What Causes Burnout

The cause of burnout is chronic stress.  

Chronic stress is the build up of stress over time.

Burnout happens when you experience chronic stress at work and you aren’t able to manage the stress well.
Unfortunately, stress is unavoidable and something that we all experience.

You can burnout from a job you love. Especially if you have strong perfectionist tendencies or unbelievably high expectations for yourself.
Burnout can also happen to those who are givers. So those who work in people, oriented jobs. These types of jobs require ongoing and intense personal and emotional contact with others and those where you need to be selfless and put others' needs first.

Stress is caused by stressors - these are the things that cause stress, the triggers, whether it’s someone's words, the items on your to-do list, an email, etc. Stressors are unique to each person, meaning what causes you stress may not cause me stress nor the next person stress. When your body notices a stressor, it automatically switches on the stress cycle. You don’t have a choice in this decision. 

The stress response causes your body to prepare to fight, flight or freeze by shifting all its energy towards surviving the enemy = the stressor.
The trick with stress is what you do with it when you’re experiencing it. For your body to stay healthy, it needs a balance of stress with relaxation. It needs time to recover from the stressful event before it can face another stressful event, or especially the same stressful event. Otherwise, this can lead you down the path of burnout.

I’ve experienced burnout twice.

I’m still working in the same career that I was when I experienced burnout. But if I’m being fully transparent, I actually didn’t realize I was experiencing burnout the first time. 

I just tried to ignore what I was feeling, as I was dealing with some other things at the time (postpartum depression) and hoped the burnout would go away on it’s own. 

Unfortunately that didn’t work.

I work full time as a registered nurse and I’m in a very similar position to the one I was in when I realized I was burnt out for the second time. This second time I had the capacity to deal with my burnout.

And sitting here, 2 years later, I’m so thankful that I took the courageous leap and decided to figure out what was causing my burnout and then look for ways to recover from it. Which is why I’m here, sharing my story. 

I want you to know that you’re not alone if you’re experiencing burnout. 

You’re not a failure if you’re burnt out.

And you don’t have to go through it alone. 
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I’m curious, what’s causing you stress in your life right now?

If your stress has become too much for too long, my eBook "A Way Out of Burnout" offers simple and practical steps so you can start healing from burnout today.