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5 Renewal Strategies to Combat Burnout Amid the Great Resignation

Cover image for an article offering tips to prevent burnout.

A recent workforce trend has consistently dominated headlines: “The Great Resignation” (also dubbed “The Big Quit”).

According to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report, 4.3 million American workers quit their jobs last December, continuing a trend of record high employee turnover since the second half of 2021.



A woman at her desk bombarded by computer and phone notifications.

Quitting only tells half the story.

Some of the varied drivers contributing to the mass worker exodus include COVID health concerns, childcare challenges, reluctance to return to pre-pandemic work environments, higher pay, more flexibility, entrepreneurial pursuits, and, unsurprisingly — burnout.

Indeed’s recent Employee Burnout report found burnout was on the rise, with 52% of respondents saying they experienced it in 2021, up from 43% the year before. 

If you’re feeling burned out, you’re not alone.


Understanding Burnout and its Impact

What is burnout?

The World Health Organization defines employee burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

Burnout can be characterized by feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance or feelings of negativism related to one’s job, and reduced productivity.


Indeed’s Employee Burnout survey also found workers struggling to achieve a healthy work-life balance, exacerbated by having to work longer hours.

Even more startling, 61% of remote workers and 53% of on-site workers reported finding it more difficult to “unplug” from work during off-hours.   

  • Flexjobs’ Mental Health in the Workplace survey had similar findings. Seventy-five percent of respondents said they experienced burnout at work, and 40% said they experienced burnout specifically during the pandemic. 
  • Visier’s Pulse on Employee Burnout survey puts the number at 89%. Visier’s results also found the biggest contributing factor to burnout was an increased workload, followed by a toxic work culture, and being asked to complete work faster.

Whether onsite or remote, Millennial or Baby boomer, private or public sector – workers of all industries, races, ages etc. are grappling with varying degrees of exhaustion, stress, emotional trauma, and mental health challenges.

While operating in sustained crisis mode throughout the pandemic.


The “Great Resignation” is only one possible side effect. According to a Gallup study, chronically burned out employees are:

  • 23% more likely to visit the emergency room
  • 2.6 times more likely to leave their current employer
  • 63% more likely to take a sick day

To take an even wider lens on this, an in-depth survey from Mental Health America estimated workplace stress costs the U.S. economy more than $500 billion dollars in lost productivity annually.


How to Combat Burnout by Balancing Stress and Renewal

Hopefully your employer is taking steps to address burnout and support employee health and well-being. 

Whether that’s true or not for your workplace, there are ways to better understand and manage stress that are within your reach.

It’s important to understand stress and renewal are two sides of the same coin. 

Stress over-activates our sympathetic nervous system, the responses that help us survive, adapt, and perform.

Renewal activates our parasympathetic nervous system, prompting our body to release stress-reducing, feel-good hormones that help us feel more energized, innovative, hopeful, loving, and open-minded.

Just as stressors are unique to each of us, so too are what renews and replenishes us. 

The following is a guide to some renewal strategies to consider. 

What will make them impactful is applying emotional self-awareness to make them specific to your needs and what will ultimately support and fulfill you best.


1: Find Value and Purpose in Your Work

We all  want to feel like the work we do is meaningful and that it contributes to a shared goal or greater good. 

Daniel Goleman, acclaimed psychologist, journalist, and NYT best-selling author of Emotional Intelligence, says we’re wired to seek a sense of purpose. And there’s no time like the present. 

Two out of three American workers say the pandemic has prompted them to contemplate their true purpose, so much so that some alternatives to “The Great Resignation” include “The Great Reflection” or “The Great Reprioritization.”

No matter what you call it, take the time to reflect on how your work makes an impact, how it affects others, and how your individual contribution connects to something bigger. 

Understand your “why” (what drives you), what goals/metrics are meaningful to you, and how you can anchor your work, progress, and impact toward it.


2: Establish Boundaries and Structure

Create a structure and systems to help you disconnect and unplug after (home) office hours. 

A physical boundary, such as a designated work space you can leave after your work is done for the day, is a great start.

Consider structuring your day with a realistic start and end time for focused work, punctuated by small breaks in the day for lunch, recharging, getting up and walking around, and generally taking a few minutes to yourself.

When your work day is over, shut off your laptop and turn off notifications. Give yourself time to transition from being in active “work mode.”

Once you’ve made the transition, do activities you enjoy and spend quality time with people you care about.

Resist the temptation to return to work or feel like you have to constantly “be on.”


