Have you ever experienced burnout from work? Like, true burnout?

When you hate everything and everyone and every tiny task feels like it requires every cell in your body to wake up and do something in order for you to find a shred of motivation necessary to maintain productivity or success in your workplace?

It's more common than you think, and is often related to deadlines, pressure from bosses or colleagues, and long hours.

The problem with burnout, however, is the fact that it occurs because an individual did not speak up for their needs soon enough before they got disgruntled and began to blame other people / things instead of address the unhealthy fire raging inside of them.

For instance, if communication with your team is strained and you brush it off at the end of every day and say "It's fine, that's why it's called work", you will never actually address the issue. Instead you will suppress more and more anger with that erroneous excuse until you burn out and cannot function at work.

This scenario can be resolved much earlier by going to a supervisor and simply asking for advice.

The reason why burnout has remained a consistent event in a lot of offices is because companies are placing value on the wrong things. Certainly companies want their employees' work to get completed by whatever means necessary but, as Aytekin Tank, founder of JotForm, states:

"We’ve grown to subconsciously measure a person’s worth based off how many hours they work, how much is on their plate and put simply — whether or not they are running around like a chicken with their head cut off." 

A lot of companies are getting wise to the self-care trend of offering exercise, yoga, meditation, food, drink, and nap pods in their offices to help their employees, but Tank offers the simple and cost effective intervention of advocating for yourself.

If there is a way that you know you would be more productive (working at home, from a coffee shop, in the afternoons, etc.), all you have to do is ask.

What was the last thing for which you advocated from your boss?

What should you consider advocating for right now to prevent burnout?