let’s be clear on one thing…

𝗕𝗨𝗥𝗡𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗜𝗦 ❌𝗡𝗢𝗧❌ 𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗦

One of the biggest misconceptions I see in my work is not so much people mistaking stress for burnout, but people mistaking BURNOUT for stress. And NO, this is not semantics...it's an important distinction...

In my experience, people don't play up their stress to dramatize it, they're playing DOWN and playing OFF their burnout to NORMALIZE it...and that's a problem! Because when we play down our burnout, that’s when it starts to cause some serious problems.

Stress? It's acute. It's short-term. We have bursts of stress in our life. It's incredibly normal. But burnout? It ACCUMULATES. It's chronic. It builds up over time. It's the result of stress run amok...and it's ugly. Are there overlaps? Yes. Abso-fucking-lutely, but the distinctions are stupid important

think of when you’re sick…

When it’s a short-term illness, ya it might kick your ass for a short-term period, but we can bounce back. We can rest up and get our feet back under us. But burnout? That’s a chronic illness. That is something that knocks out your motivation, your ability to show up…and it shows up in our relationships, our work, our goals, and every facet of our life. And it can be very debilitating.

This is especially the case for high-achievers. High-achievers define their worthiness and their identity by what they achieve and get done. When they’re dealing with something that affects their ability to do just that, it can be really demotivating. High-achievers in stress and burnout are apathetic and jaded….it’s not their normal mode of operation and it can be very frustrating.

that’s the difference - acute illness vs. chronic illness…

the acute is stress. the chronic is burnout.

Another way to think about this short-term vs long-term perspective is this…

Stress is something that is short-term in the sense that maybe it’s not a long commitment where you’re going to have to give a lot of yourself. It’s a project that’s going to require a lot of you for like a week, but after that, you get a break. After that, things go back to normal. That’s a very survivable experience.

Burnout on the other hand is when you’re engaging in an unsustainable level of commitment for months and maybe even years at a time.

here’s an example…

One client came to me in such a state of burnout that she was emotionally strung out, quick to tears, and working 10-12 hour days and 70+ hour weeks. It wasn’t a short-term project that was requiring a lot of her. It was her lifestyle. It was the permanent state of her work.

Once we’d work together for a few months, she realized that she knew her triggers and she knew what to do to manage her burnout. Additionally, when she did have a period of high-stress, lots of work, and a project that required a big push, she felt a lot better about it knowing that it was a short-term push. She didn’t feel as strained and burned out by this intensive period of time because she realized that it had a start and end date. During this time, she definitely felt some of her bad habits coming back, but she had such an awareness around them that she was able to mitigate and manage those bad habits better than she ever had before…

another way to think about stress vs burnout is this:

stress is a light switch, but burnout is a dimmer switch.

Stress is something that can switch on and switch off. Like I mentioned in the last paragraph, it might turn on when you have an intensive period of work, and, then, when that period of time is over, that stress switch will flip off again.

Burnout is a dimmer switch. You might have a period of time when you’re completely refreshed. Then, you have a period of stress at work when you throw yourself into things. During that time, perhaps you stop all self-care activities. Then, when that period ends, instead of giving yourself a break to recharge, you dive right into the next project where your boundaries are non-existent and your self-care goes out the window…

You can see how as this repeats over and over again, your burnout would ramp up. Slowly but surely, your burnout moves along that spectrum and ramps up until it’s on full blast!

You can see the difference, right?

Your stress will turn on and turn off as you move things onto and off of your plate.

Your burnout, if not managed and not given a chance to recharge and reset, can ramp up…and up…and up until it becomes incredibly problematic.

So, that is my lesson for you...

DON’T MISTAKE YOUR BURNOUT FOR STRESS…CALL IT WHAT IT IS!

I’m on a mission to make burnout a MF'ing CHOICE - not a default and not something we just accept as a part of being "successful", cuz it's NOT. To make that choice, you have to start by admitting that NO you're not "just stressed". That there's a BIG difference between your run of the mill stress + the BURNOUT that has been running you into the ground…

What do you think about all this? Do you agree?

Comment Below!