Why You're Burning Out -- And How to Fix It | Leah Weiss
Leah Weiss, a researcher and author, discusses burnout, defining it as emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced efficacy. She explains how to detect it, its systemic causes, and offers strategies for individuals and organizations, especially for women in the workplace, while also exploring meditation's role.
Deep Dive Analysis
13 Topic Outline
Defining Burnout: WHO Definition and Nuances
Burnout as a Spectrum and Systemic Issue
COVID-19's Impact on Burnout, Especially for Women
Distinguishing Burnout from Anxiety, Depression, and Languishing
The Biological and Deeper Impacts of Severe Burnout
Leah Weiss's Personal Experience with Burnout and Recovery
Strategies for Women to Address Burnout in Workplaces
Navigating Speaking Up About Structural Workplace Issues
Applying Mindfulness to Enhance Communication and Team Dynamics
How Men Can Support Women Experiencing Burnout
Self-Monitoring for Burnout and Identifying Risk Factors
Addressing Mindsets and Coping Strategies for Burnout
Navigating Toxic Work Environments When Unable to Leave
6 Key Concepts
Burnout (WHO Definition)
Burnout is defined by the World Health Organization as emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of efficacy. Emotional exhaustion is straightforward, depersonalization involves seeing others and oneself as roles or to-do list items, and reduced efficacy means feeling a lack of impact on one's environment.
Depersonalization (in Burnout)
This aspect of burnout involves viewing others from a dehumanized, utilitarian perspective in the workplace, and similarly seeing oneself as a 'to-do list ninja' or disembodied, rather than as a human being. It signifies a detachment from the human element of work and self.
Burnout as a Spectrum
Burnout is not a binary state but rather a continuum, with early stages often manifesting as excessive drive and workaholism, including neglecting personal care and needs. The later stages reveal it as more than just work habits, involving deeper systemic issues.
Overabundance of Purpose
While a lack of purpose can lead to burnout, an excessive sense of purpose can also drive self-sacrifice and workaholism, particularly in mission-driven fields like non-profits and healthcare. This belief that the cause is supremely important can lead individuals to push themselves too hard.
Psychological Safety
This term refers to the comfort individuals feel to speak up within a team or organization without fear of negative consequences. It is considered one of the most important variables for the successful functioning of teams, fostering open communication and inclusion.
Mindfulness for External Awareness
This involves extending self-awareness beyond one's internal experience to also observe and understand the physical cues, emotional states, and concepts expressed by others during interactions. It helps in calibrating communication and understanding group dynamics, moving attention between internal and external observations.
7 Questions Answered
Burnout's main differentiator is its context, often worsening with the work week or anticipatory anxiety about work, making it situational. While severe burnout can resemble depression or anxiety and impact non-work relationships, its causes are primarily work-related.
Burnout is often rooted in noxious structures, lack of fairness, poor relationships, or values being transgressed within an environment, team, or culture, rather than solely individual work habits. It's crucial to understand that individuals are part of a system, and the onus to fix it shouldn't rest entirely on them.
Languishing, characterized by exhaustion and a lack of purpose, can factor into burnout by contributing to feelings of days bleeding into one another due to a lack of typical demarcations. The research on burnout, however, wasn't developed with a pandemic in mind, suggesting a need for a broader framework that includes values, engagement, and moral injury.
Severe burnout is a full-body experience that can lead to enlarged amygdalas, changes in hormones, gastrointestinal problems, and even voice issues. Its impact can be as deep and complex as trauma, affecting self-worth and basic functioning.
Mindfulness practice can build meta-awareness of thinking patterns, helping individuals notice when coping strategies lead to overworking or self-sacrifice. It also aids in understanding motivations, like the belief that self-criticism is necessary for productivity, and in paying attention to overall health components like sleep and community.
Individuals can self-monitor by recognizing early phases like workaholism, excessive drive, and neglecting personal needs. Later signs include displacing conflict onto family, withdrawing, and physical symptoms like gastrointestinal problems, hair loss, hormonal changes, or voice issues.
If unable to change the external environment, individuals can focus on internal work, doubling down on mindset and finding joy outside of work or in small spaces within it. It's also pragmatic to start exploring other potential environments or upskilling for future changes, even if it's just taking small steps in that direction.
40 Actionable Insights
1. Understand Burnout’s Systemic Roots
Recognize that burnout is often driven by systemic issues like lack of fairness, poor relationships, or transgressed values, not just hard work, to avoid misplacing blame and solely focusing on individual fixes.
