One of the most important things I’ve learned — both through my own experience and through research — is this:   Burnout is not a personal failure.   Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter, psychologists at UC Berkeley & Deakin University, who have spent decades  studying burnout, describe it as a workplace phenomenon   — the result of chronic stress that hasn’t been effectively managed.   It shows up in three key ways: Exhaustion   — emotional and physical depletion Cynicism  

Burnout rarely arrives all at once. More often, it creeps in slowly — so slowly that you hardly notice it happening. For me, it began as a quiet realization that I started saying out loud to a few trusted people. “I think I might be experiencing burnout.” At the time, I didn’t fully understand what that meant. I didn’t know what to do about it, or what recovery might even look like. Like many people in demanding careers, I assumed I just needed to push through. Still, somethi