Burnout Doesn’t Look Like You Think

Most people think burnout is obvious.

They picture someone collapsed at their desk. A calendar cleared. Emails unanswered. The system shutting down.

But for high performers? That’s not how it goes. For us, burnout is quiet, it looks like hyper-efficiency. You’re crushing deadlines. Holding everything together. To everyone else, you look like the calm in the storm.

Inside, though? You’re running on fumes. You haven’t felt real rest in months and every fire you put out leaves a little less of you for the next one. You tell yourself, “I’ll slow down once this is handled.” You’ve been saying it for years.

The dangerous thing about competence when you’re good at what you do, people stop checking in.

They assume you’re fine, They assume you’ve got it handled and because you’re wired to take responsibility, you let them believe it. You carry the weight quietly. You make the impossible look routine. Until the system’s held together entirely by you. You can’t save the company, the department or the world from empty

Burnout for people like us doesn’t look like collapse. It looks like working harder. It looks like staying late, skipping meals, running back-to-back 16-hour days not because you want to, but because no one else will.

But here’s the truth you learn too late. If you don’t step back, the system will break anyway and it’ll take you with it.

Thats a hard lesson I’ve learned the hard way. You can be the backup plan. You can be the glue. You can be the one holding it all together. But you can’t do it forever.

So now I ask myself (and my teams) two simple questions:

What happens if I step away for a day? a week?

Where are the single points of failure I’m hiding with effort instead of fixing with systems?

Because burnout isn’t just about you. It’s a signal the whole operation needs work. Fix the system. Save yourself. Build redundancies. Document processes. Train your people.

Make the system strong enough that it doesn’t need you at 110% every day.

That’s not weakness.

That’s leadership.

If this resonated with you at all, read it again until it sticks. Don't be a hero.