Key Takeaways
Burnout is not failure — it’s a signal for entrepreneurs to reassess and change direction.
Recognizing signs of burnout is crucial for recovery and can lead to significant personal and professional breakthroughs.
Using the clarity post-burnout can help strategize new paths and can be the catalyst for sustainable success.
Burnout is a feeling and buzzword many entrepreneurs recognize. It’s often used to describe being overworked, overwhelmed and exhausted in a job, a career or in life.
Entrepreneurs often describe burnout as feeling like failure. Highly ambitious people set high expectations, and when they fail to meet them, the pressure results in disappointment and negative self-talk. 
You have not “failed” if you are experiencing burnout. In today’s world, it’s almost inevitable. When you hit that wall, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the end of the road. It’s often an opportunity to ask yourself questions about where you’re going and how you might change direction.
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Signs that you’re headed for burnout
If you’re a driven entrepreneur or are chasing a career with ambition, you know what it feels like to pour all of your energy into your professional goals. It can feel satisfying to give so much of yourself to your career because you know what you want, and hard work is usually the path to accomplishing that goal.
You might be in a place in your career where you recognize the early signs of burnout and have strategies for recovery. But there’s a difference between being burnt out from a goal that you’ve strategized and planned out versus burnout that feels like a dead end. In one instance you will know how to recover and in the other it feels like hitting a brick wall.
In my 20s, I was working three or four jobs at the same time. I was young, energetic and I felt like I could handle it all. I was a nanny for twins, I had my own cleaning business and I was working for a friend’s business on the side. I told myself no one else was going to do the work for me and I wasn’t in a position to delegate to anyone. I kept hustling and pushed through.
I wasn’t sleeping enough and I was constantly on the move. Little by little, I started to feel completely overwhelmed and all of a sudden, I hit a wall hard.
At the time, I didn’t call it burnout. I called it being driven, prioritizing making money and focusing on my ambitions. When I reflect back, I see it as one of the best “a-ha” moments of my life. It made me realize that I could not continue to work in that way, with so much energy expended and so little time to recover. It was not sustainable.
The questions burnout forces you to ask
Burnout normally results in questions that sound like this: Why am I doing this? How did I get here? Is this all there is? When am I going to get out of this?
The answers to these questions offer an opportunity. Once you’ve had time to process the fact that you are being forced to take a breather, you can take the time to reflect. What are you feeling at that moment and why?
I felt frustrated. I was overworked, pouring my heart and soul into my job for other people and it wasn’t working anymore. I wasn’t making any progress and I felt stuck. When I asked myself why, I could see I was doing other people’s jobs for them, trying to be perfect and spreading myself too thin. Once I could see the issues, it was easier to see a solution.
It’s easy to explain a situation away by saying, it’s just a moment of failure or you failed to meet your own expectations. But use the pause burnout creates to find the real answers. Ask yourself what you are in control of and what it is you really want.
What serves us at one point of our lives may not serve us in another and that’s okay. Burnout is not proof of failure; it’s proof that something needs to change.
Burnout is an opportunity for evolution
When it became clear what I wanted, it changed the trajectory of my life. I realized that I wanted completely different things than the ambitions I had been chasing. I realized I wanted stability and a job I felt passionate about to pour my intelligence, hard work and ambition into.
I made the decision to quit the jobs that were draining me and put my resources toward what I wanted for myself.
Often, burnout appears because you have evolved. What served you before doesn’t anymore, and that’s the breakthrough. That information sometimes comes at the price of your peace for a second. What you do with that information opens you up to evolution.
Your breakthrough might not show up in a dramatic sense. Maybe it starts with a new strategy and a plan that gives you more support. It could evolve into something you pursue alongside your 9-5. Maybe you dedicate time to starting your first business. Maybe you will hire an assistant.
Small, intentional shifts can restore clarity, energy and creativity in powerful ways.
Burnout is not a judgment on your capabilities. It’s feedback about where your strengths are being misused or where your resources are spread too thin. Once you’ve recharged, use the clarity that comes after reflection to strategize.
There is always something you can do in moments where it feels like you’ve lost control. Start with looking inward and see where the questions lead. You might just be headed in a whole new direction.
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