Whatif… Burnout doesn’t just come from the job?

I love my job. I’m grateful for the intellectual challenge, the relationships I build with colleagues and students, and the flexibility and autonomy that comes with professor life.  There are, of course, small things that are a bit exhausting or irritating, but that comes with any job. And I’m happy to navigate those because they mean I get to do real work that I love.

However, I also have firsthand experience with the realities of burnout. We often talk about burnout as something that comes from a bad work environment. Toxic boss, no autonomy or creativity, working with people who are equally miserable, never being able to disconnect… These are all things that can lead to burnout. 

But what does it mean when you are doing work you love and still experience burnout? Where does burnout come from if you can’t blame it on the structure of your work? Maybe it has less to do with the way your work is, and more about your way of being. 

I was recently in a practice coaching session with a friend, and we stumbled upon this nugget of wisdom. I was explaining how I felt like I was in a place of overwhelm and chaos, and she stopped me from simply trying to make a to do list and asked me what my bigger goal was. She challenged me to think about what that activity in the to-do list was designed to accomplish. And it occurred to me I hadn’t really had the time to think about the answer to that question. She observed that it sounded like I needed space. Not just “stepping away from work for a bit”, but the cognitive space to think about the bigger picture and how my very busy lifestyle connected to that bigger picture.

So maybe there is some work burnout (I had said yes to more things than I had the time to give my energy to), but bigger than that is that my way of being is to “be busy”. Being busy is comfortable; it gives me that dopamine hit from completing a to do list, without giving me the resources to engage in focus, deep thinking, and creativity.

My burnout comes from my own sense of guilt and shame from sitting still and not “being busy”. It comes from working to a point where I am too tired to take a healthy break, and instead I take an energy-sucking break (e.g., binge watching tv or mindlessly scrolling). It’s a combination of core beliefs about myself and mismanaging my energy. 

Whatif…. burnout isn’t about the job, but about the way we are interacting with the world? Moreover, whatif we attempt to treat our burnout not by blaming the external world, but by challenging ourselves to interact with the world in a way that allows us to navigate life with more grace?