3: Make Time for What Fills Your Cup

It may be obvious, but be mindful and intentional with identifying what matters most

What parts of your life do you want to nurture? How do you want to invest in yourself and your relationships? What would make you feel happy, renewed, and motivated?

For some, that may mean pursuing a passion project or learning a new skill. For others, it may mean doing yoga or running outdoors. Perhaps it’s spending distraction-free engaged time with your kids. 

Once you’ve identified what helps you feel renewed, protect your time and energy to prioritize them. Don’t be afraid to say no to distractions and low value demands on your time.

Stress is a fact of life and work. Balancing it with renewal is key.


4: Prioritize Self-Care

In our hustle-obsessed, constantly on-the-go, and competing priorities culture, it can be easy to put yourself last. 

Remember, self-care isn’t selfish. It’s prudent.

You can’t take care of anyone or anything (including work) if you’re not healthy or feeling your best. 

And it doesn’t have to require a big effort. Taking small and consistent steps can make a big difference for reducing stress.

Make sure you’re getting adequate sleep every night. Hydrate and eat throughout the day. Schedule downtime to relax by reading a book or taking a bath. Watch an episode of your favorite show. Listen to a podcast. Go for a walk. Meditate.

Or give yourself a break and do absolutely nothing.

Whatever feels right for you is right for you.


5: Cultivate a Growth Mindset

What’s the link between mindset and mental health? A Harvard University study found that among teen students, a fixed mindset was associated with more mental health challenges. 

When compared to peers with a growth mindset — looking at everything as an opportunity for learning — those with a fixed mindset were nearly 60% more likely to show more severe symptoms of depression, anxiety, or aggression. 

When you allow yourself to be a lifelong learner, you enable resilience, evolution, and empowerment. 

Focus on continued learning and progress, not perfection. Embrace failure and constructive feedback as opportunities for growth. Look beyond current setbacks and focus on a clear vision and creating a path forward. 


Product image for The Personal Sustainability Index

There is no linear path or exact formula for overcoming burnout. The more you recognize the sources of stress and renewal in your life, the better you can manage and balance them.

If you think of burnout as having an empty tank, prioritizing time and focus on meaningful renewal activities can help to refuel and fill up your tank.

Introducing a self-guided tool that will help you take stock of the sources of stress in your life and identify ways to foster balance and restoration.

Backed by decades of research on stress and renewal, Richard Boyatzis and Daniel Goleman’s Personal Sustainability Index (PSI) is now available to everyone.

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Is it Worth It? When it’s Time to Question Your Career Ambitions

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career
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The late New Zealand-based art director, Linds Redding has recently gained notoriety for his brutal rant against the soul-grinding culture of the advertising industry. He started a blog after he was diagnosed with inoperable esophageal cancer. Many of his posts reflected on his career – a rather impressive one in the creative field. Yet despite his accomplishments, he felt it was all a waste of time.

Redding wrote, “It turns out I didn’t actually like my old life nearly as much as I thought I did…Countless late nights and weekends, holidays, birthdays, school recitals and anniversary dinners were willingly sacrificed at the altar of some intangible but infinitely worthy higher cause. This was the con. Convincing myself that there was nowhere I’d rather be was just a coping mechanism. I can see that now. It wasn’t really important. Or of any consequence at all really. How could it be? We were just shifting product. Our product, and the clients. Just meeting the quota.”

Could that have been his understandably stark end-of-life perspective, or a legitimate warning to all who put pleasing the client and the company before their own wellbeing? And is this exclusive to the advertising industry?

Pushing yourself – or others – past their limits isn’t sustainable. Burnout, resentment, and backstabbing are common symptoms of work cultures that expect everyone work at a break-neck pace. But some of the most successful organizations recognize that productivity, profits and personal fulfillment are intertwined. Such a corporate mindset is often identified as “good work.”

Multiple Intelligences author, Howard Gardner defines good work as a combination of the three Es: excellence, ethics, and engagement. When what we do becomes good work, we love what we do at every level: we feel competent, happy, and that our efforts have meaning.

[PODCAST: What is Good Work?]

How Can Leaders Create a Culture of Good Work?

Creating a workplace that embraces the good work concept must start from the top. When Daniel Goleman spoke with Gardner in his Leadership: A Master Class video series, he asked him: What would a business leader look like who exemplified good work? Here’s an excerpt from their discussion.

Gardner: A business leader who exemplified good work is somebody who understood himself or herself, understood the corporation or company that they were in very well, knew something about their history, understood the domain and had some sense of the mega-trends going on in the world. You cannot be an excellent leader unless you’ve thought about this kind of knowledge, so that’s excellence.

