Guidance for Everyday Life
Feeling Burned Out?
Perhaps you keep telling yourself you just need to get through this week. Then next week arrives, and there is another thing to manage, another person who needs you, another email you cannot quite bring yourself to open. You may still be getting things done, but finding less of yourself left at the end of the day.
Or perhaps you have already stopped, stepped back or taken some time away because you are just so burned out, and you are trying to understand what happened and what you need now. The very idea of rest might feel welcome, difficult or unfamiliar. You may be wondering how to find a way forward without ending up in the same place again.
There are moments when life becomes too much and often we don’t know what to do with that. We’re here to help explore the experience of burnout.
Why Might I Be Feeling This Way?
Burnout is often used to describe different experiences of exhaustion. The World Health Organization’s definition concerns prolonged workplace stress.
Workload may be part of it. So may caring for other people, constant decisions, uncertainty, or the effort of looking as though everything is fine. Sometimes demands have increased. Sometimes the support, choice or time that once made everything manageable is no longer there. And sometimes there really is nobody to hand anything over to. Your circumstances deserve attention alongside the expectations you carry.
Burnout can come with many other feelings: guilt about resting, fear of disappointing someone, or worry about what needing help says about you. What might some of yours be?
What might help?
You may already know plenty about how to take care of yourself. The difficult part might be finding the time, accepting that your needs count or knowing how to ask for help.
That could mean a conversation about work, practical help at home, time with a health professional, or somewhere to talk honestly about how you are feeling. A small pause can matter. So can a bigger change in what is being asked of you.
Somewhere To Start
Choose one question if it feels useful. You can think about it, write a little or bring it into a conversation. There is no need to work through all three.
Certified Coach · Emotions Coaching Practitioner
Exploring burnout together
I’m Claire Fitzsimmons, a certified coach and Emotions Coaching Practitioner. Burnout has become one of the recurring conversations in my coaching practice. Often, the women I work with are used to being capable and keeping going, even when doing so is costing them.
There are various ways to approach burnout but a good place to start is to look more closely at your experience, understand what you need and consider changes that might make life more manageable. We’ll also explore the emotional side of stopping or changing things, as well as what is happening around you. Together we’ll figure out what matters most to you.
Please note that coaching does not diagnose burnout, investigate physical symptoms or provide medical treatment or psychological therapy. If tiredness is persistent, unexplained or affecting everyday life, speak to your GP. If your physical or mental health needs assessment or treatment, that support comes first; coaching may sometimes sit alongside it when appropriate. If you need urgent mental health support, please seek help through the NHS rather than waiting for a coaching appointment.
Listen with us
On A Thought I Kept, I ask guests about an idea that has stayed with them. These conversations offer different ways into the questions around burnout including:
Selina Barker, who authored Burnt out: The exhausted person’s six-step guide to thriving in a fast-paced world — for exploring what takes energy, what gives some back and the expectations attached to helping others.
Liana Fricker — for a personal account of repeated burnout and learning that feeling better does not necessarily mean being ready for the same demands.
Nicky Marshall — for noticing personal warning signs and making room for your own needs.
Listen to this podcast playlist
Read When You're Feeling Burnt Out
Living on the edge of burnout? How to recognise the signs and find your way back
You're not anti-social. You're burnt out.
Feeling like you're not coping in mid-life. Could you be burnt out?
Or Perhaps a different kind of exploration
You may want a little time with something beyond burnout. A familiar green space, making something without an outcome, or company you do not have to organise. Our wellbeing pathways offer possibilities to follow according to your interests and capacity. They are invitations you can seek out and return to whenever you choose.
