You’re probably good at your job. Your colleagues like you, more or less. 5 o’clock rolls around and a deadline is due, so you know you’ll need to stay late. No worries, sometimes it happens.
How stress becomes burnout
You will always experience stress. There will always be times when you feel the pressure of a deadline, there will always be arguments with your partner or your kids. There will always be bumps in the road. We all experience stress at times. But not all of this stress is bad. Some of it, your fast-paced job, the adrenaline of closing the deal, you actually might enjoy. Stress can energise.
But for stress to energise, there needs to be some downtime. There needs to be an off switch. If that doesn’t happen, you might find that it builds and builds. Insomnia might creep and, somehow, exhaustion too. You might be irritable. And you might become cynical and bitter. “Nothing I do matters.” “Everything is shit.”
Why you can’t say no
The problem starts when you can’t say no. You might be able to say no if you’ve got plans. You don’t want to let anyone down. But when you’d been looking forward to a night off? That show you’d wanted to watch, with a pizza and a glass of red wine? You can’t say yes to that. You say yes to your boss instead.
Or maybe there is no boss. Maybe it’s the people you love who never hear your no, or perhaps a community or a cause. There might be something you feel bound to, that you cannot let down. There is part of you that longs to take the night off. But that part of you feels completely shut off.
Burnout is what happens when the option to say no somehow disappears. You know that you could, but the hassle it causes, the arguments, the extra work, the disappointment, all of that suddenly becomes too much.
Saying no becomes too much.
When you can’t find the off switch
You’ve noticed then, you’re always on. There are no off days. And sometimes it feels like you can’t even find the off switch.
And then a mistake gets made. There might be lots of people involved. But you find yourself taking responsibility for all of it. You know there’s no I in team. But there is an I in failure.
However bad it gets though, you have to pay your bills. People depend on you. You can’t just up sticks and leave. And so you keep going, on and on. The stress builds.
I’m here to tell you, it’s time to breathe.
Burnout is not a personal failing
Let’s be clear about this. Burnout is not because you’re not good at your job, or because you don’t work hard enough or because you cannot manage your time. Burnout is a cultural phenomenon. We live in a society that makes it more likely to happen. Burnout is built-in.
I cannot change that. I cannot lead the revolution, comrade. Nor can I change the immediate circumstances of your life. But what I can do is listen.
What burnout recovery might look like
Listening works. Being listened to is its own magic. It will probably feel good to get stuff off your chest — a vent, sometimes even a rant. I will listen for as long as you need me to. But as you’re speaking, you’ll be hearing yourself too. You might notice patterns. You might be reminded of something that seems, at first, unrelated. Together, we’ll explore the full picture — not just what’s bothering you, but why.
Eventually, space might start to appear. There will be lightness where there was once weight.
You might even connect with something that right now, reading this, feels absurd, almost laughable.
Choice.
The practical bits
The room is at 231 Shoreditch High Street, London E1 6PJ — in Shoreditch, in the London Borough of Hackney. Shoreditch High Street station is a two-minute walk and Liverpool Street about ten. We can also meet online.
Sessions are £80 for 50 minutes, usually weekly. The first step is a free 15‑minute call — no obligation, just a chance to get a sense of each other.
What you share in sessions stays between us. Like all therapists, I have some obligations which I spell out in my privacy policy.
If burnout is caused by my workplace or culture, can therapy really help?
Therapy can absolutely help with burnout. Burnout is a product of your workplace — and how you feel about it. Therapy can do nothing about the first, but a lot about the second. Together we can explore your relationship to work and the people at it. You probably won’t arrive at a new Zen-like calm about the situation that is currently making you miserable. But you might begin to see things that you can do differently, conversations that once felt impossible to have might now seem more straightforward.
It will also be useful just to talk to someone who can listen. Simple, but it’s amazing what it shifts.
Do I have to quit my job to recover from burnout?
No, you don’t have to quit your job to recover from burnout. And so far, very few of my clients have. What will change in our work together isn’t your job, but rather your sense of agency and freedom. You might feel like you have choices again. I’ve written in more detail about how to recover from burnout without quitting your job.
How long does burnout recovery take?
Burnout recovery takes some time. For some people, it’s a few months, for others a few years. It’s hard to say without getting to know you first. There are no obligations either way. Once you feel like you have got what you need from the process, we’ll agree an ending.
How do I know if I’m burnt out?
Burnout is usually a mix of insomnia, exhaustion, ineffectiveness and cynicism. What this actually looks like will vary according to your situation, and it can be hard to spot, particularly if you’re still “functioning”. I’ve written more about what burnout looks like in high-functioning people.
Is burnout the same as stress?
Burnout is not the same as stress. Stress is part of life, and can often be enjoyable or satisfying. I see burnout as stress without recovery. If you are always on and cannot switch off, if you find stress draining rather than energising, that’s likely burnout.