2. Challenge Burnout-Inducing Mindsets
Identify and challenge mindsets like the ‘hero complex,’ ‘busyness as a badge of honor,’ or viewing burnout as a weakness, as these increase burnout likelihood and prevent effective coping.
3. Define Personal Success & Purpose
Define ‘having it all,’ your desired life, and your personal definition of impact and success, rather than adopting external perspectives, to create a fulfilling life that aligns with your values.
4. Enlist a “Diving Buddy”
Learn the phases of burnout and enlist a trusted person (a ‘diving buddy’) in your life or workplace to help monitor for signs, as self-diagnosis is often difficult.
5. Process Moral Injury
If experiencing moral injury or values transgression at work, find an outlet (e.g., mindfulness practice, expression) to process these feelings, avoiding suppression to prevent further burnout.
6. Practice Mindful Communication
Practice ’titrating’ attention during conversations by shifting focus between your internal experience (physical, emotional, cognitive) and external observations of others (physical cues, emotional state, concepts expressed) to enhance understanding and response.
7. Strategically Plan Conversations
Strategically plan how, when, and what to say when speaking up, seeking feedback from mentors and experienced individuals, and emphasizing positive intention rather than just critique.
8. Prioritize Core Self-Care
Prioritize fundamental self-care: ensure adequate sleep, regular exercise, healthy eating (without fanaticism), consistent meditation, strong community ties, and exposure to nature, as these are crucial for resilience.
9. Listen to Your Body
Listen to your body’s signals (e.g., tiredness) and respond with short breaks or enjoyable activities instead of powering through, as your body is a reliable barometer for your well-being.
10. Reprogram Inner Dialogue
Reprogram negative inner dialogue by stepping away from tasks, noticing self-critical spirals, and replacing them with self-compassionate, task-focused affirmations to foster a healthier mindset.
11. Shift Focus to Influence
Identify sources of frustration, values transgression, and lack of agency, then shift focus to what you can influence and control to avoid feeling stuck and overwhelmed.
12. Explore Future Career Options
If in a toxic work environment that can’t be changed and quitting isn’t feasible, start strategically exploring other potential environments and taking steps to understand your choices for the future.
13. Double Down on Internal Work
If external change is impossible, double down on internal work: focus on mindset, find joy outside of work, in spaces between tasks, or in relationships within the workplace.
14. Combine Study and Practice
Combine study and practice to work several parts of the mind at once, integrating wisdom from experts into deeper parts of your mind and body through application.
15. Differentiate Burnout Symptoms
Differentiate burnout from anxiety/depression by observing if feelings are situational (work-related, worsening at the start of the week) or across the board, especially if you are prone to anxiety/depression.
16. Reflect on Relentless Busyness
Reflect on relentless busyness in all life components (work, parenting, social media) and consider a ‘reset’ to do days and family differently, as forced pauses can offer valuable perspective.
17. Acknowledge Insufficient Tools
Acknowledge that your current tools (e.g., meditation) might not be sufficient for solving burnout, and be open to seeking additional solutions beyond individual practice.
18. Recognize Purpose’s Double Edge
Be aware that an overabundance of purpose can lead to self-sacrifice and workaholism, especially in mission-driven fields, making it a precipitant for burnout.
19. Decide When “It’s Not Worth It”
Decide if your current situation is ’not worth it’ and be willing to make significant changes, even if terrifying, to escape an unsustainable path for your well-being.
20. Reframe Impact by Doing Less
Recognize that by doing less, you can sometimes achieve a larger, more meaningful impact, challenging the notion that more effort always equals more success.
21. Initiate Home Caregiving Discussions
Initiate curious discussions within the home about the distribution of caregiving and housework, asking ‘what are we doing here?’ and ‘how do we feel about what we’re doing?’ to ensure fairness and reduce strain.
22. Advocate for Workplace Flexibility
Inquire about workplace flexibility, adjusted targets, and performance metrics, and advocate for them if they are not in place, as these adjustments can significantly impact burnout.
23. Triage Frustrations with Peers
Engage with peers or mentors to triage frustrations, prioritize actionable items, and strategize advocacy within your team or organization, avoiding futile efforts against immovable obstacles.
24. Respond Proactively, Not Reactively
When addressing important issues, seek mentor feedback and use mindfulness to create space and understanding, ensuring you respond proactively rather than reactively or defensively.
25. Choose Your Battles Wisely
Deliberately choose which battles to fight, considering what’s worth it and acceptable consequences, recognizing that inaction also has a cost on your well-being.
