period of time, my inner tank, bucket, whatever we want to call it, isn’t getting filled. The longer it goes unfilled, the more and more I find myself running on empty (again, consciously or unconsciously). If I don’t even know that I have these needs in the first place, it can be awfully hard to pinpoint why I am feeling so low. If X is important to me but I have no idea, how can I possibly pinpoint X to be lacking in my life? If I am oblivious to the internal drivers within me, the things I ‘need’ to thrive, it follows then that I am likely to miss opportunities to satisfy these drivers. It also follows, that in my bid to achieve, or please others, or fulfil expectations, I might completely neglect these areas – my needs, without even realising.
Take, for example some periods of my life when I was burned out or on the cusp of burning out:
1. My parents' separation. I was a 23 year old adult riddled with responsibilities like running my own fledgling business, living in a new country, and trying to get my life together, whilst much of the pressure to emotionally support my brother and both my parents felt like it fell on my shoulders. I felt exhausted and overwhelmed. My anxiety grew, and grew, until eventually I recall one very dark night when I realised I was at breaking point. It took the quite dramatic steps of a residential retreat in the US, giving away my business to my co-founder, and leaving the country to fully recover. In retrospect, and with greater understanding, I now know that the main issue was that I had no boundaries. My fundamental need for healthy boundaries, which really is a broader need encompassing a flurry of other needs: my need for rest, time alone, space to recharge, recover, to feel taken care of, and to fundamentally be the ‘child’ (and care for my own inner child) were horribly neglected. And so, cue burnout.
2. My relationship. I didn’t realise it at the time, but my most serious relationship was a recipe for burnout. Under the most intense pressure in the pandemic, feeling chronically isolated away from my loved ones in Europe, and with a deluge of other challenging and pressuring factors at play, I realised many of my needs were neglected. Needs I didn’t even know I had until I was running on empty and had to dig deep to reconnect with myself. Things like, safety, security, stability, and certainty. Not everyone has the same requirements for these things, but for me, I learned, I very, very much needed these things. Without them I was like one of those frogs boiling slowly in a pot of hot water. I didn’t see it, or recognise it, but I burned out over time. Hard. I know now how important these are to me, and they’re non-negotiables going forward.
3. Travel. I wouldn’t say this is real burnout, but I recently found myself edging precariously close to it whilst travelling around a country that I thought would be totally fine, but actually was a place where I wasn’t able to meet my own core needs. I felt unsafe (latently, but still), on edge, nervous, unable to access the things that I need most to recharge – nature, peace, quiet, deep rest. I felt disturbingly trapped and whilst nothing was overtly wrong – old me would have just powered through and ignored my own nagging sense of ‘this is off’, been the cool girl who doesn’t complain – but present day me recognises that had I stayed in that environment I would have burned out. That nagging feeling of weight on me, that pressing, looming, dark heaviness of depletion that I know to be a clear sign that my needs aren’t getting met. I left feeling exhausted (always a sign) and have made a further note to myself just how safety, security, peace, rest, and stability is for me. We live and we learn.
4. Work. Lastly, what is a post on burnout without reflecting on burnout at work. But what’s interesting here, is that my burnout at work wasn’t from long hours or a draconian boss. Not at all. Work was manageable. Not easy – it was hard, but I had time to rest. I had weekends off. A boss who I had glasses of wine with and envied the shoes of. Rather, it was burnout because my connection to the people around me, and my sense of purpose – my need to feel connected to my impact, and to the people around me -- was horribly unfulfilled. Again, this wasn’t a strict rendition of burnout because at this point in my life I spot the signs and fix things before they get to that point, but I noticed how the lack of spring in my step, coupled with my growing loneliness, was a recipe for disaster. My need for connection was neglected and working long days up in my apartment in Kensington just wasn’t going to cut it for me.
The good thing is, once we are aware of our needs, clear on the thing that we are lacking – we can fix it. We can put in place those boundaries (whether independently or through the help of a coach). We can communicate our need for stability and safety, and find it elsewhere if needs be. We can remove ourselves from situations that deplete us. We can fill our tanks up with the things that fulfil us. We can forge those connections, strengthen those bonds, and find that sense of purpose. It’s all fixable – it’s all changeable. The most important thing is to be able to figure out what our needs are. Then we need to get really, really clear on what specifically they mean and what we need to fulfil those needs. And then we need to protect and nurture them like we would our own children. Because if we don’t look after our own needs, who will?
A lot of the coaching I do with my system is centred on identifying our needs and finding ways to solve for them. If you’d like to learn more, contact me. I’d love to hear from you.
