What If I Slip Back Into Burnout?
Updated: Mar 25
Written by Britt-Mari Sykes, Career Counsellor
Britt-Mari Sykes, Ph.D., CDP, is a career counsellor and founder of CANVAS Career Counselling, working remotely with clients across Canada.
I have worked with many clients over the years who have experienced, or are currently experiencing, burnout. A common concern and question as they navigate burnout is, “What if I slip back into burnout?”
This question and concern are quite understandable. Beyond the deeply personal experience of burnout and its effects on our mental and physical health, as well as on our engagement with work and life outside of work, we might also be working in a professional environment that does not acknowledge burnout. As a result, there may be no internal structures or policies to support us if we experience burnout, very little flexibility to change or adjust roles, and an environment that does little to address its own contributing factors. Unfortunately, and too often, the burden and responsibility for burnout are disproportionately placed on individual employees, significantly undermining their confidence, agency, self-perception as professionals, and their assessment of their skills, abilities, and work ethic.
So how can we address our worry about slipping back into burnout, and what is within our control?
7 examples of what we can control in burnout
We can seek support for immediate concerns from our family and friends, a medical doctor, a therapist or counsellor, and career counselling services. These sources of personalised support provide us with space to discuss burnout, share our experiences, and ease some of the burden, including the stigma, of burnout. We can identify specific concerns, possibly even fears, that we currently have, the changes we feel are necessary, and the types of support we might need in the long term. They can help us gain perspective and clarity, creating more emotional and mental space to reconnect with ourselves, our experiences, our lives, and our identities outside of work, thus preserving our personal dignity and highlighting our internal resources.
We can develop a regular reflective practice to help deepen our awareness and attention to our experiences. Setting aside as little as 10 minutes at the end of each day for reflection helps us become more attuned, strengthening our attention muscles to our experiences at work, including our engagement, attitudes, how we work, fluctuating energy, and motivation, among others. Developing our attention muscles enables us to notice shifts we might be experiencing physically, cognitively, emotionally, and interpersonally. These shifts might not indicate we are heading towards burnout, but increased attention enhances self-awareness and personal control, helping us determine what in our lives could benefit from minor adjustments and how to make them.
With increased awareness and attention, we can regularly reflect on our overall relationship with work and our careers, the dynamics in our work environment, including broader workplace contexts that may contribute to burnout, cultural narratives or assumptions about burnout that we may have internalised and that influence our attitudes, and our personal expectations. We can also pay closer attention to how burnout impacts other valued areas of our lives and how it might influence our engagement, presence, commitments, and the choices and decisions we make in these areas.
We can examine the boundaries in our lives, or their absence, and adjust them if necessary. We all need boundaries for our well being, but boundaries should support our lives, not create restrictions. Regularly reviewing our boundaries, like regular reflective practice, deepens our awareness, attention to our experiences, and responsiveness to life’s natural movement. Regularly reviewing our boundaries helps us understand their role in our lives and allows us to identify the life experiences, stages, or contexts in which we choose to uphold or challenge them, and why. It also helps us recognise the value they provide, when they may lose significance and why, and where we might need to adjust, modify, or establish new boundaries when necessary.
We can begin to identify and access personal resources, values, and resilience through our interests, activities, physical movement, nutrition, hydration, sleep habits, and social connections outside of our work environments, helping to nourish our lives more holistically.
We can review and stay informed about existing workplace policies on burnout. What supportive resources are available to employees? We can identify specific questions for our employers, the conversations we want to have, who to include, and how to initiate those discussions. We can identify changes or adjustments that we believe are possible and mutually beneficial for our ongoing work, roles, team, and work environment, and include these in any conversations we have.
And finally, we can compassionately remind ourselves that we are always "more than" our work and career identities, we are always “more than” burnout.
For reflection
If you have experienced or are currently experiencing burnout, what are you experiencing personally? How has burnout affected your engagement and daily work routine? How has it influenced other areas of your life?
How would you describe your burnout? What is a prominent word, descriptor, or feeling associated with it?
What kind of support and conversation do you want and need? What is immediately available or accessible? Are you comfortable asking for this support?
What immediate resources, even the tiniest, do you have in your life outside of work?
Describe an activity, hobby, setting, sound, sight, friend, family member, or pet that you value and that immediately sparks a different engagement in you. How does it feel? What internal resources does it activate?
Start a conversation about burnout. Career counselling can help. Contact here for more information or to book a consultation.
Britt-Mari Sykes, Career Counsellor
Britt-Mari Sykes, Ph.D., is a Career Counsellor and founder of CANVAS Career Counselling, working remotely with clients across Canada. Britt-Mari offers a reflective and strategic process to clients, one that integrates their lived experiences, values, and aspirations. This experiential approach to career counselling helps clients gain greater clarity and perspective and design practical steps towards a more meaningful relationship with work and career.
