Burnout Isn’t What You Think It Is: Debunking Myths and Reclaiming Truth
“I thought I was just tired. That if I could get through next quarter, I’d feel better. That it was just stress.”
These are the words I hear—over and over again—from high-performing ICs, leaders at all levels of organizations, and founders, who are staring burnout in the face. And they’re not alone. Burnout has become one of the most misunderstood, misused, and misdiagnosed phenomenons in the workplace
It’s time to rewrite the narrative.
Burnout is Not the Badge of Honor You Think It Is
We live in a culture where exhaustion is often worn like a medal, especially in the United States. That perception is changing, but not quickly enough. For leaders, it’s practically built into the job description: late nights, blurred boundaries, emotional labor, and constant vigilance. When we collapse into bed too tired to think, we tell ourselves, “This is just part of the role.”
But burnout is not the inevitable byproduct of ambition. It’s not just being busy or stressed. And it certainly isn’t a sign that you’re weak or not resilient enough.
The World Health Organization officially classified burnout in 2019 as an occupational phenomenon resulting from “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” It’s characterized by three dimensions:
Emotional exhaustion – feeling depleted and drained, often physically and mentally
Cynicism or depersonalization – distancing yourself from the work or people you once cared about
Reduced efficacy – a growing sense that you’re no longer effective, productive, or capable
This is not just about overwork—it’s about sustained, unresolved misalignment between a person and their work.
Myth 1: Burnout = Working Too Many Hours
Let’s start with one of the most persistent myths: that burnout is simply a function of working long hours. While there is some correlation, it’s not causation. You can be working 60 hours a week and thriving—or working 35 and slowly unraveling.
Decades of research from Christina Maslach and colleagues, the foremost expert on burnout, introduced the concept of “mismatches” between the person and the job as the root cause.
The six mismatch areas that lead to burnout are:
Workload – chronic overextension without recovery
Control – lack of autonomy or influence over your work
Reward – insufficient recognition (monetary or emotional)
Community – poor workplace relationships or lack of belonging
Fairness – inequity or inconsistent standards
Values – misalignment between personal and organizational values
Burnout isn’t about being busy. It’s about being busy in ways that erode your sense of self.
Myth 2: Burnout is Your Fault
The most damaging misconception (IMO): burnout is a personal failure. That if you were more organized, or had better time management, or just took more time off, you wouldn’t be here. The burden is placed on you to fix.
Let’s be clear: burnout is a systemic issue.
Most burnout interventions focus on individuals—resilience training, mindfulness apps, time management workshops—but the research shows that organizational-level interventions are more effective at reducing burnout long-term. These include restructured roles, improved leadership practices, and workload redistribution.
When you treat burnout like a personal problem, you not only miss the real causes—you compound the harm. You make people feel ashamed for a problem rooted in the systems around them.
This is especially true for women in leadership, as well as other historically marginalized group who often navigate higher performance standards, implicit and explicit barriers to resources and opportunities that enable their success, invisible labor, and emotional caretaking. For them, burnout can look like quiet disillusionment, over-functioning, or masking their ambition.
So Why Are We Still Getting Burnout Wrong?
Media, for one. But mostly, because it's easier to treat symptoms than systems. It’s simpler to prescribe a meditation app than to reconfigure roles, revise performance expectations, or recalibrate leadership models.
It's also because many of us don't recognize the signs in ourselves until it's too late. Especially if you're a leader or founder, you're rewarded for pushing through. For staying in control. For putting yourself last.
You tell yourself:
“I just need to get through this sprint.”
“It’ll calm down after the next launch.”
“Once I hire that next person, I’ll have breathing room.”
But burnout doesn’t wait for your calendar to clear. It accumulates quietly, until the spark is gone and your body forces a reckoning.
What Does Burnout Actually Feel Like?
It varies, but many describe:
Dreading work—even things you used to enjoy
Snapping at coworkers or loved ones
Feeling like your work doesn’t matter
Being constantly tired, even after adequate sleep
Struggling to focus or make decisions on a persistent basis
Consistently fantasizing about quitting or disappearing
You may also experience “achievement numbness” (the psychological term is ahedonia): you’re still hitting goals and milestones (or you’ve met them) but feel no satisfaction. Women in leadership may be more likely to experience this - though research on this is mixed.
Burnout is a Signal, Not a Diagnosis of Failure
If any of this resonates, know this: you’re not broken. You’re responding exactly as a healthy mind and body should when they’re pushed beyond capacity.
Burnout is not a shameful endpoint. It’s a wake-up call. A message that something in your ecosystem—whether in your job, your industry, or your internal expectations—needs to change.
In fact, burnout can be a portal to transformation. Many of the most grounded, wise, and intentional leaders I work with have moved through burnout and emerged with deeper clarity, compassion, and courage. But only when they stop denying it and start working with it. Is it challenging? Yes. Impossible? No.
Does It Feel Like More Than Stress?
If you're starting to suspect that what you're feeling is more than stress—pause, now! Don’t “power through.” Start by reflecting:
Where in your work do you feel most depleted?
Which of the six mismatch areas (workload, control, reward, community, fairness, values) feels most off?
What are the signs your body has been sending you that you've ignored?
Because naming it is the first step toward reclaiming yourself from burnout.
Want to explore your answers further? Let’s talk! Book a free consultation here.
Further Reading
Check out my article review, Burning the Midnight Oil is Not Burning Out on ScienceforWork.org
Maslach, C. & Leiter, M.P. (2000). The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It. Jossey-Bass; San Francisco, CA.
Article Photo by Tangerine Newt on Unsplash