Why people deny their burnout
Why I fell into the same traps repeatedly, denied the truth and the questions I wish I had asked myself
Hey there, I wanted to share an excerpt from my upcoming book, Burnout: A Call To Wake Up. It follows my journey through and out of burnout, the mistakes I made along the way, and takes a deeper look at the reasons so many of us are burning out nowadays. I’ve been working on the book the last few months and plan to release it…sometime this year. :)
Psychological fallacies I fell into
When I was working on my startup, I was stubborn as hell. I believed that I needed to get rich in order to be happy, that it was better not to ask for help and figure things out on my own, and that I had all the skills necessary to get to where I wanted to go. I fed myself a lot of bullshit that kept the vicious cycle going, which is another way of saying that I fell into many psychological traps or fallacies.
First, there was confirmation bias. The LinkedIn posts and HackerNews articles I subscribed to featured entrepreneurs who had raised boatloads of cash and sold their companies for ridiculous amounts. The YouTube videos I watched touted what I would describe as “productivity porn” that consisted of inspiring commencement speeches by famous rich dudes and compilations of clips that assured me that “success would make your brain hurt” and that self-flaggelation, mental and physical torture were just part of the game if you wanted to reach the pinnacle of awesomeness.
When I consumed this type of content it confirmed what I already believed (I never asked myself, could there be another way?), and it created an availability bias, meaning that I overestimated the likelihood I would succeed based on the versions and models of success in front of me. When it comes to entrepreneurship, in particular, there is a larger microphone given to the tales of those who’ve made it out the other end and amidst several close calls (like SpaceX almost going bankrupt) survived despite the unlikely odds. I created a filter bubble so impermeable that I only allowed the stories of mega-success to enter my eardrums, blocking out any other narratives that might have allowed me to take a more realistic look at what factors actually drive success (for example, accelerator programs and mentors drastically increase your chances of success, which I didn’t take advantage of).
“I’m totally GTD right now…”
How I grappled with conflicting beliefs
The more I told myself I needed to “tough it out” the more cynical I became, which increased my cognitive dissonance, or the disconnect between what I believed and how I was behaving. I had realized (but had not internalized) a few years ago that money was not the key to happiness, yet I used money as the main yardstick for my success. I believe that health was important, yet I found myself pounding bowls of Ben & Jerry’s at night. I loved to be around people, but the type of remote work left me feeling empty, and I made no room for other activities or friends. As this gap widened, the incongruence between my internal state and external reality created cynicism, resentment, and a host of nasty physical symptoms. The way I dealt with the conflicting beliefs was to procrastinate a lot and resort to various unhealthy coping mechanisms like alcohol, stimulants, porn, video games, and over-exercising myself to “block out” feelings and thoughts I didn’t want to deal with.
Ironically, I remember writing a newsletter about the dozens of psychological fallacies that we find ourselves trapped in. When I look at this list now, it’s impressive how many of these I was able to fall right into over a span of just a few months. For example, I fell into naive realism, the belief that I saw reality as it is, but actually was drinking my own kool-aid; the sunk cost fallacy, justifying that because I spent so much time/money already, that I should keep going despite strong evidence that I should try something else; and the Dunning-Kruger effect, or the overestimation of my (limited) abilities as a first-time entrepreneur, in other words biting off more than I could chew.
I’m not so special of course. Just check this list of cognitive biases on wikipedia. If you take a look at this list you might start to recognize a few of your own mental blind spots.
Difficult questions I never bothered to ask
While I was telling myself I had it under control, in reality I was mostly clueless. I was insecure with myself, in my closest relationships and kept up a facade that slowly ate away at my soul. I took “fake it till you make it” literally and changed my job title to the cringe-worthy “Chief Hustler.” Yeah, I didn’t think that one through on multiple levels.
I got to a point where I didn’t even know what I believed any more. Sure, you need to be positive at times. If you have a little faith, let go of expectations and use your intuition, there are times when the puzzle pieces can magically fall into place. But this doesn’t work if you are trying to smash the puzzle pieces into random slots with a hammer and then get pissed off when you end up with a broken finger and a pile of trash. Basically, I could have benefited from taking a good look in the mirror, asking myself a few difficult questions and listening to honest feedback.
Here are some of the questions I would have asked myself. This is my own, updated version of popular burnout assessment questions and surveys.
You can ask yourself these now and write down your honest answers:
Are you at a point where you cannot possibly sustain the same pace of your life for another few weeks?
Do you have a sense of deep meaning in your work and life, or are you on autopilot and just going through the motions?
