12 Mindset Shifts to Help You Overcome the Symptoms of Burnout

How can I tell if I'm burned out or just tired?

Being tired is one thing. You need to rest. You take a couple of days off, maybe a vacation. You come back, and you’re refreshed. You’re fine. When you’re burned out, it’s something that’s affected you not just to the point where you’re tired. Tiredness can lead to exhaustion and that continuous exhaustion can eventually lead to burnout. But once you hit burnout, you’ve been tired. You’ve put yourself aside and relationships aside and everything else aside. You basically become someone who is not yourself in service to your work, to the point where you’re not just tired. You’re worn out. In a sense, your “self” has been burned out of the frame of your life and of the role that you stepped into, even with what may have started out with the best of intentions.

Ok. I'm burned out. What do I do now?

This is kind of cheesy. But we’re talking about being burned out, so it fits. If you’re on fire, what’s the first thing you do? You stop. Then, you drop and roll. When you’re burned out, it’s the same thing. You stop. You drop the things that you can. And then you roll. You reassess the situation. You take a look at things. You seek out counseling. You find people who can be your community and your accountability partners. Stop, drop, and roll.

If I'm burned out, do I have to say no? Why's that important?

Saying no to new tasks and commitments when you’re burnt out means you’re making a commitment to yourself and to those you’re serving. You’re choosing to give only your best to yourself and to those outside of yourself who you’re called to serve. Your no isn’t laziness. It’s your greatest yes. It’s yes to yourself and yes to authentic service to others.

The secret to recovering from burnout starts with saying no. Before burnout becomes wiped out, here are 12 mindset shifts you can make to help you reverse course and say yes to a healthier you.

That was the day I almost got kicked off of a mission trip. The reason? Challenging this advice. It was one of those situations where a student doesn’t have any knowledge of cultural competence because their learning environment doesn’t foster it. They hadn’t received that training from their learning experience. And, as far as their community (including their leadership) outside of that direct experience with teacher training, those with influence had similar backgrounds and also lacked that training. Because they didn’t have it, they didn’t recognize its importance. As a result, any challenge to that worldview was seen as a threat and a challenge. The only reaction they could think of to this perceived attack was to remove the threat to this comfort zone.

What are the Symptoms of Burnout?

Burnout is defined as what happens when repeated stress leads to exhaustion. This exhaustion stretches into physical, mental, and emotional aspects of the self. The term burnout was coined by German-American psychologist Herbert Freundberger back in the 1970s and has become popularized in conversations about work and work environment, even resulting in the coining of the phrase occupational burnout. There are 12 stages, Freundberger identifies as symptoms of burnout:

Burnout is defined as what happens when repeated stress leads to exhaustion.

Motivation, the First Step into Burnout

You start out at this stage with the best of intentions. You’re driven and dedicated. The problem? The problem is when you start to believe that you are what you do and base your assessment of who you are on what you think are failures.

The Lie: You Are What You Do
The Shift: Your Identity Isn’t Locked into What You are, but Instead It’s Who You Are.
- Stop. Take an inventory of yourself. Look at your failures and challenges as opportunities to grow and to build on your strengths.

Before we even recorded the first episode of The Ruth and Scott Podcast, this inventory was something that we did. We knew that there was a task ahead of us, and that we each have different strengths. We knew that there would be other areas for both of us where we’d need to lean more into the strengths present through partnership. This is a delicate balance that we’re both still learning to navigate. And, this is why I say, the importance of partnership is something that can’t be underestimated when it comes to burnout and burnout recovery. Teachers’ associations can provide you with access to communities of others facing similar professional challenges.

A Symptom of Chronic Burnout

A symptom of chronic burnout is not even being able to recognize anymore when the lines are blurred between your personal and professional lives. This can result in a constant blurring from one role to the next.

The Lie: You’ll Just Do One More Thing.
The Shift: Your Boundary is Your Greater Yes.
- Remember. Your no isn’t laziness. It’s your greater yes. Yes to yourself. Yes to authentic service to others.

I remember the first time I flew from Arizona to Milwaukee. I’d been on a plane before. But the feeling of my feet against the floor as I clenched my body, trying to keep it from rocking with the turbulence we were experiencing, was something I hadn’t gone through before. Maybe it was because of that, that, as I sat there on that plane, I started to see the possibilities for what could happen that day. One possibility was that the plane could go down. I’m actually not sure how likely that was. But, in that moment, it felt as real as any other possibility. The other possibility was that everything would be ok and I’d land in Milwaukee, ready for the first-ever Voice of the Middle Ground Conference.

There are times for me, even today, when setting personal and professional boundaries feels like that plane ride. It’s helpful for me to do in those times what I did on that plane ride. I looked out of the window. Perspective is a game-changer. When I looked out of the plane window, I saw the clouds, and I saw the sun. Ironically, from my position on that plane, these things helped to keep me grounded.

