One of the earliest models of burnout was proposed by psychologist Herbert Freudenberger in the 1970s. He identified burnout as a state of emotional and physical exhaustion. "Burnout is a problem of the best among us. They tend to be idealistic, committed, hardworking, and sincere,” he says. If you identify with this, you’re not alone: up to 40% of people report being burned out at some point in their lives.
There are different models of burnout, and I personally like the 12 stages of burnout because it’s comprehensive and speaks to my own experience (you can check out other models here). The 12 stages are like the antithesis to the cheerful 12 days of Christmas. With burnout, each stage gets progressively suckier. By the final stage, you’re burnt to a crisp.
The reason this 12-stage model is useful is because if you can identify the warning signs, you can stop yourself from reaching the final stage - utter physical and mental collapse. I’ve been there, and trust me, it ain’t pretty. I had to take several months off work and took longer to clean up the mess I’d left behind. I’ve written extensively about my experience here.
Burnout is preventable. For example, if you notice yourself cutting out hobbies and friends, this is a clear signal that your values are shifting and you’re headed for a doom-spiral. Simply noticing this is happening might give you pause before it’s too late. Even if you can’t solve the issue yourself, you can reach out for help. And if you recognize these stages in someone else, you can help them — and forward them this newsletter.
At the same time, burnout can be a huge wake-up call and an opportunity for massive transformation and personal growth. This isn’t to say you should seek out destructive behavior or ignore the 12 stages. But as one meditation teacher puts it, “our souls are forged in the fires of experience.” These struggles can lead to greater clarity and purpose, even if it doesn’t quite seem like it at the moment.
Here’s my take on the stages, along with my experience going through each step.
1/ Excessive Ambition and Compulsion to Prove Oneself
I decided to write a 400-page book, start a company from scratch, set up my life in a new country (The Netherlands), and try to do marketing from overseas to another country, Japan, a place that traditionally does most of its business face-to-face. I was a first-time founder and had no idea what the hell I was doing. What could go wrong?
People who tend to get burnout are idealists and dreamers. Combined with type-A personalities, you’ve got a recipe for burnout Armageddon. Of course you can have a healthy drive to make quality work and a desire to make an impact in your job. Working hard to make a mark in your industry and career is totally understandable and admirable.
However, when you start to equate your sense of worth with your work, life starts to feel like a roller coaster ride. In my case, when our revenue was up, I had a good day. When our revenue was down, I had a bad day. This was no way to live life. It made me increasingly stressed. Further, I wanted to prove to myself (or an old version of myself…) that I could do this whole startup thing and could be “successful.” I was taking things wayyy too personally.
My beliefs weren’t totally original, I later realized. I’d heard about startups from podcasts and Shark Tank, and the industry I chose was one I fell into. I never questioned whether I would actually enjoy the day to day work (I didn’t). My monetary goals were arbitrary; make 2 million dollars, even though I knew there were better ways to achieve that goal than doing a startup (work in crypto, banking, as an executive recruiter, etc.)
I never set any boundaries for myself. I didn’t have an agreement to throw in the towel at a certain point and there was no testing the waters. It was jump in an figure out how to swim. I told myself I must succeed at all costs. Funny enough, I idealized the “fail fast” mentality in the details of my job (running small experiments, a la Lean Startup method), but I never applied the same advice for the overall endeavor of running the business. In doing so, I made the stakes too high.
2/ Pushing Yourself to Work Harder
When my startup wasn’t bearing the results I hoped for, instead of giving up I grinded harder. Instead of asking for help, I sunk further into oblivion. I began to drink more coffee to stimulate myself. Fortunately, I had a strong threshold for pain and loved to experiment with different diets like keto, including water-only fasting, which allowed me to burn faster and longer and made me more “productive.” With a hyper-focus on productivity, this left little time for much else. And when I was resting, I was still thinking about work.
A question I never asked myself: Where did my so-called “drive” come from? Drive can come from a deep feeling of connection and flow to the world and a desire to make a difference. It can come from a desire to express your creative-self, in whatever way feels authentic. Or to simply do your best. This type of drive feels natural and is more sustainable. Your relationship to it comes from trust, connection and love - not fear, competition (which may not be as natural as you think), and a gaping empty hole that you’re trying to fill.