Have you become snarky, cynical, and easily triggered, unable to deal effectively with the people around you?
Do you often collapse on your couch like a deflated balloon, emotionally drained and ready to cry yourself to sleep?
Are you questioning if you make any real difference in the lives of others, or if you're just a cog in a soul-sucking machine?
Do you ever catch yourself smirking bitterly at your so-called "achievements," knowing they won't mean squat when you're burnt to a crisp?
Do you use alcohol, sex, porn, caffeine, drugs and your smartphone as daily tools to cope?
Are there physical symptoms (shortness of breath, heart palpitations, headaches, fatigue, etc.) that you’re experiencing which seem to be related to your stress?
Do you feel there are areas where you are neglecting your needs, like friends, family, hobbies, creativity, health, travel, etc.?
Do you have difficulty expressing your emotions openly and honestly to yourself and others? (read: you want to share how you feel, but you don’t!)
Are you telling yourself a story (or stories) that deep down you don’t really believe?
Have friends or family noticed a change in you?
I recommend that you don’t show this to anybody yet – this truth-list is for your eyes only. I see it as a practice to start gaining a little more self-awareness and honesty about your situation, because it’s not until we really understand and admit what’s going on that we have any power to do anything about it. It takes time for the truth to sink in and in my opinion it’s best done in a gentle way rather than trying to take it all on at the same time and overwhelming ourselves.
When the feedback is too quick and too harsh, our defense mechanisms kick in and we shut down (whether we’re giving it to ourselves or hearing it from others). I remember speaking to an entrepreneur who told me, in no fewer words, that my team sucked, my product was garbage, and my business model had been tried and proven unscalable by at least five other companies, which he could name off the top of his head. It was too bad that his tone was condescending and that of a supreme asshole.
He suggested that I give up and try something else. He had a lot of valid points that were worth digging deeper into. Unsurprisingly, I was hurt, and my response was to become defensive. I’ve heard of these stories, I thought to myself, where the entrepreneur gets berated in a meeting and then goes on to build a gazillion dollar business. I treated this encounter as a story that I would later retell as a legend to my children and employees as I sat in my oversized mansion looking at the empire I’d built saying “I told you so.”
Now, had he started an actual conversation with me and acknowledged the work I’d put in while kindly encouraging me, while pointing out some of the flaws in my thinking, I might have listened to him. Of course, he owed me nothing and I can’t blame him for his communication style. You aren’t going to always get the advice that you want, but you will get the advice you need. That’s the advice that’s hardest to hear, isn’t it? And it doesn’t work very well if you are stressed out, sensitive, and defensive.
Asking for help and building a tribe
That’s why it makes sense to have a team that you can trust around you – friends, colleagues, coaches and mentors – that are there to support you, whose feedback you appreciate and who can be brutally honest with you when needed. It’s not easy to find them, but they are a key to building a life that is resilient against burnout.
For example, a year later when I had a mentor who I trusted, he explained a couple of key flaws in my business and introduced me to an expert in the area to take a closer look. He believed in my success and I felt his genuine care through our conversations, so it was much easier to take his advice seriously. I also found a business coach who was helping me through the nuts and bolts of dealing with certain management and leadership challenges.
Don’t worry if, after answering those questions, you’ve got a list of shit now and you don’t know what to do next. You might have realized that you are in a bit of a pickle, or the reality of the situation is hitting you like a ton of bricks. Maybe you want to avoid it and are already telling yourself it’s not so bad.
Whatever it is, don’t try to solve all of your problems at once. Take them step by step. Be kind with yourself. That could mean finally taking a break for a few days and putting your phone away. That could be going into nature and getting in touch with your five senses. It could mean seeing your family or spending more time with friends. Take one step now that you know is good for you. This puts a kink in the negative cycle and allows for the possibility for healing.
The answer to burnout isn’t more talk that says “you have to be a certain way” or building up more regret about your situation, because that implies a level of judgment and criticism, which are at the core of burnout in the first place. It’s more about forgiving ourselves for the past, slowly changing our beliefs, enlisting the support of others, and being willing to stumble as we find our new path.
The drive to be other than who we truly are leads to denial, and the fear of speaking our truth leads to disengagement and a seething anger that corrodes every part of us. Acceptance of ourselves and how we are showing up in the world will allow us to show up more authentically and without feeling like we are pushing a huge boulder up a hill. And that acceptance — that everything is not okay and maybe that’s okay — is the first step to acknowledging your burnout and eventually finding a more sustainable path.