Lately, I’ve been feeling very tired, irritable, and a bit desperate at work, although I’ve been achieving my goals at work.

There is no reason for me to feel that way. My colleagues are supportive, my job is fun (and my side gigs are too!). My boss is kind, and I have a great relationship with them.

This is how I came to realize I was sensing burnout creeping up on me.

If you can relate to this feeling of irritation, constant fatigue, and lack of drive, then you are probably working yourself towards a massive burnout.

As much as I’m only training to become a psychologist, I would like to help you detect a few symptoms that go beyond “fatigue” and identify whether you are experiencing some kind of burnout.

“It’s never good enough.”

One of my clients told me something interesting on our call today, and alarm bells rang in my head. She said, “I am going to the gym twice a week, running every day, cleaning my house, taking care of my pets, finishing my doctorate, and working full-time, but I can’t help but feel bad because I don’t run every day and I don’t know where I can fit that in my schedule.”

Immediately, my first thought was, “I don’t know any other person who is doing as many things as she is.” And then it struck me: I am that person who does a tonne of things. And I am experiencing burnout. And similarly to my client, I also have this idea that I need to do more.

I need to get a spotless apartment, tidy myself up, and always look polished. I need to start my studies again so I can be a fully formed therapist since I’m already managing a therapeutic organization, the editor of a magazine, and teaching languages on the side.

Sometimes, the best way to figure out whether we are experiencing burnout is to meet a friend for coffee, look them in the eye, list all those things we’ve been doing on a daily basis, and watch them sigh and gasp when we state we want to do more.

Society has truly conditioned us all to believe that unless we are a gazillionaire like Jeff Bezos or a savvy socialite like Lauren Sanchez, his spicy fiancee, then we are not successful and therefore have no legacy and definitely no right to rest.

“Everyone else is so lazy.”

This is the first thing I said to one of my friends when discussing some of the people I recently hired.

That rant was full of venom. I have recently been put in charge of hiring people for the magazine I work at.

By offering decent pay, I had assumed that these people would need no guidance. Which is an unrealistic and unfair expectation. Everyone has a right to make mistakes.

The reason these people irritated me so much is because I’m feeling a sense of exhaustion and burnout to the point where I can’t look at someone who does less than me without feeling rage. “They should be doing the same amount of work as me.” Is what the burnout voice whispered in my ear.

You know you are facing burnout when seeing people be slow, rely on you for things, or make small mistakes infuriates you.

If you’re feeling like you have lower compassion levels than usual, this may be a clear indicator of “compassion fatigue”, which is often associated with burnout.

In this case, I remember gritting my teeth very hard after interviewing a fund manager in view of an article.

Although it was extremely enriching, the man in question was the same age as me but basically made my yearly salary in a month, working two h/day.

It infuriated me that he could “get away” with doing so little yet succeeding stellarly.

“Why in the world am I doing this?”

This is another question someone facing burnout could ask themselves.

 They may very well be at the top of the food chain in terms of work, yet wonder why they are doing any of this. Is there any point to work at all?

For a lot of women, over-exertion is a norm that has been established since our right to work outside of the home. Nowadays, a lot of us do our home chores on our own and work full-time. It has become unsustainable for a lot of us. As such, during the pandemic, many women stayed at home, without the expectation of going into an office. They realized that they didn’t know why they were pursuing these “boss babe” positions.

Youtuber Shallon Lester made a whole video about the “trad-wife” movement, explaining that the women who are now trad could very well be extremely successful but just tired of going into an office where their boss doesn’t care about them. “Your family cares about you,” Shallon says, demystifying the allure of being a trad-wife.

If you wonder why you’re working and if you have recurring fantasies of being a stay-at-home or, even worse – marrying someone for money just so you can stay at home, then you’re probably burnt out.

“Having friends is such an inconvenience.”

If you’re at the point where you are glad not to go out or see anyone, you are very likely at the cusp of a burnout.

 I’m at this point where I do not reach out to my friends anymore unless they reach out to me, and it doesn’t even feel like a loss that I am losing touch with people who are precious to me.

Now that we’ve explored a few themes of burnout, I would like to conclude this article by giving you some secrets to manage your burnout if it’s already there.

The first one is to drink some tea. Seriously, it may sound strange, but we all know that KFC can’t beat lavender tea when it comes to nerves. I won’t go on a rant about healthy habits but use this tea cup as a reminder you need breaks.

I personally pour myself a hot cup and watch an episode of “The Legend of Korra” when I need to unwind. The 20 minutes of the episode are enough that they feel like a break, and my lavender tea helps combat the stress I get from constantly drinking coffee.

Another way of battling burnout is just to do less. Seriously, your boss may be counting on you, and for sure, it’s important not to leave them and your colleagues to catch up on your work, but you need to stop volunteering for extra work and find ways to automate or delegate tasks if you can. Basically, try being creative so you can prioritize rest.

Studies show we all need between 2 and 5 hours of free time per day. As unrealistic as this may sound, I recommend we try squeezing in these two hours with either micro-breaks or big breaks.

Some of you may think, “But I really need to work, I have bills to pay, and nobody to fall back on.”

I’m the same, but I understand that burning myself out will lead to me not being productive, and therefore, I’m at greater risk of being fired anyway.

The secret of fighting burnout is to shift priorities completely around and ignore the constant injunctions to be productive and perfect.

This was written by our contributing writer, Suzanne Latre.