Written by Britt-Mari Sykes, Career Counsellor
Britt-Mari Sykes Ph.D., CDP is a career counsellor and founder of CANVAS Career Counselling working remotely with clients across Canada.
Burnout is all around us. If you have experienced burnout and have taken a leave of absence from work or left a job to focus on health and well-being and to seek help or support you have probably had mixed feelings, even apprehension, about returning to work.
How can we prepare ourselves for the return to work? What should we consider, pay attention to, and reflect on?
Burnout brings change(s)
At a personal level, burnout changes our relationship with work and career and can alter the meaning that work and career hold for us. When we experience burnout, changes in our attitude to, and emotional connection with work impact how we want to work going forward, what we want to experience day to day, and the changes we want to make in our own lives.
More broadly, the experience of burnout can significantly shift our perspectives on work environments, how they are designed and function, where changes are needed, and where they fail to address burnout by not regularly monitoring internal policies and expectations that contribute to burnout amongst employees.
Burnout is a complex web of feelings and experiences
For those who have chosen, and are able, to take time away from work, or for those who have left a job or position, the physical and emotional relief (and release) from the day-to-day stressors that contributed to burnout can produce a deep sense of vibrancy and well-being. This comes from having the time and space to reflect on what we have been going through, to reconnect with our lives, to gain fresh perspective, and to focus on our physical and emotional health.
However, taking time off can also create feelings of being cut off from the relationships and connections our work provides, of being isolated from what “the rest of the world is doing.” Some of us can experience tremendous stress for seemingly “succumbing” to burnout. We may express feelings of guilt for not “pushing through” or feel anxious about how we will be perceived by colleagues when we do return to work.
Whether we are returning to the same workplace or have decided to embark on a career change, many of us experience a range of feelings from renewed energy to worry about a potential slide back into burnout. Any of these feelings, especially in combination, are understandable.
Acknowledging and accepting burnout
Acknowledging that we are experiencing burnout and stepping back from work can be challenging. It requires patience and self-compassion.
Accepting the complexity of feelings associated with burnout and being away from work requires letting go of self-judgment and being mindful of the larger cultural narratives around burnout, which often encourage pushing through, minimizing, or silencing what we are experiencing.
Acknowledging and accepting burnout opens space for conversation and gaining greater understanding, clarity, and perspective on our experiences, our relationship with work and career, how we want to work going forward and leveraging this information to help design personally appropriate next steps.
What belongs to me and what belongs to the work environment
Burnout sits at the juncture of multiple contexts. A struggle for many of us is sorting through what we should take personal responsibility for and what belongs to the work environment.
All too frequently the responsibility for burnout falls on the shoulders of the individual when in fact burnout is very often compounded by contributing external factors. Most frequently these factors include the type of work environment we are in, the amount of work and the hours demanded of us, expectations at work that are too high or too low, poor leadership, being placed in a role that doesn’t fit our abilities, being unable to communicate concerns about our work or contribute to possible changes.
Work environments that do not acknowledge the reality of burnout or the systemic factors that contribute to it are less likely to examine the expectations they place on employees or to monitor for signs of burnout.
Separating and examining our personal expectations from those placed on us in our work environment can help.
Facing the burnout dilemma – do I return or do I move on?
Once we have taken important steps to regain personal health and well-being, returning to work presents us with a challenging question, a burnout dilemma. Do we return to a work environment that has contributed to our burnout? Do we have any choice(s)? Can we choose to move on? And if we can move on, do we have the stamina to embark on a career change after burnout?
Planning a return to work – reflecting and gathering information
Reflective writing is a powerful tool for self-discovery. Writing and reflecting on our own words opens space for a deeper understanding of ourselves and our experiences of work and burnout. It also helps us design a more personalized back-to-work plan.
10 sample reflective questions
What were you experiencing before your leave of absence? Describe your workday, your responsibilities, the prominent feelings you had, and how you navigated each day.
How did you feel at the beginning and the end of a workday?
Did you acknowledge you were experiencing burnout? Was that difficult?
In addition to what you were experiencing, were there larger narratives, beliefs, judgments, or assumptions about burnout that you carried with you over the years? What were they? How did they influence your acknowledgment and acceptance of burnout?
How would you describe your relationship with work and career as you were experiencing burnout? What kind of relationship would you like to have with work and career going forward?
What did you learn about yourself while away from work? What personal resources or resilience did you discover? What new perspectives emerged?
How did you reconnect with your life away from work – emotionally, physically, and cognitively? How did this feel?
What changes – even the smallest – have you made in your day-to-day life away from work? What activities, boundaries, and healthy additions have you been able to integrate into your day-to-day? What difference have they made? How do you feel?
What kinds of decisions have you made or now feel more comfortable making?
Did you have support – colleagues, managers, friends, family – when you took a leave of absence? What kind of support do you currently have and what kind of support do you feel you need going forward as you re-engage with work?
Customizing a return-to-work plan
A customized plan is essential as it needs to be relevant and flexible, and reflect the new insights and perspectives gained through the experience of burnout and from being away from work.
If we are returning to the same workplace, any plan should review the workplace and what available resources exist:
What resources and/or supports are available in the workplace to facilitate a positive re-engagement and return to work? What are the direct policies/options or attitudes towards burnout in my workplace?
What could a return to work look like: fewer hours for a transitional period, a change in roles and responsibilities?
What is in my control? How can I maintain the positive changes I have made while away from work?
What can I ask for and how comfortable am I asking for certain changes or accommodations?
Are changes in this workplace even possible?
If we decide to embark on a career change, consider the following:
How do I want to work going forward? What is a priority for me right now? The experience of burnout can be an informative guide to reshaping our relationship with work and career.
Do I want to modify the type of work I do going forward, what do I want to be responsible for day to day? Do I want to modify the number of hours I work per day/week?
What kind of work environment do I want to be in? What kinds of questions would I now ask as I research job opportunities?
What resources, support, and/or guidance do I need to start the process of change?
What is in my control? How can I maintain the positive changes I have made while away from work?
Concluding remarks
Burnout is real, personal, and compounded by contributing external factors. Returning to work is not always easy. Individually, we may not be able to change the overall structure and policies of a work environment that contribute to burnout. Individually we may face entrenched and pervasive narratives about burnout that minimize the experience and/or place the blame and responsibility on our shoulders individually. This is very real.
But we can:
Regain personal well-being and stay connected to our lives.
Integrate new perspectives on our relationship with work and career.
Engage in daily reflective practice to monitor our experiences and our feelings.
Create personalized strategies that help us re-engage and return to work, or transition to new work, feeling more empowered and positive.
For reflection
If you have experienced burnout, how did it impact your re-engagement with work – whether you were returning to the same workplace or chose to embark on a career change?
What kinds of questions and concerns were most pressing for you? What factors did you include in your plans to move forward?
Are you experiencing burnout? Are you looking for support and guidance in re-engaging and returning to work after burnout? To book a consultation please contact me here.
Britt-Mari Sykes, Career Counsellor
Britt-Mari Sykes Ph.D. is a Career Counsellor and founder of CANVAS Career Counselling working remotely with clients across Canada. Britt-Mari offers a reflective and strategic process to clients, one that integrates their lived experiences, values, and aspirations. This experiential approach to career counselling helps clients gain greater clarity and perspective and design practical steps towards a more meaningful relationship with work and career.
