When burnout hits, it’s very easy to blame the job.
Maybe your boss is giving you more and more work to do and tighter deadlines. Maybe your colleagues are demanding and they are constantly asking for last-minute favours. Or maybe your clients are slowly sucking the life out of you.
It’s so easy to put the blame onto something or someone else.
There’s no shame in this because it’s what we all do. But then burnout becomes less of a you problem, and more of a them problem.
You tell yourself:
“Let me just get to the weekend, and then I’ll have 2 days off.”
“If I just take a vacation, it’ll all be fine.”
“If I quit and change jobs, things will feel good again.”
I hate to break it to you, but these “solutions” rarely ever work because burnout doesn’t just disappear when you take a break or change your environment.
It follows you until you heal the root cause. The real root cause, not what you think it is. And trust me, it goes way deeper than deadlines and difficult bosses..
Here’s exactly what’s causing your burnout and what you can do about it.
P.S. If you’re new here, hey! I’m Thalia. I help 9-to-5 girlies recover from burnout and transform their draining AF job into a magnetic career they love. Every week(ish), I share content on burnout recovery, self-development, finding joy, and career growth. Subscribe here so you never miss a debrief.
PSA: Your job isn’t the problem.
When it comes to what causes burnout, it’s super common to pinpoint:
- Unrealistic workloads
- Stressful deadlines you need to meet
- A micro-managing boss
- A fast-paced or toxic work culture
- The pressure to keep up and look like you’re handling it
But I think it goes a lot deeper than this. Burnout isn’t surface-level. The symptoms might be, but there’s a lot going on underneath the surface.
I’m talking about:
- The lack of boundaries you have in place to protect your time and energy
- How you don’t speak up for yourself
- The need you have to feel validated and appreciated
- Your fear of asking for help because you think it means you’re weak or that you’ve failed
- Chasing societal expectations and milestones to prove you’re doing things right
These are the REAL causes of burnout.
Not the long hours, a demanding workload, or a never-ending to-do list. This is just the product of losing sight of who you are as you squeeze yourself into someone else’s version of success.
If this sounds all too familiar, I want you to know that you’re not alone. There are so many other corporate gals going through exactly what you are. I was one of those women. But when I realised my burnout went deeper than my job, that’s when things finally shifted.
A hard pill to swallow
For a long time, I blamed my burnout on a toxic job, a stressful work environment, bitchy models, and demanding clients.
The thing is… even after I quit, I was still burnt out.
When I left my 9-to-5, I went travelling across Southeast Asia. I was making the most of fun-employment by doing the typical adventurous things you do on a gap year, like island hopping in Thailand, bar hopping in Cambodia, hiking volcanoes in Bali, and eating my bodyweight in street food.
But I still felt drained AF, exhausted, and lost.
Travelling distracted me from how I was really feeling, but it didn’t heal my burnout.
To be completely honest, I don’t think my burnout really ever went away until 2 years later when I started taking better care of my health (something I’d previously neglected), stopped playing the victim, and began prioritising what I actually wanted out of my life and getting clear on how this translated into a career.
Long story short…
I had to take back control of my life rather than constantly running on autopilot and doing what was expected of me, or what would make others happy.
So no, it’s not your job’s fault, or your boss’s fault, that you’re burnt out.
It’s no one’s fault but your own. (I’m going in hard with the tough love today, sorry!!)
The 3 REAL causes of burnout
From my own experience (and what I see with clients), burnout usually comes down to 3 things
- Doing work that no longer aligns with you
- Not honouring your own boundaries
- Neglecting your most basic needs
Sure, you might not be doing all 3 of these things, but even doing one of these is enough to push you towards burnout.
So as we go through each one, I’ll walk you through what it looks like, why it happens, and the small steps you can take to change it.
Give yourself space with this blog post. We’re going in deep! You might also want to bookmark this page so you can come back to it whenever you need to.
1 | You’re doing work that no longer aligns with you
This basically means you’re doing tasks you can do in your sleep. They feel meaningless, boring, or like they have nothing to do with your real strengths, skillset, or interests.
Maybe your role never even aligned with your values in the first place.
This happens to a lot of us. We jump straight into a career because it looks good on paper rather than questioning whether it’s something we actually want. And over time, it becomes mundane.
Your default at this point is probably to procrastinate, put off your work in the hopes it’ll magically sort itself out, or adopt the quiet quitting trend, where you’re doing the bare minimum. You’re physically showing up, but mentally you’ve checked out.
Overall, you just feel unmotivated, empty, and disconnected.
