I can totally relate having burned out badly from a hellish tech startup experience years ago. I got some good advice from a therapist about aiming to give 80% instead of 200% since my 80% was probably someone else’s 150%! Also advised to not pay too much heed to either the praise or the criticism at work to avoid the externally driven highs and lows and to have my own boundaries. Following that advice was not that easy but it did help in subsequent roles, as did putting more time into hobbies and friends. It’s very hard to not just fall back into the old pattern though so choosing a supportive work culture was important and avoiding toxic environments! Good luck!
First off, I'm so sorry to hear that you and others in your circle, have experienced this burnout!
I've been there myself. And it is certainly a property of many challenging programs and careers, so you are far from alone. That doesn't, however, mean burnout is inevitable for those like us.
You say you don't know of a universal method for rebuilding meaning, and I agree with you, because you include the word "universal." However, I have come to believe that there is indeed a personal path, which draws from an ensemble of common tools, for each individual seeking it, and it can be both learned and taught systematically.
I've spent the last few years teaching and mentoring in a high-intensity advanced program (in the "green tech" field of electrochemistry, now under considerable systematic funding stress) and I've taken some time to create a professional development program to help students get through it, find jobs, and to thrive afterward.
Considerable initial advantage can be gained from proper framing of the goals of such a program (individually, in conversation with each student), and obtaining a clearer separation between what can and cannot be achieved in one's work, vs. one's life outside of work.
I've also found it particularly helpful to integrate more recent progress in cognitive neuroscience and I/O and clinical psychology with time-tested philosophical wisdom, to establish a solid foundation over a maximally wide range of timescales. The specific framework that helps a given individual depends heavily on a clear diagnosis of their particular circumstance, but a minimum partial list would likely include elements of ikigai, philosophic analysis, alignment between GTD's Horizons of Focus, distinctions between talents/strengths and skills (based on extensive work by the Gallup organization), techniques for forming healthy habits, and SLII to communicate and manage expectation gaps.
For academic or writing-intensive careers, knowledge management tools are also often beneficial. I'd imagine, for example, that you're probably already familiar with Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten technique, which can be powerful, though trickier to implement well than it first appears.
The full list of tools and frameworks that are potentially relevant is naturally much longer, but I've found that for most individuals, as few as one or two key reframings (carefully selected!) are what's really needed to divert them away from a path defaulting to the crash you describe, and toward one of greater flourishing and meaning. A good mentor can help identify these, and a good coach can guide the learning process.
I've seen that driving toward clarity of purpose early and revisiting it often produces not only a greater capacity for withstanding intensity intact, but also provides infrastructure for a more durable sense of purpose and fulfillment after the program is over, when the intensity itself abates.
Happy to share more details, if there's any interest. In any event, I wish your troubled colleagues a quick and effective recovery!
Sorry to hear you and your friends have been through this Sinéad.
A few people in my network seemed to call it “the quarter life crisis” some years ago, I think.
I would say I had one that I would describe as either this or a burnout in my late 20s / early 30s, so I can sympathise.
I can totally relate having burned out badly from a hellish tech startup experience years ago. I got some good advice from a therapist about aiming to give 80% instead of 200% since my 80% was probably someone else’s 150%! Also advised to not pay too much heed to either the praise or the criticism at work to avoid the externally driven highs and lows and to have my own boundaries. Following that advice was not that easy but it did help in subsequent roles, as did putting more time into hobbies and friends. It’s very hard to not just fall back into the old pattern though so choosing a supportive work culture was important and avoiding toxic environments! Good luck!
Hi Sinead,
First off, I'm so sorry to hear that you and others in your circle, have experienced this burnout!
I've been there myself. And it is certainly a property of many challenging programs and careers, so you are far from alone. That doesn't, however, mean burnout is inevitable for those like us.
You say you don't know of a universal method for rebuilding meaning, and I agree with you, because you include the word "universal." However, I have come to believe that there is indeed a personal path, which draws from an ensemble of common tools, for each individual seeking it, and it can be both learned and taught systematically.
I've spent the last few years teaching and mentoring in a high-intensity advanced program (in the "green tech" field of electrochemistry, now under considerable systematic funding stress) and I've taken some time to create a professional development program to help students get through it, find jobs, and to thrive afterward.
Considerable initial advantage can be gained from proper framing of the goals of such a program (individually, in conversation with each student), and obtaining a clearer separation between what can and cannot be achieved in one's work, vs. one's life outside of work.
I've also found it particularly helpful to integrate more recent progress in cognitive neuroscience and I/O and clinical psychology with time-tested philosophical wisdom, to establish a solid foundation over a maximally wide range of timescales. The specific framework that helps a given individual depends heavily on a clear diagnosis of their particular circumstance, but a minimum partial list would likely include elements of ikigai, philosophic analysis, alignment between GTD's Horizons of Focus, distinctions between talents/strengths and skills (based on extensive work by the Gallup organization), techniques for forming healthy habits, and SLII to communicate and manage expectation gaps.
For academic or writing-intensive careers, knowledge management tools are also often beneficial. I'd imagine, for example, that you're probably already familiar with Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten technique, which can be powerful, though trickier to implement well than it first appears.
The full list of tools and frameworks that are potentially relevant is naturally much longer, but I've found that for most individuals, as few as one or two key reframings (carefully selected!) are what's really needed to divert them away from a path defaulting to the crash you describe, and toward one of greater flourishing and meaning. A good mentor can help identify these, and a good coach can guide the learning process.
I've seen that driving toward clarity of purpose early and revisiting it often produces not only a greater capacity for withstanding intensity intact, but also provides infrastructure for a more durable sense of purpose and fulfillment after the program is over, when the intensity itself abates.
Happy to share more details, if there's any interest. In any event, I wish your troubled colleagues a quick and effective recovery!
Andreas