Burnout is a familiar state for most passionate and determined people.
Burnout is a familiar state for most passionate and determined people.
You’re here for a reason.
You have a strong passion to serve and a vision that you passionately care about.
It feels like you are always in need of more hours in the day and more energy to do ALL THE THINGS.
This vision might be pursued through…
…your profession,
your relationships,
creative projects,
activism to create real change.
You might be juggling commitments in all these areas at once. There are so many things to do, places to be, and causes to care about that you honestly don’t understand how people can walk around feeling satisfied rather than driven to do more.
What is Burnout?
It feels like perpetual exhaustion. We know we’ve pushed limits a few times too many and we feel the cost of that. What used feel fulfilling is now just a slog, and a frustrating brain fog takes over. You’re no less determined or committed, but you hit an internal brick wall when you try to move forward.
Burnout isn’t an individual problem. It’s created by a culture that holds impossible standards of perpetual growth, earning and producing, but doesn’t remember or value what we are supposed to be growing, earning and producing for.
Passionate, determined, highly capable people can easily find themselves sucked in by systems that use their drive and enthusiasm at the expense of their own wellbeing.
I help passionate and multipassionate people identify and dismantle the cultural drivers of burnout so they can serve their big visions more sustainably.
i offer the following ways to work with me around burnout
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Each month I take a deep dive into one aspect of resisting burnout.
Monthly Deep Dive Letters name cultural dynamics that generate burnout and open doors to imagining how we might do things differently. For examples of what I write about, take a look at the blog.
No productivity tips, and no motivational pep-talks. Just in depth, thoughtful content to support you in resisting burnout culture. You’ll also be notified of new events and programs.
Burnout Articles
Guilt is Not a Reliable Compass
Often I work with people who, in the interest of preventing or addressing burnout, are very willing to scale back their to do lists and define what is enough. But when it comes to actually stopping when they reach that enough point, they have a very hard time. [read more]
Disengaging from Toxic Productivity Culture: Why and How
We’ve already talked about what discourses are and how they contribute to burnout. One outsized contributor is Toxic Productivity Culture, a great big discourse that says a happy and worthwhile life is one in which we are constantly producing. [read more]
Toxic Productivity Culture
During the Industrial Revolution, a new sort of profession sprung up: The Productivity Expert. The job of this expert was to help factories produce more, faster. Presumably this goal was best accomplished by finding the one best way to do everything. [read more]
Racial Justice and Burnout Discourses
The discourses that fuel burnout do not affect everyone equally. In her Buzzfeed essay, This is What Black Burnout Feels Like, Tiana Clark asks, “If the American dream isn’t possible for upwardly mobile white people anymore, then what am I even striving for?” [read more]
What are Burnout Discourses?
Discourses are the lenses we look through. We use the lens to determine what’s in the frame vs out, what’s foreground, and what isn’t. Some things are in focus while others are fuzzy. [read more]
Passion for our work does not make us immune to burnout
A prominent myth that pervades start-ups, established corporations, not-for-profits, and activist circles is that if you care more, you do more. Find your passion, your true calling, and you will never work a day in your life; so the myth goes. [read more]
