Recovery from burnout is not the same as resolving it.
Bad BO, on average, impacts one in three people at work and one in ten people at home.
Some of the worst industries for BO are:
Social work: 75%
Law: 73%
Business development and sales: 67%
Retail: 58%
Tech:50%
Medicine: 44%
First Responders: 15-40%
Teachers: 18-25%
The problem is that most people who have it don’t know what to do about it and make the strategic mistake of believing that recovering from it resolves it.
The BO I’m talking about here is burnout.
The reason why people tend to focus on recovery rather than resolution is because most people fixate on the symptoms rather than the root causes; e.g. the focus is on resolving the symptoms of burnout, rather than its causes, which leads to the mistaken belief that all that's needed is some rest and relaxation. This is why most people believe that recovering from burnout means resting or going on a holiday to rebuild your capacity. There is nothing wrong with going on a holiday and recovering from burnout; it's just that at some point in the future, you will be in exactly the same spot. In fact, it will happen again and again. And each time, you will take some time to recover and then climb back onto your infinite mousewheel.
The reason why recovery doesn’t work long-term can be seen in the cyclical, rather than one-off, nature of burnout. The cyclical nature of burnout exists because there are deeper, structural drivers of burnout that need to be addressed, and the low energy levels and other physical and mental symptoms are signposts directing your attention to your underlying behavioural pattern. These deeper drivers tend to revolve around several key drivers.
One of the key drivers of burnout is a lack of autonomy. That is to say, people who suffer burnout often get there because they don’t believe that they have the capacity to control what they have to do in life and end up working too hard. This is an extremely challenging belief for many people to change because they have constructed very solid arguments in their mind that support their perspective. Sooner or later the stories you tell yourself about life that lead to problems like burnout will need to be faced because your physical and mental health will continue to degrade with each burnout and recovery cycle.
The truth is that there are only two choices:
Rest, recover, and repeat until there is a serious mental or physical blowout.
Make the changes needed to break the burnout and recovery cycle.
It is a courageous and challenging choice to lean into breaking any pattern or cycle, as there are usually lots of good reasons why it exists. Resolving burnout requires a fairly deep review of how and why you live life the way you do. The good news is that cycles of burnout and recovery are not a mandatory death sentence, and there is some fantastic research out there to support you.
If you are struggling with burnout, giving yourself the time to recover is still the best thing to do in the short term. @Sandy and I would welcome a chat with you. While we have our course, not everyone is ready or needs that, and perhaps a short chat to give you some support would be enough. We are both happy to offer you some simple suggestions to improve your life and move you toward resolving burnout rather than endless burnout and recovery cycles.
