“Yes, and...” is Dangerous

Pre-burnout, much of my extra workload came from me saying "Yes, and...." whenever my boss would ask me to do something.

Workload is the most significant contributing factor to burnout. Yet there I was, not only accepting the assignment I was given, but also adding on more things to make the outcome "better."

"Better for who" is what I should have been asking myself. It certainly wasn't better for me.

And this slowly stacked up, almost unnoticed, over the years. A little "Yes, and..." here, a little "Hey, I have a good idea..." there.

And this kept going until I started to notice that I was completely overwhelmed and all it would take was a single piece of straw to break this camel's back.

My job description had a fairly clear outline of my daily responsibilities. In day-to-day workload, those were just the things that happened before I finished my first cup of tea.

No one had assigned me the extra work. It came from a place of treating the company as if it were my own, coupled with a deep unspoken desire to feel valuable, important, and smart.

I knew that I was my own worst enemy, but I was afraid to stop doing all the extras, because I was afraid that I would look like a slacker and get fired. This was one of the main stories I told myself that kept me stuck on that treadmill of overwork.

I knew I was doing this, but unfortunately, it didn't stop until I had a complete burnout and ended up in a puddle of tears on a beach in Florida. And even though my boss was willing to work with me on a more reasonable workload when I came home, I didn't trust myself to not fall back into old patterns and start the cycle all over again.

Are you slowly creating your own burnout, one "Yes, and..." at a time?