Burnout Quotes

“So how much rest is “adequate”?

Science says: 42 percent.

That’s the percentage of time your body and brain need you to spend resting. It’s about ten hours out of every twenty-four. It doesn’t have to be every day; it can average out over a week or a month or more. But yeah. That much.

“That’s ridiculous! I don’t have that kind of time!” you might protest—and we remind you that we predicted you might feel that way, back at the start of the chapter.

We’re not saying you should take 42 percent of your time to rest; we’re saying if you don’t take the 42 percent, the 42 percent will take you. It will grab you by the face, shove you to the ground, put its foot on your chest, and declare itself the victor.”
― Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

“No one is “complete” without other people—and we mean this literally. To be complete without social connection is to be nourished without food. It doesn’t happen. We get hungry. We get lonely. We must feed ourselves or die. We don’t mean you “need a man” or any kind of romantic partner. We mean you need connection in any or all of its varied forms. And it is also true that the lifelong development of autonomy is as innate to human nature as the drive to connect. We need both connection and autonomy. That’s not a contradiction. Humans are built to oscillate from connection to autonomy and back again.”
― Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

“Raise your hand if you've asked yourself, How much more do I have to do before I've done enough? How much of myself do I have to give? How smoothly do I have to polish myself before I can move through the world without friction?”
― Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

“For instance, feeling helpless and hopeless after watching news about the state of international politics? Don’t distract yourself or numb out; do a thing. Do yard work or gardening, to care for your small patch of the world. Take food to somebody who needs a little boost. Take your dog to the park. Show up at a Black Lives Matter march. You might even call your government representative. That’s great. That’s participation. You’re not helpless. Your goal is not to stabilize the government—that’s not your job (unless you happen to be a person whose job that is, in which case you still need to deal with the stress, as well as the stressor!)—your goal is to stabilize you, so that you can maintain a sense of efficacy, so that you can do the important stuff your family and your community need from you. As the saying goes, “Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.” And “something” is anything that isn’t nothing.”
― Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

“While burnout obviously has something to do with stress, overdoing things, not being centred, and not listening to yourself or your body, one of the deepest contributors to burnout, I believe, is the deep disappointment of not living up to your true calling, which is to help.”
― Jenn Bruer, Helping Effortlessly: A Book of Inspiration and Healing

“It’s not true, and the people who say it is are gaslighting you. The truth is you learned helplessness from experiences of being helpless.

We unlearn helplessness by doing a thing—a thing that uses our body. Go for a walk. Scream into a pillow. Or, as Carrie Fisher put it, “Take your broken heart, make it into art.” Reverse the effects of helplessness by creating a context where you can do a thing.”
― Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

“Helpers carry a heavy load, they listen, love, cry, and often go into the depths of others’ pain. They sometimes enter darkness that no person should have to step into: the darkness of the abuse of a child, of mental health, of our cultural propensity to sit back and do nothing about it. They bear this each day.”
― Jenn Bruer, Helping Effortlessly: A Book of Inspiration and Healing

“Here we’ll describe four signs that you have to disengage from your autonomous efforts and seek connection. Each of these emotions is a different form of hunger for connection—that is, they’re all different ways of feeling lonely:

When you have been gaslit. When you’re asking yourself, “Am I crazy, or is there something completely unacceptable happening right now?” turn to someone who can relate; let them give you the reality check that yes, the gaslights are flickering.

When you feel “not enough.” No individual can meet all the needs of the world. Humans are not built to do big things alone. We are built to do them together. When you experience the empty-handed feeling that you are just one person, unable to meet all the demands the world makes on you, helpless in the face of the endless, yawning need you see around you, recognize that emotion for what it is: a form of loneliness. ...
When you’re sad. In the animated film Inside Out, the emotions in the head of a tween girl, Riley, struggle to cope with the exigencies of growing up....
When you are boiling with rage. Rage has a special place in women’s lives and a special role in the Bubble of Love. More, even, than sadness, many of us have been taught to swallow our rage, hide it even from ourselves. We have been taught to fear rage—our own, as well as others’—because its power can be used as a weapon. Can be. A chef’s knife can be used as a weapon. And it can help you prepare a feast. It’s all in how you use it. We don’t want to hurt anyone, and rage is indeed very, very powerful.

