"Burnout" is mostly a cop-out.
I got into an argument with some well-meaning people on X about burnout.
A lot of people say burnout is very real, and they've experienced it.
I said, "You'd be surprised how far you can push yourself, because the human body is built to withstand tremendous stress and grind."
We're capable of far more than we think we are; we often surprise ourselves when we're driven and determined.
I was accused of promoting a culture of overworking, careful you're going to take very long to recover from it, I'll regret this at my deathbed, blah blah blah. 🙄
What is burnout?
I'm not a psychologist, but to me burnout has to be a physical and mental collapse from pushing yourself to the limit.
You literally can't even look your computer anymore, or you'll become ill:
Your eyes lose focus, your head throbs, you feel nauseous. And it's persistent.
That's burnout to me.
Now:
- Being demoralized because of a lack of traction isn't burnout.
- "Not feeling like working today" isn't burnout.
- Feeling stuck/Not knowing what to do next isn't burnout.
Burnout is actual illness that stops you from working further. Period.
You're not burned out, you're just lazy.
We live in a world where we're quick to ascribe anything (e.g. misbehavior, a lack of discipline, a lack of results, even violence/lack of impulse control, etc.) to a mental health condition.
We like to give it a fancy name and say it often, so that it legitimizes itself and absolves us from all accountability.
Sometimes we even get a doctor to sign off on it, and when a doctor says it's so, it must be so.
Look, burnout is real, but most people are misusing the term.
I've hit a brick wall in my business because I didn't focus, work hard enough, or make the right decisions, so now it's going nowhere, and I feel lazy and demoralized.
How many people would have said that, even to themselves, let alone to the world?
Often that's what's really happening, because often people aren't even pushing themselves close to what they're physically and mentally capable of taking to approach burnout.
Taking accountability is the foundation of success.
If you're going to be a successful solopreneur, you'll going to have to work harder and longer than a regular employee.
You're going to have to be way more resilient, resourceful, adaptable, driven, and persistent.
There's no two ways about it.
The good thing is, as an entrepreneur, your incentives are finally aligned -- you've put yourself in a position to reap what you've sown: good or bad.
There's no office politics or evil boss to artificially stop you from succeeding.
All we have to do is to apply ourselves. And constantly do an audit if we're applying ourselves correctly.
We also need to be brutally truthful about what's going on, because it's our own time, money, youth, and optimism at stake here.
Better know the truth fast so we can have a head start in fixing it, than to stew in our delusions and just pretend things are all right when they're really not.
We don't have that luxury.
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This is huge bs, srry dude. If you’ve never worked so hard and had a clear path to success right in front of you but couldn’t cause your brain/body won’t let you due to fatigue, then you haven’t worked enough. I would bet my money 1000% you have never played competitive sports either. Your attempt to shame the reader of “you’re just lazy” is a textbook projection.
I would at the least remove your links to save your rep cause this is a terrible post and doesn’t boost you or add value to this community at all.
Are we not too quick to ascribe any hardship or discomfort to burnout?
Is it a fact that if someone claims burnout, they're actually burned out?
I've never once discredited the legitimacy of burnout. It's real, it exists.
That doesn't mean every single setback, hardship, discomfort, or obstacle can/should be diagnosed as burnout.
"Mental health" has become such a religion these days that you will be excoriated for even legitimately questioning its overuse/misuse.
I expected so much more from entrepreneurs, who are supposed to be resilient and resourceful people.
By the way, we had a lively debate on this on X, and the likes of Jason Cohen (probably the only billionaire I know) agreed with me on this.
You’re on an entrepreneur forum, people who come here regularly’s problem is not being lazy, it’s almost always the opposite - pushing too past our limits, feeling too guilty when resting, etc.
It looks like you only started agreeing that burnout is real when you got reasonable pushback. And yes, mental health does perpetuate victim mentality but once again- you’re on an entrepreneur forum, not TikTok.
Trying to condescend an entire forum and following up with “I expected so much more from you all” then going on to NameDrop a billionaire to desperately reclaim some credibility is really strange behavior and comes off as arrogant. There are way easier ways to handle being wrong about something.
I think I said that multiple times in my OP.
Yeah, I think this is a bad take. Burnout is a catchall for a bunch of other issues, primarily mental health related, that lead to no work getting done. The problem is rarely "i was working too hard" and more often a "i had bad mental health habits surrounding my worklife". But regardless, its real. Good for you if you don't have mental health issues though! Some of us are less susceptible than others.
I've acknowledged the realness of burnout multiple times in my post.
I'm merely bringing up the alternative perspective:
Which is some of us are too quick to cry "burnout" when that's not the issue.
That's not only reasonable to say but also factually accurate, even in indie hacking circles.
I sent out this exact post to 7k+ of my newsletter subscribers.
50% hated my guts, and 50% thanked me for saying what they have been thinking but dare not say out.
