Thoughts on Burnout

Today, I am here to talk about burnout which is a feeling I am too familiar with. It has come up time to time again during most of my life, especially in my career. Burnout is basically an excessive state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by an overwhelming amount of stress. It can make you feel really drained, and less productive in your worked. Burnout can really suck the life out of you when you are working so hard to the bone. It is one of the main impacts of mental health in the workplace that can cause you to dislike your job and be less motivated. Being burnt-out can also impact other aspects like your home and social life due to excessively working. In fact, right now I am feeling like I am experiencing burnout because I don’t feel as motivated working on these blog posts due to recent events regarding my job. However, I am not forcing myself to write an excessive amount of posts since I want to take care of myself, and still produce quality work while dealing with burnout.

Some of the signs of burnout include, being tired and drained all the time, losing motivation, feelings of withdrawal, and feeling a sense of defeat. If you are experiencing any of these in your life, that means you are probably having burnout. Burnout does not appear all at once, it gradually builds up until you no longer have the energy to do anything. According to the chart below developed by psychologists Herbert Freudenberger and Gail North (https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/the-12-stages-of-burnout-according-to-psychologist.html), there can be 12 stages of burnout. I have experienced some of these stages of burnout, but not to the point where I mentally and physically collapse at stage 12. Right now, I am at stage 11 where I feel depressed, lost and completely exhausted, due to different reasons.

As I have mentioned, I have dealt with burnout many times in my life besides my career. When I was studying abroad in Japan, I was traveling so much while keeping up with my classes that I was on the verge of burnout. I wanted to travel to a lot of places to make the most of the limited time I had after getting used to the transportation. However, I also had to deal with final papers, presentations, and the big JLPT exam since it was close to the end of the semester. College students especially deal with a lot of burnouts, due to all the academic stress from studying long hours, doing all-nighters for those essays, and everything in between.

When I was working at my toxic job at the bank, I really felt the effects of burnout. Every day was so stressful trying to deal with difficult customers, my tyrannic managers that I could hardly escape it. Every day I would come home tired and have no energy for the night. I felt like it was non-stop since I could hardly get days off from that job. Sometimes I would work the entire week, including Saturdays. I should’ve tried to quit beforehand, but I wanted to work longer so it would good on my resume. Unfortunately, it was too late when I got fired in 6 months. However, it must’ve been a blessing in disguise since I no longer had to be in a stressful toxic workplace. I just hope that I never have to be in that situation again.

Now we come to my current job, and it has been a rollercoaster. Before I go any further, I want to point out that this job is not toxic unlike my banking job. Sure it can be stressful at times, but it is nothing like what I dealt with a couple years ago. I am grateful for the opportunities it has brought me, and the way my supervisors and colleagues have been so supportive. Unfortunately, it has led me to burnout for a different number of reasons. I mentioned in my last post that I am resigning from this job due to personal reasons. What I was more worried about is telling the news to my supervisor and seeing their reaction. I thought they were going to be pissed and think I was letting the whole company down. I was so hesitant that I kept pushing back my meeting with my supervisor regarding this. Nonetheless, I got the courage to finally stand up for myself, and tell them last week. Surprisingly it went really well despite my supervisor being disappointed (but I expected that anyway). I know I am sad to be leaving my current job, and it was a very hard decision, but it is the best for me. I am going to be leaving before things get really crazy at work, which would have made my burnout worse had I plan to stay longer.

Following that, I am in the midst of searching and applying to jobs which also gives me burnout sometimes. The amount of searching for jobs, completing an application, and waiting for a response can be really draining especially if you are going nowhere. I cannot stress how difficult the job search process is, and yet some people still do not understand. People in the older generation will think younger folks like myself are lazy and don’t want to work, but that is not the case. Times have changed since then with the job market being more competitive, and people don’t want to work 24/7 all the time. The longest time I was without a job was a couple years ago after being fired. Because it was so difficult getting a job, most of the time I felt unmotivated to do the entire process. However, I couldn’t survive without a job because I still need to save for my student loans, and not end up being homeless. Yet here I am in again in that same situation with the same difficult even though I am still employed. Fingers crossed I get a new job soon after I finish my current one.

As you can see, I have been through burnout quite a lot, and that does not sound good. It just that times are tough these days, and it can be hard to balance mental health with my career. However, my goal is to continue to work on my mental health in life whether it is for home or at work. Because I also shared with you a little bit about burnout at general, you can become aware of early signs of it and try to prevent it before it gets worse. If it doesn’t look like I am posting much on this blog, then you will understand why thanks to this post and others in my mental health awareness month series. Again, please make sure you are taking care of yourself, you will get through this.

For information on mental health resources near you, please visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI at NAMI.org 

If you or someone is experiencing a mental health crisis, please call or text the National Suicide Lifeline at 988.