I googled ‘am I burnt out?’ Then went back to work.
When I was burning out, occasionally I’d Google it.
People in my life with concerned faces kept throwing the word out there. I’d nod, yes I hear you. But I didn’t actually know what burnout meant, what it felt like, or whether what I was feeling was ‘it’.
"Am I burnt out" "Signs of burnout" “Burnout symptoms”
If I was feeling brave enough: "Burnout quiz"
Here was a list of statements about how I felt at work. Did I agree or disagree?
“There are days I feel tired before I arrive at work.” (I’m exhausted, but isn’t everyone?)
“I can tolerate the pressure of my work very well.” (What do you reckon they mean by very well?)
“I feel more and more engaged in my work.” (Well, I’m thinking about it at 3am and on holidays. I’d say that’s pretty engaged.)
Was I doing it right?
I turned the diagnostic question (am I burnt out, yes or no?) into the opportunity to debate myself on the details: was I burnt out, or ‘just’ (lol) burning out? Ok, if I am burnt out, what level was I at? High, or ‘only’ moderate? What stage was it - early days, or the stage where it was a real thing, the stage where I needed to, I don’t know, tell somebody?
You might have thought I was looking for permission to act.
In fact, I was looking for the opposite - permission to deny. And the more unclear the definition of burnout, the more confusing the scales, the more muddied the symptom list, the more I gave myself permission to kick that can down the road.
Because here’s the thing: I didn’t want proof that I was burnt out. I wanted it to be ‘a busy patch’. I wanted it to be ‘a tough quarter’. I wanted things to get better all by themselves, and I told myself that they would (once that restructure took place, once that new hire started, once that project launched, and then the next).
Proof that I was definitively burnt out would mean no more excuses, no more gentle white lies. It would mean I had to find the energy to find a solution, energy that I simply didn’t have (see above, exhaustion…).
So I closed the tab and got back to work. Back to an unsustainable situation, dwindling performance, crumbling confidence, and a growing sense that something was seriously wrong, but without any idea what to do about it.
I carried on, until crisis point.
I think this happens to a lot of people. And I think it’s going to keep happening to people if the question we keep asking is ‘Am I burnt out?’
Because the longer we spend debating if someone is burnt out or not, the longer we can avoid asking about the workplace conditions that are driving it.
I don’t think I took the burnout quiz again until after I’d quit my job, when I was trying to make sense of what had just happened, trying to work out how long my recovery might be.
Recovery took… longer than I expected. But since then, I’ve started working with people one-on-one to prevent occupational burnout. And I’m certain that the most useful insights come not from an assessment of their burnout symptoms, but of their working conditions.
When we meet, I don't start by asking if they’re exhausted. I ask them: so, what’s happening at work?
I ask about what I call ‘certainty’: things like, do they know what’s expected of them, and what they are and aren’t responsible for? Do they know the path to progress at work, and their career goals? Have there been any changes at work recently, and what changes might be coming down the line? Then I ask them about ‘stretch’: how do they spend their workdays, do their working hours seep into non-work time, how much (or how little) is work challenging them? And importantly I ask, how long have things been this way?
We leapfrog the quest to diagnose and prioritise understanding their context - the conditions that are driving their workplace experience.
By mapping these conditions - certainty, stretch and duration - I can pretty accurately tell you how you’re feeling about work.
And when we eventually get to burnout symptoms, those symptoms are put into context: Yes, you’re feeling deeply disengaged, but who wouldn’t be when your job description is non-existent, the goalposts keep shifting and there’s a restructure on the horizon? Let’s make a plan.
We’re not debating if you’re ‘really’ burnt out. We’re asking, are you - a person in your specific environment - set up for success?
The shift from a focus on personal feelings to environmental factors changes everything. Where there could have been discomfort, shame, defensiveness, instead there’s validation, clarity, empowerment.
A burnout quiz has its place - especially if it helps identify what’s causing how you feel. But without someone to help navigate the results with you and put together a plan for addressing those causes, you’re as lost as you were before you took it, just now maybe with a cute little (completely undeserved) shame spiral added on top.
Burnt out or not, if your workload is unsustainable, or your career direction is unclear, or your role has shifted beyond recognition since that team restructure - those things need addressing, regardless of whether you meet a clinical threshold.
If we want to prevent workplace burnout, I’m suggesting we shift from asking "are you burnt out?", to "are your work conditions set up for you to thrive? And if not, what specifically needs to change?”
Those are questions anyone can ask at any time, long before a symptom may or may not show up on a quiz, and certainly long before crisis point.
Had that quiz asked me, “are your work conditions sustainable?” I could have answered honestly, without needing to self-diagnose an emotional state at the very time I was least capable of doing so.
Given what I now know of the cost of burnout and burnout recovery - emotionally, physically, mentally, financially - it’s a question worth asking.
If this resonated and you'd like to explore what's driving your experience at work, you can book a Work Life Check-in with me here.
Or if you'd like to start on your own, take the free burnout quiz and then contact me for a debrief.
#workplaceburnout #burnoutprevention #leadership