Bring your rage into the Bubble with your loved ones’ permission, and complete the stress response cycle with them. If your Bubble is a rugby team, you can leverage your rage in a match or practice. If your Bubble is a knitting circle, you might need to get creative. Use your body. Jump up and down, get noisy, release all that energy, share it with others.

“Yes!” say the people in your Bubble. “That was some bullshit you dealt with!”

Rage gives you strength and energy and the urge to fight, and sharing that energy in the Bubble changes it from something potentially dangerous to something safe and potentially transformative.”
― Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

“Slowly you may have transformed from a helper to one in need of help. It’s important to talk about this, to identify the wounds you carry.”
― Jenn Bruer, Helping Effortlessly: A Book of Inspiration and Healing

“Dear Stress, I would like a divorce. Please understand it is not you, it is me.
–Thomas E. Rojo Aubrey”
― Thomas E. Rojo Aubrey, Unlocking the Code to Human Resiliency

“Have you ever stopped to contemplate how you might respond biologically, physically, emotionally and spiritually to the various experiences in your life? Is it possible that your thoughts become your biology? I believe wholeheartedly that they can.”
― Jenn Bruer, Helping Effortlessly: A Book of Inspiration and Healing

“Burnout is the result of too much energy output and not enough energy self-invested. In other words, it's burning too much fuel than you’ve put in your tank.”
― Melissa Steginus, Self Care at Work: How to Reduce Stress, Boost Productivity, and Do More of What Matters

“Each of us wants to fuel our bodies and walk the earth with health and energy, to honour the vessel that takes us through life. We have allowed food, of all things, to divide us. Food is meant to bring us together. Food is celebratory, nourishing. Our world needs less conflict and more “live and let live.”
― Jenn Bruer, Helping Effortlessly: A Book of Inspiration and Healing

“It helps to sometimes take a break by resting on your laurels.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Some avoid spiritual things because they remind us of our pain and trauma. Burnout in ministry can lead to deep emotional wounds that traumatize and leave us vulnerable and afraid. We come to fear the things that we associate with our burnout.Sometimes the rear may be so great, we begin to avoid those things. That's because every encounter reopens wounds and causes great emotional pain. Since ministers who burn out associate their experiences with spiritual things, it's not surprising that they would avoid them.”
― Anthony J. Headley, Reframing Your Ministry: Balancing Professional Responsibilities & Personal Needs

“You're expecting too much of yourself," said professor Lupin sternly, in their fourth week of practice. "For a thirteen-year-old wizard, even an indistinct Patronus is a huge achievement”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

“Quand on ne travaillera plus les lendemains des jours de repos, la fatigue sera vaincue.”
― Alphonse Allais

“But sometimes you’re aiming for a clearly defined, concrete goal that can’t be redefined. For these, you will need a nonstandard relationship with failing. You may do all the things you’re supposed to do, without getting where you’re trying to go, only to end up somewhere else pretty amazing. Or, as Douglas Adams’s character Dirk Gently puts it, “I rarely end up where I was intending to go, but often I end up somewhere that I needed to be.” Widen your focus to see the inadvertent benefits you stumble across along the way.”
― Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

“I now know that surrendering, allowing, and “BE-ing” is far more productive than grasping for control. I don't know why one child is born with autism and another isn't, or why some children have to fight cancer and some don't. I have lived long enough to know that life is not fair, never will be fair, and we shouldn’t expect it to be.”
― Jenn Bruer, Helping Effortlessly: A Book of Inspiration and Healing

