Burnout

Fighting through burnout daily is a miserable affair.

We stick with burnout because it becomes familiar. We imagine just one more promotion or a new boss, and we'll be happy. The cognitive dissonance created can also become a type of virtue signaling that you're better than other people, with your suffering and constant burnout as evidence of that dedication. But without a balance between comfort and becoming a slave to our own ambitions and dreams, we end up stuck between a rock and a hard place when our identity is completely intertwined with our burnout.

Embrace Burnout

Paradoxically, the first step to resolving burnout is by embracing burnout in its entirety. It would be stupid to yell at our car for not starting with an empty tank. Guilt doesn't fill a gas tank; a gas station does. If you're burnt out, take the nearest exit and investigate the warning seriously. Provide yourself with the necessary empathy; how normal of you to be burnt out doing work that disgusts you day after day. Being burnt out isn't a failure; it's the feedback that something needs attention; it's the warning our iPhone gives us before the battery dies; we don't expect our iPhones to keep if we never charge it.