Engaged means they really love their work. They want to do it. Their energy crystallizes other people, and the other people on their team love them and want to be with them. Charisma doesn’t hurt, but you ought to be able to inspire people even if you’re not charismatic, because of the way you behave.

And a person doing good work is someone who is always trying to do the right thing. The right thing, of course, involves the self, and it involves the company. But if it’s only about advancing the company, then it cannot be ethical. There are many things we could do to advance the company that are bad for the company in the long run, or bad for society.

Goleman: Well, I think I need to push back a little. Did I hear you say that you can’t be a good leader if all you care about is promoting the company?

Gardner: Of course you need to promote the company, otherwise you shouldn’t be the leader. But if you’re promoting the company at all costs, you’re not thinking about how the workers are being affected, what happens to the company in the long run, what are the externalities. If you’re not thinking about the people that might be hurt by what you do, then you certainly would not be an ethical leader, and it’s a continuing conversation. You never get to be ethical or not. There’s always an effort to try to figure out what is the right thing in the broader picture, and whom we respect over the long run.

Don’t Wait to Make a Change

If you find yourself in an organization or an industry that puts profit over people – and don’t know how to transition out of it – consider Gardner’s tips on developing a career using the good work model as a guide.

Decide what you really would like to spend your life doing. According to Howard, this is much more important than deciding what particular job to hold, as the employment landscape changes so quickly. Let’s say you went into journalism with plans to work for a newspaper or magazine. Those outlets may not exist in their traditional forms now, but you still might want to write about interesting things. You want to investigate and talk to people. So you have to say “Where could I carry that out?” and be very, very flexible about the venue and the milieu, but not flexible about what you really get a kick out of and where you excel.

Think about people whom you admire and respect. Then think about people whom you don’t want to be like. Consider why you admire certain people and why you’re repelled by others. If you can’t think of people you admire, that’s a warning sign. It’s not necessarily a warning sign about you; it’s a warning sign about the culture around you. Perhaps you’re in a situation where you can’t admire anybody at all, or the people you admire don’t do anything related to what you do.

Consider where you want to work. Then ask yourself, “Is this the kind of place where I can see myself in others and where I can see others in me?” For example: Say you have job offers from both a small startup company you believe in, and a large corporation with a worrisome reputation for treating employees unfairly. You might make five times more money in the latter position, but does that reflect who you are and where you want to be?

If you’re a coach working with people in career transition, help them approach their search through the good work lens by asking them these three questions:

  • How much of what you do now is good work?
  • What could you do to boost that percentage?
  • How could you develop your career to maximize good work?

Additional Resources

Good Work: Aligning Skills and Values

Today’s Leadership Imperative

The Executive Edge: An Insider’s Guide to Outstanding Leadership

Thriving on Change: The Evolving Leader’s Toolkit

The Competency Builder

The Coaching Program

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Boost bottom lines: manage workplace stress

A recent Forbes article shared positive data revealing ROI (return-on-investment) for companies offering employee assistance programs designed to help workers better manage stress, enhance well-being, increase engagement, and boost performance.

Organizations that received the American Psychological Association’s Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award for efforts to promote employee well-being and performance reported an average turnover rate of 6%, as compared to the national average of 38%. Gallup‘s Q12 employee engagement assessment also concluded that companies with higher employee engagement outperformed competitors by 22% on their financials. And companies that made it onto the Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list had annualized stock market returns performing 2X better than general market indices, according to Great Places to Work.  As these articles suggest, organizations can receive a number of benefits from providing emotionally intelligent support for their employees to help manage stress at work:

Manage organizational attention deficit disorder. Ideally people working as a team are going to be attuned to each other. The star performing teams have the highest harmony, and have certain norms for maintaining that harmony such as:

  • They are very aware of each other strengths and weaknesses.
  • They let someone step into or out of a role as needed.
  • They don’t let friction simmer until they explode.
  • They deal with it before it becomes a real problem.
  • They celebrate wins, and they have a good time together.

– Match a person’s tasks to his or her skill sets. The more a challenge requires us to deploy our best skills, the more likely we will become absorbed in flow at work.

Attention regulates emotion. the more we strengthen our circuitry for concentration, the easier it becomes to let go of emotional hijacking and return toward a flow state. Resilience is defined as how much time it takes to recover from being upset. The quicker your recovery, the more resilient you’re going to be.

For more personal and professional mindfulness resources, visit our Mindfulness page, or listen to our free podcasts from our authors.

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