Contemplating Life’s Choices

** Heads up, I have a lot I want to discuss and share around my experience with burnout so this will end up being a series of posts. For ease, I will label the posts in the title like you see here. Welcome to season 1, episode 1.

As someone who is typically proud of my ability to be agile, resilient, to push through hard times, to assume positive intent, to seek understanding, to advocate for my needs, to set clear boundaries, and to lean on my support systems in times of stress I felt like my world was a lie when I burned out.

According to this article by the America Psychological Association ““Workplace” burnout is an occupation-related syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. Burnout can be measured and quantified using validated scientific tools. It involves ongoing emotional exhaustion, psychological distance or negativity, and feelings of inefficacy—all adding up to a state where the job-related stressors are not being effectively managed by the normal rest found in work breaks, weekends, and time off (World Health Organization, 2019).”

The APA article continues by saying “true workplace burnout is specific to one’s job or occupation and is more concerning and detrimental than the daily irritations everyone experiences and most of us manage.”

There are three dimensions to workplace burnout:

• Reduced sense of efficacy at work
• Feelings of energy depletion or emotional exhaustion
• Increased mental distance from one’s work and negative or cynical feelings toward one’s work

When I hit burnout it checked the box for each of these things. I’d already spent months exhausted both physically and mentally. No amount of sleep, drinking water, eating healthy, or anything like that helped. I even had some pre-planned vacations over the summer so I had ample time away from work where I could truly detach and rest and every time I’d come back to work exhausted as ever.

Over the summer I also realized I was going down a negative path when I was in a constant cycle of negativity, cynicism, and bitterness towards work. One minute I’d be doing something awesome with a peer or customer and then something bad would happen or another round of layoffs would hit and I’d be back in the doomspiral of despair.

Finally the worst hit when I ended up spending 2-3 hours on a Zoom with one of my peers sobbing because I couldn’t figure out how to do my job. She’d walk me through some ideas and it would all make sense then I’d sit down to do the work and it would feel like I had nothing. Intellectually I could understand what she was saying but it was as if someone would erase all my experience and knowledge when I’d go to do the work. My sense of efficacy was in the toilet and down the drain.

So, what caused this. As I look back it was the eight rounds of layoffs in under two years, the entire c-suite turning over at least once and in some cases three times in that timeframe, shifting across seven different leaders for the team I’m on – with some of the leaders being exceptionally poor leaders, watching great people choose to leave because of the instability, a debt restructure that was leaked to the public that created more fear and anxiety for everyone, constant reorganizations, shifts in strategy/priorities, and an ongoing lack of clarity in my teams work in particular.

I was as resilient as I could be. I asked questions. I raised my hand when red flags came up. I set boundaries and stopped volunteering for everything and anything to ensure I had time to focus on my client work. I assumed positive intent that with every change hopeful the worst was over and we were on our way back to a healthy work environment. I took my vacations and disconnected and did my best to get more sleep and eat better. I had strong support from my team members, peers, friends, and family.

I still burned out.

I’m going to go into more of what I’ve learned and experienced on my journey across a number of posts but if you want to hear the full story now I did share some of my experience on The Slog Pod.

If you care about workplace mental health, wellness, and culture their show is worth a follow. The Slog Pod can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Probably other podcast apps but those are the ones I’m familiar with.