But oftentimes the source of your drive is extrinsic or the result of an unhealed wound. It’s rooted in a desire for status, money, achievement and external rewards. These are messages from others and society. While it’s often hard to identify, a lot of our drive can also come from unresolved childhood trauma and unmet needs: a lack of connection with parents, caregivers and siblings, and a need to fill that emptiness with validation and stimulation. No one is immune to this, even the most well-intentioned person can be operating from a place of fear, reliving in the present an old need to prove themselves to an emotionally absent parent.
3/ Neglecting Personal Care and Needs
As I dug myself deeper and deeper into a hole, I started to make less calls to friends and family. I didn’t take time out to play, or dance, or read, things I normally loved to do. I started drinking more and more, begging for the end of the week to come already. I was constantly on edge.
My meditation practice, which was about 20 minutes a day, actually went on without interruption. However, with one main difference: I wasn’t actually focusing on my breath, but setting an intention to come up with creative business ideas that I could then use during work that day. Even meditation became another productivity tool. (Meditation is so much more than that).
When I got to this stage, you could say it was inevitable. I had no sense of my capabilities, what I really enjoyed to do, and I wasn’t great at setting personal boundaries. Actually, I knew that I enjoyed talking to people and sales, and I knew that I liked to write. These were jobs I’d done previously that left me feeling fulfilled.
But I also assumed that I could take on various operational tasks and build more skills to succeed in my new role. I failed to delegate, and took on way too much myself. The truth is, I was already in stage one of burnout when I launched my startup, and it was only a matter of time — and the added gift of a global pandemic — before I tumbled further down the rabbit hole of burnout.
4/ Displacement of Conflict
This is where you truly start to lose your sense of balance. You might even question your sanity. My business wasn’t working out, and yet I was putting in so much effort. I began to look for reasons, a person to blame. Was it me? Did I not have the right skills? Was it someone else? The universe? I had a biased view. Having come from a recruitment and HR background, I saw reality through the lens of people. If things aren’t working out, people are the problem (but not me, of course).
I had hired a few freelancers at this point and had two cofounders. I started to become more direct in my feedback. This had positive effects and the added pressure resulted in some people in the team leaving. Other people joined, which were a better fit, and there were times where it felt like we started to make progress. But I also avoided owning up to my own mistakes. I didn’t admit that I wasn’t good with operations, and I didn’t delegate enough. More piled on my plate, my adrenaline was rushing and cortisol flowing through my veins more regularly. Chronic stress, the silent killer.
Eventually, I became more and more snappy and combative. I started to blame others for small mistakes (‘displacement of conflict’). If the product isn’t taking off, it’s this person’s fault. If users aren’t coming in, it’s marketing’s fault.
It’s very hard to see at the moment, but I definitely had created an “image” of myself as an entrepreneur that was going to figure things out. I’d read somewhere that exuding confidence was key to maintaining a motivated team, so while I definitely asked questions from the team, I always remained confident and didn’t show much vulnerability. The truth is, it was largely on me. I had no idea what I was doing and I should’ve asked for a lot more help.
5/ Changes in Values to Validate Self Worth
At this stage, I realized that I had changed. While I was still running often and going to the sauna, most of my life had become consumed by work. Compared to my social life in Tokyo, I barely saw anyone except for people at my coworking space (this was still before the pandemic). I simply didn’t make it a priority. But I felt powerless to do anything. While my life felt shitty, the only good that came from it – the rush, excitement, and adrenaline – came when I was working.
I remember a friend of mine, who let us stay at her place when we first moved to the Netherlands, invited me out for lunch or dinner. I would make silly excuses, claiming that it was a really busy time for me right now. I was the founder doing my own thing, and yet I couldn’t make time to grab lunch with my friend? And yet I felt no guilt about turning down the request. Work had become my identity. Unfortunately, my failure to invest in the relationship caused our friendship to sour, and it never recovered.
This would be a great time to give up or take a break for at least a couple of weeks to reassess your values, and to reconnect with what’s important for you. I didn’t do that. Somewhere around this time the pandemic hit and I had “no choice” but to plunge further into work.
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