Let me tell you about Burnout. Burnout and I used to party a lot back in the day. He and I have shared legendary binges and  hangovers together.  I’ve always found that Burnout used to show up at my door at times when I have been out of balance for a very long time (e.g., going full force at work, or on some project without any reprieve or recovery).

But when Burnout arrives, his idea of a party doesn’t include anything fun like games, dancing, or wine & cheese platters. No, his idea of a good party, involved getting  angry, frustrated, moody, acting wildly out of character, and a host of other unhealthy behaviors.

He doesn’t mind alcohol or medication, in fact he prefers it, because those things cover up, conceal, and even prolong Burnout. He is not a good friend at all, but he has a surprising number of friends in his crew, like: Exhaustion, Illness, Anger, Frustration, Hopelessness, Overwhelm, Insomnia, Short-Term Thinking, Impaired Judgment, Apathy, Critical, Blind-Spot, Giving-up, Poor-Self-Image, and his rather rough friend Self-Destruction. I once dated his cousin Depression for about 6 months when I was younger. The thing with Burnout is that he’s a wandering nomad, and can sometimes be an unwelcome house guest. He starts by staying over a few days, but then days turn into weeks, and then he becomes so familiar that weeks can blend into months. He will move in, take over the place, and impact every area of our life. We can’t think straight, we can’t sleep, we can’t function normally at all. One by one, his friends and relatives start visiting more and more, and eventually some of them move in too. Over time, Depression will move in, because she is very attached to her cousin. And once she moves in she tends to takeover and is the hardest to evict. 

Burnout hates anything positive. In fact, he gets annoyed by fun, happy people, or any kind of healthy habit or activity. He loves being negative, apathetic, and even nihilistic. Positivity not only annoys him, but threatens him. Burnout hates breaks and vacations, and would much rather we just kept on working without asking for any help – after all we are the only ones who can do what we do, right? 

In my own work and life, I’ve partied with Burnout more than I care to admit – the frequent all-nighters in college; the frequent last-minute project deadlines; the business opportunities that took weeks or months to develop; the time I helped co-found a non-profit, and I worked 16-hour days for years on end to get it going and sustain it. I can be slow to learn these lessons, and it took me decades to figure out that just like a night of binge drinking can leave us with a significant hangover the next day, a time of binge working or service for long periods of time can leave us severely hungover with Burnout. And just like those times, with head hung over the toilet, we declare we are never going to drink that much again, I became so “beat up” by Burnout that I had to make some hard decisions after repeating the behavior over and over. The cycle had to end.  If you think you have struggled with Burnout, believe me,you are in good company.

How do you know if you are burned out? Let’s look at just some of the signs and symptoms that you may be strung out on Burnout.

1. You feel absolutely exhausted all the time
2. You feel “under the weather” with alarming frequency 
3. You have completely lost the spark, fire, or light you once had
4. You feel numb, hollow, or even dead inside
5. You feel no motivation whatsoever
6. You care less about your work
7. You care less about your reputation or how you look to others
8. You have given up hope of returning to a happy disposition
9. You feel negative about everything and everyone
10. You are frequently short and angry with people, you may even find yourself even snapping at them
11. Your self-confidence is completely shot
12. People come up to you and ask if you are alright, or even suggest that you need a break

It’s important to note that it’s very normal to feel many of these things over the course of a single bad day, week, or month. However, it’s a different story when we feel one or more of these symptoms over a longer period of time like weeks, months, or even years. Then we need to be genuinely concerned about Burnout. 

So what do we do about it? the answer is simple – The 4 R’s:

• Rest
• Recover
• Re-Create
• Restore

We must learn to build structured time into our life for rest, recovery, re-creation, and restoration in an effort to avoid, or evict Burnout. The worst thing we can do to him is to:

• Make definite decisions toward happiness and joy
• Surround ourselves with cool, inspiring and uplifting people
• Immerse ourselves in healthy food, drinking water, physical movement, breathing, and meditation
• Bathe ourselves in uplifting words
• Take days off and vacations
• Seek ways to make work more efficient, productive, playful, personable, and easy-going

The more we change our habits to include cycles of downtime, Burnout will eventually move out, and fade out of the picture entirely. 
Burnout may party like a rock star, but he has no redeeming qualities at all. And we can join him, and his crew, if we are not careful. The good news is, despite our thoughts to the contrary, we do have control over ourselves and how we spend our time and energy. None of us, myself included, is ever so busy that we have absolutely no time whatsoever to take a moment to breathe, stretch, drink some water, eat a healthy snack, shake off the stress, take a walk, do a little Yoga, or just take a moment to connect and confide in someone we love or trust. Sometimes, a listening ear is all we need. Too often we are deceived into thinking that news or social media will bring us restoration. Quite the contrary, in fact. These have been scientifically proven to bring down our emotional state rather than enhance it. We need to make better choices. We can say “no” to Burnout, but we must first say “yes” to ourselves and our own needs. Remember, put on your own oxygen mask first, and then you can help others with theirs.