You’re Not Lazy, You’re Burned Out

I’m going to take a guess that you probably slept seven, maybe eight hours last night. Your phone was charging across the room, you didn’t doomscroll Facebook or TikTok, and you STILL woke up feeling like you’d been hit by a truck. You then drag yourself to the coffee maker, stared at it while it brewed your favorite beverage of choice, and thought, “What is wrong with me?” Nothing is wrong with you. But something is going on within you and sleep isn’t going to fix it.

That feeling I’m describing is burnout. If you’ve ever seen a NASCAR race, at the end, the winner will sometimes do a “burnout” where the car goes in circles and leaves tire marks. That’s a visual representation of what’s going on in your mind. This has been months-in-the-making and it quietly hollows you out. It’s the cynicism that you didn’t used to have or the emotional flatness. It feels like you’re just going through the motions of life. Researchers describe burnout as the intersection of three things: exhaustion, detachment, and the creeping feeling that nothing you do is ever quite enough.

People think that if they just rest more, or take a couple days off work, that will fix it. You might take a nice vacation to the Bahamas, sleep in on the weekends, and come back just as depleted. That’s because burnout isn’t just physical tiredness, it’s a chronic stress response that has rewired how your nervous system operates. In the same way one week of strength training won’t make you a bodybuilder, taking a week off work doesn’t undo months of running on empty. It feels good temporarily, but going back to that same environment will pull you right back under.

“So, how do I fix this?” I’m so glad you asked. Recovering from burnout takes more than a long weekend from work. It means looking at what’s actually driving it. The pace, yes, but also, the beliefs underneath that. The idea that your worth is tied to your output. The fear of what people will think if you ask for help. These patterns don’t disappear on their own and pushing through them will only perpetuate the issue.

Therapy can help identify and challenge these behaviors to get you back to not only living, but thriving.

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” – Anne Lamott