Burnout Burnout by Eva Selhub, MD Burnout For Dummies® Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com Copyright © 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/ permissions. 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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022947348 ISBN 978-1-119-89493-3 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-89494-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-89495-7 (ebk) Contents at a Glance Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Part 1: Turning the Tide on the Burnout Epidemic . . . . . . . . . . 5 CHAPTER 1: So You Think You’re Burned Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 CHAPTER 2: Exploring the Scope and Impact of Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 CHAPTER 3: Getting Ready to Tackle Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Part 2: Sorting Out the Sources of Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 CHAPTER 4: What Caused Your Burnout? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65 CHAPTER 5: Examining Your Relationship with Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 CHAPTER 6: Deciding Whether You and Your Job Are a Good Fit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 CHAPTER 7: When Caring Is Your Job: Dealing with Compassion Fatigue . . . . . . . . 119 Part 3: Building Essential Resources for Navigating Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 CHAPTER 8: Building a Foundation of Awareness with Mindfulness . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 CHAPTER 9: Being Kind . . . to Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 CHAPTER 10: Cultivating a Safe and Brave Inner Space for Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 CHAPTER 11: Cultivating the Infrastructure That Supports Your Life Force . . . . . . . . 193 CHAPTER 12: Establishing High-Quality Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Part 4: Beyond Burnout and Toward Resilience: Flourishing and Thriving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 CHAPTER 13: Charting the Course from Burnout to Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 CHAPTER 14: Creating Conditions for You to Flourish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 CHAPTER 15: Building a Culture of Care and Flourishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Part 5: The Part of Tens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 CHAPTER 16: Ten Ways to Use Your Body to Ease Your Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 CHAPTER 17: Ten Tips to Foster Flourishing at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 About This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Foolish Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Icons Used in This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Beyond the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Where to Go from Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 PART 1: TURNING THE TIDE ON THE BURNOUT EPIDEMIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 CHAPTER 1: So You Think You’re Burned Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 What Exactly Is Burnout? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 What burnout is not . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 What makes burnout so complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Looking for the Signs of Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Using the Three R approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 No gas in the tank: Emotional exhaustion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Not feeling it: Depersonalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Not cutting it: Ineffectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 The Several “Flavors” of Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Overload: Burnout by volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Underload: Burnout by boredom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Undersupported: Burnout by neglect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Overpleasing: Burnout by socialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Checking Your Burnout Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Discovering just how burned out you feel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 What the results mean . . . and what they don’t mean . . . . . . . . . . 22 Taking a moment to simply acknowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 CHAPTER 2: Exploring the Scope and Impact of Burnout . . . . . . . .27 Burnout Feels Lonely, But You Are Far from Alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 What the statistics say about the prevalence of burnout . . . . . . . . 30 Who gets burned out? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 How Burnout Affects the Individual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 The physiology of burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 The psychological effects of burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 The social impact of burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Burnout as an obstacle to making meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 The Impact of Burnout on Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 The financial costs of burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 The insidious effects of a culture of burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 The Wisdom of Paying Attention to Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Table of Contents vii CHAPTER 3: Getting Ready to Tackle Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Burnout Is Not the “New Normal” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Recognizing the chronic and insidious nature of burnout . . . . . . . 47 Observing your own pathway to burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Responding to Burnout Rather Than Reacting to Suffering . . . . . . . . . 51 No quick fixes, but relief is possible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Cultivating patience, curiosity, and vulnerability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 What Taking Action May Look Like at First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Enjoying the lighter side of managing burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Discovering a place for warmth, kindness, and compassion . . . . . 58 Recognizing your power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Keeping your eye on the prize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 PART 2: SORTING OUT THE SOURCES OF BURNOUT . . . . . . 63 CHAPTER 4: What Caused Your Burnout? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 The Multiple Sources of Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Taking responsibility without shame or blame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Your history sets the stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Personality is the spice of life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Vision, meaning, and purpose: Is there a mismatch? . . . . . . . . . . . .73 Why the job is pushing you over the edge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Context Is King: Systems Can Create Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Keeping a wide view of your situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Exploring and naming systemic assumptions and actions . . . . . . . 77 Connecting the dots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Explaining Burnout with the Four Factor Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 High workload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Lack of recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Lack of support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Personality tendencies and habits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Connecting the dots with your life experiences exercise . . . . . . . . 80 Appreciating the complexity and taking your time . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82 CHAPTER 5: Examining Your Relationship with Burnout . . . . . . . . 83 Shifting Away from Shame to Opportunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Digging In to How You Got to Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Fear of missing out (FOMO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Passion outweighing all else . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Depending on technology and staying “connected” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Putting off care of your own well-being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Seeking meaning when there seems to be none . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Misappropriating work time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Stepping Back to Self-Assess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Self-assessment questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 viii Burnout For Dummies