Is there someone in your life who you think is on the verge of burnout? Maybe it’s a person you supervise or a friend or partner.
How would you know? The World Health Organization defines occupational burnout as a syndrome … resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.
According to the WHO, burnout has three dimensions: 1) feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; 2) increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and 3) a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.
Here is the story of Paula Davis that brings to life the three dimensions of burnout. After experiencing extreme burnout, Paula was able to get back on track and go on to share her wisdom with others. She is founder of the Stress & Resilience Institute, an organization that provides education on workplace resilience and burnout prevention. (Edited for brevity.)
“My burnout story starts back in 2008. If you had met me then, you would have seen a successful lawyer, on top of her game, closing several multi-million-dollar commercial real estate deals each month. You may have even thought, “She has it all.” But here’s what you would have missed.
First, I was exhausted, and it was a different kind of tired than I had ever experienced. Getting out of bed to go to work had become exceedingly difficult, if not emotionally painful…Weekends weren’t long enough to fully recover (even when I didn’t work), and vacations, when I actually took them, provided only temporary relief…
Second, I had become cynical, even by lawyer standards. People generally just started to bug me and rub me the wrong way…Disconnecting from people was unusual for me, and (yet) I just wanted to be left alone in my office.
Third, I started to feel ineffective. I never lost confidence in my ability to be a good lawyer, but I stopped seeing a clear path for myself through the legal profession…
As I discovered more than a year later, those three big warning signs – chronic exhaustion, cynicism and feeling ineffective – are the three big dimensions of burnout. Other warning signs include forgetfulness or impaired concentration and attention, getting sick more frequently, anger, anxiety, depression, pessimism, isolation, increased irritability and lack of productivity and poor performance.
Paula’s story is no exception. Spring 2024 data from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) revealed that 44 percent of the 1,405 people surveyed in the U.S. felt burned out at work, 45 percent felt “emotionally drained” from their work, and 51 percent felt “used up” at the end of the workday.
In 2022, the Surgeon General of the U.S., Dr. Vivek Murthy, released a Framework for Mental Health & Well-Being in the Workplace, recognizing the strong relationship between work and well-being. This is a powerful and practical guide for shifting workplace practices in a direction that better supports employee mental health and well-being.
Although the strong relationship between workplace conditions and burnout has become better understood, many of us are not in a position to directly influence workplace culture and practices. Are there actions we can take–or not take–to support people we care about who seem to be on the verge of burnout?
My suggestions below draw from the extensive literature on burnout and build on my own experience as a coach. I’ve identified 4 actions that could help and 2 actions that could hurt.
What could help:
Encourage the person to pay attention to their physical wellbeing first. This is often the first thing people neglect when they’re in a state of burnout, as Paula’s story reflects. Although it’s easy to ignore our physical state when we’re in emotional distress, the simplest and most direct way to maintain physical and emotional well-being is to attend to sleep, diet, hydration and exercise.
This is easier said than done, especially when someone lacks energy to do even the most basic of everyday activities. As a supporter, help the person focus on one small improvement in physical self-care that might have the biggest ripple effect and create a plan to practice it consistently.
For example, I was coaching someone whose primary goal was to overcome her common feeling of being overwhelmed. Symptoms included fuzzy thinking, high anxiety, and indecisiveness. We explored what might be going on for her physically when she felt that way. It often happened in the afternoon and, as it turned out, she often skipped lunch because she was so busy. She created an action plan to take a break for lunch every day and, when possible, to share it with a work friend.Encourage the person to connect with something that is meaningful to them and that involves other people. Cross et al. (2023) posited that collaboration overload as well as excessive work demands drive employee burnout. Building a sense of purpose in employees’ everyday interactions can counteract it. Discussing and developing a common purpose allows employees to prioritize work, ultimately decreasing the sense of burnout.
Help the person identify their personal sources of burnout and come up with actionable ways to mitigate. For example, I recently coached someone who described feeling drained, tired and reluctant to go to work in the morning. When we explored what might be contributing, he realized that he’d had a high stress month earlier in the summer, wasn’t getting enough sleep and not taking time to rest on the weekend. He decided to take the upcoming weekend to rest and revitalize himself. He also realized that he’d been skipping his usual exercise.
Engage with the person from the perspective that they are creative, resourceful and whole, to quote the Co-Active Training Institute. Even when someone is in great distress, it’s possible to keep that belief in mind. When your behavior conveys that belief, it builds confidence that the person will find a way forward, even from a painful place. Some helpful behaviors include listening fully, paraphrasing to convey that you’ve understood, and asking permission before offering advice.
Encourage the person to take small steps on something that matters to them. Research shows that making consistent progress on meaningful work can boost creativity, engagement, positive relationships and work performance.
What Not to Do:
Judge the person. (“Why do you feel so lousy? You’ve got a great job, a loving family, you’re making good money. Hey, and you have your health!”). Chances are, the person is already doing plenty of judging on their own. Piling on with your own judgment is seldom constructive. Even something like “things could always be worse” can be perceived as a veiled judgment even if it’s meant as encouragement.
Give unsolicited advice. (“Why don’t you join a gym? Working out does wonders for me!”). It is risky to assume that we know what’s best for the other person, or that they haven’t already thought of our great suggestions. Even when someone asks for advice, you run the risk of having it received poorly. It’s much better to listen to the person and ask questions that can point them to finding their own way forward.
Leave them alone. (“They’re such a drag to be around and, besides, they’ll figure it out themselves.”) It’s not surprising that you might want to limit contact with someone who is struggling. It can take a lot of energy to absorb discouragement and negativity. At the same time, you never know whether your support will make a real difference when someone is on the verge of burnout. And who knows when you might need that kind of support someday?
Okay, so maybe you can’t wave a magic wand and eliminate burnout once and for all. But there are concrete things you can do to support people you know to find their way out of the vicious cycle that burnout produces. Remember to listen more than you advise, avoid judgment, and be present, even when it feels challenging. These acts of support not only help the individual but also foster a culture of care and resilience. And that kind of culture goes a long way toward promoting resilience and wellbeing.
Please share your ideas in the Comments section below!