The thing is, if your career doesn’t align with who you are and what you care most deeply about, it will always feel like a grind. It will always feel like something is missing, and you’ll end up working even harder in your job to make up for it, hoping your next promotion or pay rise will magically fix that emptiness.
But what you really need to do is connect with your core values.
Action steps
- Get crystal clear on your guiding principles
- Choose the 5 that matter most to you (e.g. creativity, leadership, freedom, compassion, authenticity)
- Once you’re clear on what drives you, look for a role that aligns with those values
- If leaving isn’t an option, then reshape your current role to better fit them
- Build a life outside of work that allows you to live those values fully
2 | You’re not honouring your own boundaries (or you never had them)
This basically means that you don’t respect your time. You’re available 24/7, you take on extra work you don’t have capacity for, you answer emails late at night, and you never actually switch off.
Right now, your default is saying yes to absolutely everyone but yourself — maybe because you feel guilty saying no. Or maybe you’re overachieving, taking on too much to meet everyone else’s expectations while convincing yourself it’s what you want.
Being a “yes” girl or overachiever often comes from deep-rooted limiting beliefs that tell us, we’re not smart enough, successful enough, or worthy enough.
We overcompensate to prove the world wrong, but end up abandoning ourselves in the process by forgetting who we are and what we actually stand for.
And in the end, we hit burnout.
Honestly, burnout is inevitable if you’re not working on your mindset and building self-love. This really is the foundation of everything. Without a strong and resilient mindset, you will simply crumble in the face of life’s challenges.
Before you can begin to set boundaries, you first need to shift your mindset. Because otherwise you’re not going to stick to them — or you’ll just feel guilty. You need to overcome the negative beliefs you have about yourself that are keeping you stuck.
Action steps
- Write down one or more negative beliefs you have about yourself (e.g “I’m not smart enough”)
- Reflect on where this belief came from (e.g. parents, school, past relationship, etc.)
- Challenge this belief by listing all the ways it’s not true
- Reframe each belief you wrote down into something that serves you instead of sabotages you
- Repeat this work consistently, because new beliefs will always pop up, and the more you practise, the easier self-acceptance becomes
3 | You’re neglecting your most basic needs
You’re skipping meals, sacrificing sleep, not spending enough time outside, or moving your body in a way that feels like a punishment — or not moving it at all.
Over time, the little ways you neglect yourself add up, leaving you drained, disconnected from yourself, and running on empty.
Your default at this point is probably not knowing how to fully switch off and take care of yourself, so you end up doomscrolling, mindlessly watching Netflix, or bed rotting. This might feel like a quick escape, but none of these activities actually recharge you.
Yes, the answer is self-care — but not any old self-care like bubble baths, detoxes, or spa days.
Self-care that is actually going to work for you doesn’t involve doing “nice” things once in a while to balance out how much you’re overworking.
It’s about creating a day-to-day life that doesn’t constantly drain you in the first place.
I’m talking about prioritising habits and hobbies that are sustainable, and making time for the type of rest you need in that moment. Self-care shouldn’t be something you turn to when you’re already falling apart. It’s what stops you from getting there in the first place.
Action steps
- Make 7-8 hrs of sleep a non-negotiable by setting a bedtime schedule and sticking to it
- Spend time outside daily, even if it’s just a 10-minute walk
- Fuel your body properly with homemade food instead of running on coffee or Pret sandwiches
- Move your body in ways that feel good (not punishing)
- Dedicate time to trying out a new hobby that actually lights you up
Final thoughts
Once you’re clear on what’s really causing you to burn out (the reasons above, not what you think is), you can finally find a solution that works for you.
And it usually comes down to one of these 3 things:
- Feeling aligned in everything you do, from your work, to the people you’re friends with, and the lifestyle you’re building for yourself
- Shifting your mindset so you’re not tying your worth to your achievements, or rejecting yourself when what you really need is self-acceptance
- Prioritising self-care that is sustainable, not just at the weekend but every single day and making sure you’re focusing on habits, hobbies, and rituals that vibe with you, and are sustainable for you, not just doing what is most popular
This is basically my anti-burnout framework in a nutshell.
When all 3 of these parts work together, you have way more control over your life, it feels more fulfilling and way less exhausting. And you can step into your anti-burnout era.
To take this work deeper, you can read my book Stay & Slay™.
It takes you through each step of my signature framework and shows you exactly how to implement it so you can beat burnout without quitting your job or making drastic changes.
Until next week,
Thalia xx
