268|The Different Faces of Burnout

Remove the Guesswork: Health, Fitness and Wellbeing for Busy Professionals

This week we’re talking about the different faces of burnout.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

Why it’s important to know what to look for as signs of burnout.

Creating the 12 Stages of Burnout resource.

The four fundamental ways burnout can present.

When burnout is normal and when it becomes a problem.

What passive burnout looks like and how to identify it.

The types of emotions that are associated with burnout.

The definition of anhedonia and how it relates to burnout.

How burnout can impact your healthy lifestyle and motivation.

How burnout can impact work performance.

How burnout can influence our relationship with drugs and alcohol.

The difference between internal and external types of burnout.

The types of burnout that are more difficult to spot.

Where to find resources to help you identify burnout.

Key Takeaways:

We have an idea of how burnout presents, but it doesn’t always look how we expect.

You can find ways of identifying burnout in yourself or someone else in the 12 Stages of Burnout resource, and you can also find action points there too.

Burnout can be presented both internally and externally. External presentations are easier to identify because they are more outwardly apparent.

No longer deriving pleasure from things you find pleasurable is a sign of passive external burnout.

If you’re struggling to eat clean and healthy where before you were motivated, you could be exhibiting signs of burnout.

Burnout can lead you to miss work or feel like you’re not present when you show up.

Impatience, irritability, and self-absorption are all signs of active burnout.

How our actions around burnout can be proactive but negative.

Given the pandemic, it’s likely we have all been touched by burnout recently, whether that’s our own or somebody close to us.

Action Steps:

These are the four different ways that burnout can be identified:

1. Passive - Internal: weariness, hopelessness, feels of inadequacy.

2. Passive - External: low effort, anhedonia, cynicism.

3. Active - Internal: loss of motivation, reliance on drugs or alcohol.

4. Active - External: impatience, irritability, self-absorption.

Leanne said:

“Don’t think the goal should ever be to not experience those emotions. They’re human, they’re common, and they’re normal - providing we don’t allow them to dominate or get profoundly worse, or I suppose be prolonged.”

“I think everybody has been touched in some way by burnout across the pandemic, across the last 18 months, whether it’s somebody you know, your spouse, or you, or somebody within your team.”

Links To Things Mentioned In The Podcast:

The 12 Stages of Burnout resource: https://www.bodyshotperformance.com/resource/the-12-stages-of-burnout/

Leanne’s TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SLP1BF7KBQ

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