“It is rest, not a vacation, that is a biological need.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Those who truly love their work have the tendency to get sick and tired of resting, and very quickly.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“So, while I knew what burnout was, I never thought it would happen to me. Even-keeled and rarely stressed out, I perhaps thought I was superwoman and nothing could break me. Burnout carries a stigma as a sign of weakness and since I am not weak, I think my young helper mind couldn't reconcile how burnout could come knocking at my door.”
― Jenn Bruer, Helping Effortlessly: A Book of Inspiration and Healing

“Letting confusion get in the way of changing your diet and lifestyle will deter you from facing the reality of how hard it is to give up sugar. If you’ll forgive the expression, I am not going to sugar-coat it: sugary drinks, donuts, cake, cookies and candy are out. And there’s no “okay in moderation.” What does that mean: once a week, once on the weekend, only on holidays? It probably doesn't mean Friday after work until Monday morning!”
― Jenn Bruer, Helping Effortlessly: A Book of Inspiration and Healing

“Dear Stress, I would like a divorce. Please understand it is not you, it is me.”
― Thomas E. Rojo Aubrey, Unlocking the Code to Human Resiliency

“It takes wisdom to gain wealth without losing health.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“As a manager, you have the potential to create a fire—passion—in others, but to do this, first, we have to create a spark. Think of the Fourth of July. People gather to watch the sky light up with beautiful fireworks. It’s fun watching a child gaze into the dark sky to see it light up with a spectrum of colors. And how much fun are sparklers, right?

From sparklers to rockets, fireworks have one thing in common—they start with a spark. They are ignited! This spark allows each firework to leave the ground and explode, and thereby create joy for all those watching. Sometimes fireworks are beautiful, but if not done correctly they can just fizzle out.

Consider yourself a pyro-technician of people. A pyro-technician is the person responsible for the safe storage, handling, and functioning of fireworks and some explosives. As managers, you are in charge of the safe storage, handling, and functioning of the people you supervise. The fireworks you see will be displayed in your employee’s attitudes. When an employee is fizzling out, we call this burnout and it can happen to any employee, even yourself. You need to be able to recognize it.”
― Denise Wilkerson, HIRE with FIRE: The Relationship-Driven Interview and Hiring Method

“Animals overwork only when they are working for humans.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Hoy es el día Mundial de la salud mental materna. En mi tesis del Máster cité un estudio científico que postula que de cada diez madres dos sufren de síndrome de burnout materno que es el resultado de estrés crónico que provoca la crianza de los hijos. El agotamiento emocional es una de sus variables más potentes. De las ocho restantes seguro la mitad se encuentra con estrés ya sea por las excesivas demandas del rol, por problemas de pareja, por no poder conciliar familia/trabajo remunerado, porque no alcanzan las horas del día, por la fatiga y dormir poco, por el aislamiento, por la falta de hombro en el que apoyarse. La salud materna es IMPORTANTÍSIMA porque una mamá estresada, deprimida, con ataques de pánico o ansiedad no puede ni con ella misma, ¿cómo podrá con sus hijos? ¿Quien cuida a la madre agotada? ¿Y a mamá quien la sostiene? ¿Y a mamá quien la contiene? ¿Que hacer? visibilizar hasta encandilar”
― Ana Acosta Rodriguez

“If we buy into the church culture of celebrity, we drift away from following Jesus faithfully.”
― Christopher Ash, Zeal without Burnout

“Well, didn't you look sharp with your boots when you met me on the path?
From two-tone to downtown Beirut but only halfway back
Stealing bits of wisdom from the shelf
Turned prisons into prisms of the self
And what do they know about the springtime or me and you?
Born in the midst of the long hot summer we lived through
Did they see you run for every rhyme?
Did we run for running out of time?
When even heroes have to die
No one lives forever, love, no one's wise to try
We're adding our own wisdom to the shelf
Stealing bits of paper, we had help
But working away, did we miss the passing of the time?
In your own flame you can wither though your passions still outshine
Did you read the writing on the wall?
Prophesying doom upon us all
But even heroes have to die
No one lives forever, love, no one's wise to try
But hidden in the writing on the wall
Many are the beauties of the fall”
― Ted Leo