4 Signs You’re Masking Your Burnout

Unpopular opinion: you might need to look like what you're going through.

During periods of burnout, many of us not only feel but look tired, stressed and overwhelmed. And yet, I've noticed that sometimes people experiencing burnout are more focused on hiding and covering up the physical manifestations of burnout than addressing what's causing the burnout in the first place.

It's my job to say that this is also part of the conditioning of toxic productivity.

Minimizing and hiding the physical signs of burnout that your body is showing is a way to disconnect, deny and even ignore that you are exhausted. And unfortunately, spending more energy on controlling the optics of burnout rather than the burnout itself can be more harmful than helpful.

Not sure if this is you? Here are 4 significant signs that you might be more focused on how you are presenting than recovering from burnout:

You feel obligated to appear perfect.

You’ll want to notice if you are hyperfocused on appearing flawfree. Feeling obligated to appear perfect can look like putting energy into making sure not a hair is out of place and spending time covering any and all signs that you are tired. Pay attention to how you treat yourself here — are you are particularly hard on your body for telling you that it’s tired?

You regularly use tools that mask your exhaustion.

Instead of addressing the burnout that you are surviving, sometimes (or all of the time) you are using tools, such as caffeinated beverages, makeup, etc. as temporary fixes to this long-term challenge. You’ll want to notice when your relationship to these tools goes from usage to dependency, as part of masking burnout is blurring the idea that you need true support, help and rest.

You overextend, even when you don’t have capacity.

Sometimes masking burnout even looks like going above and beyond in your labor setting, even when you are running on empty. As part of this masking, notice if you are volunteering yourself and your efforts as a protective measure to cover how exhausted you are. Keep an eye on how often you are overachieving and overcompensating to hide what you are surviving.

You try to distract yourself from your burnout.

And finally, how often are you averting your own attention away from the burnout that you’re surviving? Distracting yourself from your exhaustion is too, another way to mask burnout internally. Mindless social media scrolling, binge watching TV shows and keeping a full calendar of busyness could also be associated with trying not to address burnout.

These are only a few ways that burnout can be masked — it’s important on your own recovery journey to get to know how you’re showing up and coping. One of the most effective and powerful ways to recover from burnout is to build your own self awareness through journaling. I created a variety of guided journaling e-courses that offer you one journaling prompt a day to help you get to know yourself and your journey better.

To learn even more about your burnout-causing habits, start my 5-day course on Preventing Workplace Burnout by clicking here.