Yeah, I don't buy most of this. I can certainly see that people overuse it, but I think burnout is certainly real for a LOT of people. Especially solopreneurs. Building a business is tough, and depending on the industry, it can get REAL tough on your own. At a certain point sometimes, thoughts can just become, "I can't..".
So we're in agreement then.
My whole point of this post is so that entrepreneurs can catch themselves when they're misusing it.
Is that very toxic?
The title in combination with your profile picture made me burst out laughing, it almost seems like a caricature. You feeling the urge to explicitly mention that some billionaire agrees with you makes it even more perfect.
To a certain extent, though, I think you're right - there are definitely a lot of people who use this as an excuse. It has become part of society to quickly jump to the most extreme when looking for an explanation. However, you writing that it's "mostly a cop-out" is, somewhat ironically, flawed in a similar way.
I can't understand how anyone would want to clutter their inbox with something like that - but to each their own.
Hey, I'm not oblivious to the fact that I'm presenting myself in hilarious fashion -- I just don't care.
This I agree with.
Clickbait tactic, sir.
7k+ newsletter subs for starters, though this last one did cause my unsubscribes to spike. 😂
I'm sure you don't, I just wanted to point out why it might seem hilarious to some.
You're certainly not the only one who knowingly uses over the top remarks in order to get more attention. I just don't know if that's particularly useful with topics like this - especially if you're interested in a meaningful discussion. I would argue that these are subjects where one would ideally present nuanced and reasonable assessments, not cheap shots.
If I were a subscriber of yours, I would probably have canceled as well, for the reason mentioned above - though I think there are many people who want to hear exactly that.
In my experience, you feel burnt out when you've been working crazy hours for a really long time without any small amounts of success. It's easy to stay motivated and not get burnt out when things are growing.
This here is the key.
When people say they're "burned out," they really mean they're demotivated and demoralized, which is related to but not exactly the same thing as a full-on physical/mental collapse.
It's easy to not get burned out when your traction is up and up, yes.
Exactly. And it's completely rational to get demotivated/demoralized when you've been working incredibly hard for a long period of time without making any progress at all
What's your advice to someone who is facing that?
Well, I've been there so I know how much it sucks.
It's hard to give general advice, and my advice won't be very good because I've not started a particularly successful startup yet (although my current one is promising).
If you haven't made any meaningful progress (normally revenue) in many months and you can't see any sign of it changing in the next couple of months, then you probably need a big shakeup. Maybe pivot, change co-founders, major product change, major marketing/sales change or completely new idea. Again, hard to say without knowing specifics.
In my own experience, I spent way too long working on dead products. It was only when I stopped getting such an emotional attachment to my ideas that I started building actually useful shit.
I think I can see the message beyond the hyperbole in OPs post.
Two things come to mind when I read this post:
These are important messages that people need to hear over and over. In the world of instant gratification, I believe people are much too quick to quit and quick to be overwhelmed by emotions.
I think the OP could have delivered the message with less intensity and still get the point across, however on the flip side, the high negative reaction could also be an indictment of the aforementioned point: try to recognize your emotional takeover, look for the facts, create a plan, and I think you'll have a much higher likelihood of giving you the motivation to push past what you think is burnout.
Thanks for your level-headed response, sir.
You're right, people are (ironically) reacting very emotionally to my post.
Survivors Bias.
Trying to condescend an entire forum and following up with “I expected so much more from you all” then going on to NameDrop a billionaire to desperately reclaim some credibility is really strange behavior and comes off as arrogant. There are way easier ways to handle being wrong about something.
Kudos for putting the opinion out there, it's valuable for starting a conversation if not simplistic.
I'm sure, like others have said, burnout is many things.
For some, it's a "Cop out", for others it's the unfamiliar feeling of working hard.
For Entrepreneurs, it might be a great signal that they need to change tact because what they're doing isn't working.
For knowledge workers at big companies - it's the Kafkaesque nightmare many find themselves in where they feel simultaneously stressed and like nothing is actually getting accomplished. That's the killer one. That's the one people are normally complaining about, not the silly entrepreneur version where people just keep doing what isn't working.
There you go.
Exactly my sentiment.
As for your statement on big companies, I have no experience there, so I can't comment, but I imagine it must be hell.
Burnout isnt a copout when it can cause physical and mental triggers to your body. Remember to look after yourselves, people!
This is a pretty ambitious take
This is such a bad post, entirely wrong. Telling a burned out person that they are "lazy" is an insult.
I'm not quite sure what the aim of this post is. Emotional gatekeeping isn't going to win you subs. It's going to alienate 95% of your target audience. Being burned out is a personal thing. If someone feels overworked to the point where they can't be productive anymore, they are burned out. It doesn't matter if they worked 12 hours that week or 120 hours.
Yeah, maybe I should have coddled people more and talk even more about self-care and mental health. /s
Just because mental health is real doesn't mean we get to use it as an excuse at every difficulty, discomfort, or setback.
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