What You’re Probably Getting Wrong About Burnout
Sometimes, fighting the feeling can be as straightforward as redefining it
Inevitably, every few months, I’ll follow the demands of a creative career and a tough schedule straight into an energy crash. I find myself totally zapped, at a complete loss for story ideas or inspiration. “I need a break,” I’ll tell my friends. “I’m burnt out.”
Recently, while reporting a story on the science-based metric used to actually measure burnout for BBC’s Worklife, I realized I’ve been using the term all wrong: What I’ve been experiencing isn’t really burnout. As I wrote in that piece, real burnout has three major criteria, and I only meet one — exhaustion. (The other two are feeling cynical about your job and being ineffectual at it.) So while the part about needing a break is true, it turns out I’m not actually burnt out at all.
This was a watershed moment for me, and it made a huge and immediate difference. Hearing that I wasn’t burnt out — not clinically, anyway — was restorative. Realizing I didn’t meet the other criteria made me consider all the things I enjoy about my work and made me feel reenergized. In short, being told I wasn’t burnt out was enough to make me stop feeling burnt out.