Establishing personal and professional boundaries helps me to approach both from a place of freedom. Accountability partners I can be vulnerable with, help me to hold those boundaries and challenge me to grow in ways I might not otherwise. I let them know what’s happening in my life, and they have permission to call me out because I know they’ll do so in love.

As we’re thinking about these mindset shifts, I encourage you to think about this: Who are 2-3 people in your personal life, and also 2-3 people in your professional life, you can trust to be vulnerable with? Ask them to be your accountability partners as you take this journey to overcome burnout. Make sure that in this process, you’re setting clear objectives and rules of engagement so that everyone knows what the goals and expectations are on both sides of the relationship.

Sure, the teacher could’ve probably told those students to sit down and shut up. But it wouldn’t have really been instructional because they would have had an understanding of the why. And context and understanding are just as important as the rules they’re used to enforce.

As a stranger to the educational environment where you have formal influence, new students carry with them their own context. Your ability to engage with them there, in helpful ways, makes a big difference.

It’s often said, “Avoiding a situation doesn’t make it go away”.

When Situational Avoidance Makes Burnout Worse

You may know this and have the fact memorized. Unfortunately, emotional reality is often different from objective vision. The result is that, even when your friends and loved ones are sending signals that something is wrong and conflict happens with those you care about, if you’re at this point in burnout, you might choose to walk away from conflict rather than face it and take it for what it is—an opportunity to self-correct not only for the benefit of others, but also for your own benefit.

The Lie: Admitting There’s Conflict Means That You’re a Bad Person.
The Shift: Embrace A Growth Mindset. There’s Always Space for Growth Even When You’re At Your Best.
Grow. Give yourself permission to be in a constant state of growth. This will help you to embrace constructive criticism in a healthy way, as an opportunity to facilitate that growth.

Self-Care is Vital for Positive Outcomes

At this stage of burnout, you stop taking time for self-care and doing things like sleeping, eating, and working out. Unfortunately, this takes you further away from having an effective mindset for anything other than maintenance of a self-decaying orbit.

The Lie: Taking Time for Yourself Takes Time Away From Things That Matter.
The Shift: Taking Time for Yourself Means You Have More of Yourself to Give.
Receive. Time is a gift. Relationships are a gift. You are a gift. When you take time for yourself, to take care of yourself, you’re better and more effectively able to make the most of the time you have.

I’ve listened to a lot of conversations on meditation. For me, the practice of meditation seemed like a waste of time. You stop everything you have going on in your life just to sit and let those things build up. Then, I had a conversation with a friend about meditation and what it meant for them, and I was surprised at what they shared with me. Meditation for them wasn’t a waste of time, even with the busy schedule that they had. It was their way of making sure that they could show up as the best version of themselves. I’ve also had the opportunity since then to look into different strategies for meditation and how some have seen its usefulness in combatting things like writer’s block and general creative blocks associated both with creative and technical tasks. Over time, I’ve developed my own strategies for meditation that work for me. Are there any that you find that work for you or that you feel like you might like to try?

Cognitive Dissonance Contributes to Burnout

If you’ve experienced moments in your journey with burnout where it feels like you’re changing as a person or where other people have made this observation about you, it’s probably not just in your head. At this stage of burnout, who you are can start to change as you try to avoid the discomfort of cognitive dissonance. The challenges you’re experiencing with conflict in relationships, the unhealthy self-sacrifice. All of this can come together to create a “you” that you don’t recognize. As a result, you start changing you so that you make sense to you.

The Lie: Who You Are is Wrong.
The Shift: What You Are is Unwell.
Heal. This is a good point for you to step back, remind yourself of who you are, and take time for yourself to heal.

Practicing Grace Amnesia

Grace is an important part of life. The importance of this becomes even more clear when you think about the fact that part of being human is making mistakes, falling down and needing to get back up. Grace is the extension of a hand when all you can feel is the floor.

The Lie: You Aren’t Worthy. Therefore, No One Is.
The Shift: You Are Worthy. And Everyone Is.
Practice. When you practice showing grace to yourself, it becomes easier to show grace to others. What might make this uncomfortable for you if you’re already experiencing burnout is that you may have to grieve the opportunities to show yourself grace that you’ve withheld from yourself. Take time for this. It’s part of the process.

When I think about grace, I go back in my mind to Sunday School. I heard the idea of grace mentioned and convinced myself that it wasn’t for me, that I was somehow overlooked. It was obvious that I thought this because of the impossible standard I held myself to, and that then passed from me to my expectations of others. But the thing about grace is that when it’s received, it can’t help but change everything around it. The absence of it is much the same way. You can’t show to others what you’re not allowing yourself to receive. In the workplace, there are certain thoughts that burnout can contribute to. For example, because your life has become consumed by work, you expect the lives of others to be consumed by the same. You stop accounting for variables like small children, sick relatives, or even personal illness or injury that your coworkers may be experiencing.

