Why it’s Hard to Hit the Brakes on Burnout

When we are in chronic workplace stress, burnout is often a matter of when, not if. Here’s why.

Stress of itself is not bad. We need stress to grow and learn.

Chronic stress is different.

When you are subject to ongoing, chronic workplace stress, eventually, you are pretty likely to start experiencing one or more of the three dimensions of burnout:

• exhausted,
• cynical about work and possibly life, and
• reduced professional efficacy.

And once you’re in burnout, you will generally lack the perspective and motivation you need to change things and not burn all the way out.

Which makes avoiding burnout, really, really hard.

How self-care advice makes things worse

There are countless books, articles and websites full of tips and tricks that suggest that, irrespective of your work and life situation, you as an individual can somehow sidestep burnout.

The problem with the proliferation of these messages is that they reinforce the idea that we as individuals should somehow be impervious to the forces of a toxic work culture and the systems that keep them in place.