26. Senior Leaders: Be Upstanders
If in a senior position, act as an upstander for those with less power by being transparent about personal challenges (e.g., childcare needs) and calling out inequities.
27. Foster Team Psychological Safety
As a team, work to understand each other’s ’tuning triggers’ and openly discuss them (e.g., punctuality) to improve collaboration and create a psychologically safe environment.
28. Vary Group Communication Dynamics
Foster belonging and inclusion in group settings by intentionally changing communication dynamics, such as using a round robin format to ensure less vocal individuals contribute.
29. Men: Ask Women How to Help
Men should initiate dialogue by asking women in their lives how they can be helpful regarding burnout and workplace challenges, opening a space for support.
30. Men: Examine Home Task Distribution
Men should examine the distribution of home tasks, focusing not just on who does more, but who feels drained by their responsibilities, to ensure equitable and sustainable arrangements.
31. Men: Understand Women’s Frustrations
Understand what truly drains your partner and what would be most helpful to them, and acknowledge systemic frustrations women face (e.g., pay gap, visibility) to offer informed support.
32. Engage in Open Conversations
Engage in open conversations with close contacts about frustrations and challenges to gain perspective, validate experiences, and receive support.
33. Monitor Unhelpful Coping Strategies
Pay attention to coping strategies that involve repeatedly throwing yourself back into work when stressed or anxious, as this can be a sign of unhelpful, burnout-inducing patterns.
34. Monitor Subtle Health Components
Pay close attention to subtle health components like sleep and community, as neglecting them can lead to gradual burnout, making you like ’the frog in the pot’.
35. Observe Busyness as a Badge
If you tend to view busyness as a badge of honor, consciously observe how often you express pride in being busy, as this mindset contributes to burnout.
36. Avoid Long-Term Stagnation
Avoid long-term stagnation by actively exploring future choices and discussing them with others, even if immediate change isn’t possible, to foster a sense of agency.
37. Visit Skylight Website
Visit Skylight’s website for resources on resilience, burnout, self-awareness, community, autonomy, and advocacy at the team and organizational level.
38. Connect with Leah Weiss
Connect with Leah Weiss via her personal website (LeahWeissPhD.com) or email to share experiences or ask questions, as she welcomes engagement from listeners.
39. Read “How We Work”
Read Leah Weiss’s book ‘How We Work, Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind’ for insights on purpose, sanity, and managing daily work.
40. Read “Little Book of Bhavana”
Read ‘The Little Book of Bhavana’ for daily strategies focused on building resilience.
6 Key Quotes
It's emotional exhaustion plus depersonalization plus reduced sense of efficacy.
Leah Weiss
Often it's about the components that are, you know, have to do more with lack of fairness or poor relationships or frustration with values being transgressed that are the real drivers of burnout, not quote unquote, just working a lot and hard.
Leah Weiss
You're a frog in a pot, and you are dying.
Leah Weiss
An overabundance of purpose can drive self-sacrifice, workaholism, you know, believing that the cause is so important.
Leah Weiss
Finished is better than perfect.
Leah Weiss
Staying stuck is the wrong solution for the long term.
Leah Weiss
2 Protocols
Addressing Burnout for Women in the Workplace
Leah Weiss- Have discussions within the home about distributing caregiving and housework, focusing not just on time but also on who feels drained.
- In the workplace, inquire about and advocate for adjusted targets, performance reviews, and metrics in the context of the pandemic.
- Work on systemic issues like access to childcare and closing the gender pay gap.
- If re-entering the workforce, explore 'returnship' programs or resources from college placement centers.
- Understand the signs of burnout and address them at home and work.
- Identify what is frustrating you or where your values are transgressed, but then focus on what you can influence or control.
- Vent frustrations with peers or mentors to triage issues, then prioritize and act on what can be changed within your team or organization.
Applying Mindfulness to Communication and Team Dynamics
Leah Weiss- Titrate your attention between your own physical, emotional, and cognitive experience and your perception and observations of another person's physical cues, emotional state, and expressed concepts during conversations.
- Notice your habits of where you tend to focus (e.g., words vs. physical/emotional cues) and expand your internal vocabulary to notice physical and thinking patterns.
- Work as a team to understand each other's 'tuning' and 'triggers' in a workplace context.
- Practice proactively figuring out how, when, and what to say when addressing important issues, getting feedback from mentors.
- Experiment with group dynamics, such as using a 'round robin' approach instead of letting only extroverts speak first, to foster belonging and inclusion.