There’s no place like burnout for the holidays. You can run, but you can’t hide. Perhaps the possibility of being burned out never crossed your mind. Stop for a second, and let’s explore. The answer might be different than you thought.
Think back on your personal state of the union during 2021 (mental health, physical health, emotional health). In order to be truly reflective, create some distance from your daily work routine. It could be during a day or two off work, but it could also be series of isolated thinking sessions (i.e. no interruptions). Distance from our work often brings with it clarity on what is truly important. While this may not cure career burnout, you might at least recognize the dangers that lie ahead if something doesn’t change.
Listen to Their Stories
One way to know if you’re in the depths of burnout or headed there is to listen to the experience of others. After interviewing 43 different guests through 150 episodes of the Nerd Journey Podcast, I want to highlight stories of those who walked roads alongside, through, and beyond burnout. Below you’ll find a sampling from our catalog. An episode / segment on burnout may be one part of a series of interviews, so I’ve shared the links to all episodes with that guest and highlighted where to look for burnout-specific content.
- Keiran Shelden
- Episode 46 – Career Advancement
- Episode 47 – You, Your Health, and the Datacenter
- There’s a segment on burnout in this episode. Be sure to read the blog post Keiran wrote (linked in the show notes).
- Kelly Schroeder
- Episode 58 – The Path to Management and Hard Resume Lessons
- Segment on burnout in this episode
- Episode 59 – Management Career Observations, Lessons, and Advice
- Episode 58 – The Path to Management and Hard Resume Lessons
- Josh Fidel
- Episode 76 – Engineer Brain and Career Philosophy
- Episode 77 – Global Accounts, Job Searches During Recessions, and Organizational Silos
- Episode 78 – Burnout and Recovery
- Be sure to read the blog post Josh Fidel wrote (link in the show notes) in addition to listening to his story.
- Cody de Arkland
- Episode 85 – Impostor Syndrome, Anxiety, and Listening
- Though we never say the word burnout in these episodes, you might just need someone to listen to what’s happening in your life with no judgement.
- Episode 86 – Emotional Tech Support, Verbose Logging, and Debugging
- This is a good one for suggestions on who to look to for support. Again, we never use the word burnout, but it’s extremely relevant.
- Episode 85 – Impostor Syndrome, Anxiety, and Listening
- Yadin Porter de Leon
- Episode 88 – Leveling up Your Career
- Segment on burnout in this episode
- Episode 89 – Changing Your Career Trajectory
- Episode 88 – Leveling up Your Career
- Tom Hollingsworth
- Episode 125 – The Gateway to Networking Mastery
- Episode 126 – A Different Kind of Technical
- Episode 127 – Countdown to Burnout
- Check out the links to Tom Hollingsworth’s blogs on burnout within the show notes.
- Jonathan Frappier
- Episode 131 – Technologists as Educators
- Episode 132 – Riding the Burnout Wave
- Listen to the methodology Jonathan used to fight burnout.
- Chris Wahl
- Episode 148 – The Magic of Building
- Episode 149 – Find Your Gratitude, Find Your Joy
- You’ll have to listen to the decision framework in this episode to find out how it might just help you prevent burnout.
- Louise Bunyan
- Episode 162 – A Love for Digital Marketing
- Episode 163 – Horseback Lessons, Keywords, and Business Growth
- Episode 164 – Secrets of a LinkedIn Expert
- Going through the interview process multiple times over a 5 month period and receiving only rejections can grind you down and lead to burn out. Louise got some great advice from a mentor that changed her focus on what she could control.
- Andrew Miller
- Episode 165 – Excel by Being Intentional
- Episode 166 – Management and the Hypergrowth Startup
- Working for a startup in hypergrowth mode drove Andrew dangerously close to burnout. What did he notice?
- Episode 167 – Pause and Step Outside
- This episode details some actions Andrew took that helped prevent getting closer to burnout…like taking a pause.
- Nick’s Story
- Episode 179 – Make It Known, Slow Things Down, Don’t Burn Out
- This one is personal. It’s the story of how 2022 was nearly the year I burned out. In this episode I share some feedback I received, books I read, what resonated, and what I did to come back from the brink.
- Episode 179 – Make It Known, Slow Things Down, Don’t Burn Out
- Bill Kindle
- Episode 180 – Hired on the Spot
- Episode 181 – Crossing the Burnout Fault Line
- When you’re not able to advance as fast as you want or in the ways you want over the course of a career, it can cause a crisis. For Bill, one conversation at a VMware User Group changed the game completely and helped pull him back from burnout. Pay close attention to the way Bill revs his extracurricular activities up and down based on his needs at the time.
- Episode 182 – Security from the System Administrator’s Lens
- Cait Donovan
- Episode 214 – Across the Patterns of Burnout
- Cait shares some of her burnout story and the story of recovery in both episodes. She brings a different perspective as business owner, burnout coach, keynote speaker, and host of FRIED: The Burnout Podcast.
- Episode 215 – The Beautiful Right Turns
- Episode 214 – Across the Patterns of Burnout
- Non-interview Shows Touching on / Somewhat Related to Burnout
- Episode 68 – When Life Disrupts Your Work-Life Balance
- Episode 82 – Why Vacation Won’t Cure Burnout and Effective Mental Health Days Off
- Episode 90 – Book Discussion: The Inner Game of Stress
- Episode 91 – Career Stress and the Healthy Mind Platter
- Episode 128 – The Process of Stepping Away and Back Again
- Episode 145 – Book Discussion: Deep Work, Part 5 – Quit Social Media
- The Deep Work series starts with Episode 141 and ends with Episode 147.
More Stories of Burnout
Our show isn’t the only place to find stories of burnout or helpful content on the topic. Here are more resources for you. If you have a great resource not listed here, please contact me so I can add it for the benefit of others.
- Beating IT Burnout
- Panel Discussion from VMunderground Opening Acts at VMworld 2018
- IT Burnout with Eric Lee
- Episode 76 of the IT Reality Podcast with Vince Wood and Nathan Bennett
- IT Burnout and Mental Health with Eric Lee
- Episode of Cloud Management Montly
- The Thing about Burnout, Post-Pandemic Edition
- Ashley Willis’ Lightning Talk from DevOpsLoop 2021
- Maya Kaczorowski’s blog
- Burnout and Quitting
- Be a Unicorn, Not a Dinosaur
- Episode 59 of The Geek Whisperers
- Check out the segment with Eric Nielsen
- A Docker Captain’s View of Community
- Episode 134 of The Geek Whisperers
- Listen to the discussion on burnout prevention.
- Giving Past Burnout
- Can your reciprocity style help you fight burnout?
Where Do You Go from Here?
If you heard something after sampling the resources above that sounded a lot like your life, hit the pause button. Maybe you’re not burned out yet but dangerously close. Maybe you feel like you’re too far gone. Take comfort in the fact that you are not alone, and yes, there is hope for you. Talk to someone who will listen. Get professional help if you need it, and don’t be ashamed.
If you’re someone who has walked the road through burnout and is now recovering, please take time to share your story in a blog, on a podcast, or in a video. Your story needs to be told. If you need a platform on which to tell it, please reach out to me or to my co-host John White about being a guest on Nerd Journey. Give someone else the career advice you wish you’d been given earlier.
Maybe it’s not you at all who is burned out. Maybe someone you know is on a dangerous path. If you see something, say something.