Quiet Guilt Feeds Burnout

At this stage, things that might not have been acceptable to you previously, things that you don’t want others to know about, suddenly become things that you turn to in order to experience relief.

The Lie: I’ll Do It Just This Once.
The Shift: Understand that, when you give in the first time, this makes it easier to give in every time after that. It might seem like something that will relieve burnout. Instead, it can be something that feeds into quiet guilt and worsens burnout symptoms.
Understand. If you give in to things that violate your standards, this becomes one more step away from the person you feel comfortable looking in the mirror at. Who you are matters just as much, if not more than, what you do.

Failed Commitments Strain Relationships

The more you give up on yourself, the more you give up on others. You break your boundaries and forget to take care of yourself, and eventually, your relationships become strained and at risk of breaking.

The Lie: I Can Do Everything.
The Shift: You Can Only Do So Much.
Prioritize. The time you have is precious. You’ve made the decisions that have led you to the relationships and roles you’re currently in. This means that there’s something that’s part of these things that also points back to your journey and how that has shaped you. Take the time to identify who and what matters to you and prioritize those people and things so that you can give to them the best of yourself.

Autopilot and Negativity About Work

When you do something enough times, you get used to doing it. There are times when this can mean driving to work while forgetting that your phone is on top of your car, completing work or school assignments without having much of an idea about how you’ve gotten from Point A to Point B. This kind of autopilot is associated with the same point of the burnout stages where you begin to be negative about things that you used to be more positive about. Instead of thinking about the things you once loved about your role, the negative begins to be highlighted.

The Lie: This Is Fine.
The Shift: This Hasn’t Been Fine For A While.
Reflect. When you notice that things are becoming more autopilot than thought-inducing, stop and reflect. Take some time to remember the positive motivations that attracted you to your role. If the option is available, ask for opportunities to engage in cross-training. There’s a chance that these new experiences will help provide you with a greater appreciation for your role through allowing opportunities for creative thinking. You may also find that there’s another area of education that’s more for you through this experience.

I’ve definitely had my fair share of experiences at this intersection of burnout and the rest of life. I’ve gotten so used to work routines that I’ve forgotten about things I’ve scheduled in my personal life. There have even been a couple of times when I’ve gotten into so much of a pattern of autopilot that, when I was attending classes on campus, I’ve gone to the wrong location because class was in a different location than I was used to going to. Burnout definitely contributed to not only negativity but also negative cycles of thought that were difficult to escape from.

Numbness and Worthlessness Aren’t Detached, But You May Be

Burnout can sometimes result in feelings of numbness and worthlessness. The two aren’t as disconnected as they may seem at first glance. Instead, it’s likely that the two feed into each other. This toxic relationship can further deepen as you start to feel more detached from the people and environment around you.

The Lie: You’ve Failed.
The Shift: You Were Never Meant to Hold The World.
Reframe. If you’re at this stage of burnout, it’s because who you are has been officially lost underneath the weight of the world you were never meant to carry. Instead of viewing your role as the way you practice agency, allow yourself to practice agency in small ways. Even the realization of the small choices that you make can help you to feel like a cocreator in your life.

When Burnout Results in Exhaustion and Depression

Living in a state of constant exhaustion can lead to feelings of needing to escape. These feelings and the need for relief can lead to feelings of depression.

The Lie: You Can’t Do What You Used to be Able to Do.
The Shift: Just Because You Can Stand the Fire for A Short Time Doesn’t Mean You Were Made to Live In Fire.
Step. Step out of the fire. Take time to rest and allow yourself to heal. Depression is a sign that something is wrong. At this point, it’s also important to get checked out medically. And, at this point, I would just like to say that I’m not a medical doctor and I have never played one on TV. The next stage will highlight even further why a relationship with someone who is a medical doctor is especially important.

Burnout and Emotional Dehydration

Seeking help from a medical doctor is super important because by the time you notice you’re experiencing the signs and symptoms of burnout, much as with thirst, you’re already dehydrated. Connecting with a medical doctor can help you to notice changes in your physical and medical health that are happening even before you get to this stage of burnout, where your body is communicating to you in very clear and resonant ways, physically and/or mentally, that something is very wrong and you need to stop and take care of it.

The Lie: The Decisions You Make Will Never Catch Up to You.
The Shift: Debts Always Come Due.
Stop. Your body and mind are communicating clearly to you that your debt has come due. At this stage, it’s time to take several seats and allow yourself to recover before the debt continues to build beyond the point where it can be repaid.

What you do matters. Discover more about that in this article about formal and informal mentorship.

Are you a Christian Educator looking for more information on how to navigate burnout? Check out our guest blog piece on the Learning the Tune Blog.