Is a job ever worth burnout?
If you have recovered from burnout, or ever experienced it, you will know that the answer to this question is, quite simply, no.
Burnout affects your health mentally and physically and, for a lot of people, makes them become someone who cannot fully focus on work. It can make them anxious, afraid, exhausted, nervous, or overwhelmed, and can change a person’s entire outlook on their career.
For people who get a lot of their identity from their career, business or role, feeling so drained they cannot function, or working in a toxic work environment can exacerbate the problem because their usual drive, motivation and passion has disappeared.
I keep reading posts on social media about people who are spending their evenings crying and their mornings sitting in the car, plucking up the courage to go into work. Perhaps it is a toxic boss, perhaps an unreasonable workload, perhaps pressure and unrealistic deadlines, but the fact still remains, that NOTHING is worth burnout because, quite simply, it can kill you. On average, it takes 3 months to a year to fully recover from burnout, even once the stress has disappeared.
Burnout is the fourth stage of stress, where your body has been living in the adaption phase for a prolonged period of time and your mind has told your body that it has to adapt to this level for the long term. The problem with this is that it comes with a series of serious health issues. Not only will our bodies be living with increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, anxiety, migraines and headaches, skin issues, gut problems, lack of focus, insomnia and chronic inflammation, burnout brings with it increased risk of sickness and infection, possible heart disease, cancer and stroke. It can quite literally cause premature death, and no job is worth that.
What to do?
First of all, it is important to recognize the difference between stress and burnout. Stress is when everything seems to be too much and there is not enough time to do what needs done and to meet all the demands of your life. When you are stressed, you can see the hope that once the stress subsides, things will improve. Burnout, however, is more of a physical and mental state where the outlook is much bleaker. It is difficult to see past the burnout and any outlook is mostly one of hopelessness. The way out, or a solution, seems impossible and you will not have the mental or physical capacity to even contemplate HOW to get out of the situation.
The first thing to do is to seek help. This can be from a therapist, a friend, a family member, a colleague, boss or a coach – it does not matter, but simply talking about it can help reduce some of the overwhelm.
The three areas which need to be addressed to fully recover from burnout are:
- Lifestyle (physical health)
- Limiting beliefs (mental health)
- Leadership (business, job or career)
The order in which they will be dealt will be different with each person, but for me, this is the order of importance.
When you have no energy or mental clarity, it is impossible to make career decisions and decide what the next step is. If you are physically sick and suffering from illness, you cannot spend time applying for new jobs or updating your CV. Physical health must come first. By looking at ways to improve lifestyle through healthy habits, sleep, nutrition and exercise, the positive effect can be astounding. Once the physical health is improving and healthy routines have been established to optimize wellness, the work then needs to shift to your headspace and where the belief has come from that you need to stay in a job, position or career that is causing your health to deteriorate. And finally, one these have been tackled, you will have more mental clarity to think about next steps.
No job is worth burnout
If you are feeling the signs or symptoms of burnout now, please do something to alleviate the symptoms or reach out to someone who can help you see that no job is worth health issues. No money, no good conditions, no opportunity, and no nice team are worth staying in a job where health is jeopardized for profit or production.
We are not on this earth to work ourselves into the ground, and as much as we can all cope with periods of undue stress, deadlines, appraisals, and performance reviews, to live in this heightened state of stress for a prolonged term is detrimental to your physical and mental health and you must muster the energy to make small changes before it is too late.