 |
|
|
|||||
Burnout is best understood as a work-related psychological syndrome arising from sustained emotional and interpersonal strain. It has three core components: emotional exhaustion, characterized by chronic affective depletion; depersonalization, in which work becomes alienating and psychologically distancing rather than engaging; and reduced professional efficacy, marked by declining confidence, poorer self-appraisals, and a loss of self-worth. Importantly, burnout is not the same as stress. Rather, it is a pattern of responses to work stressors, and can also be distinguished from depression by its work-specific context. Burnout is best assessed via self-report questionnaires (psychometrics), and the below statements provide a simple checklist for evaluating its three components. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/tcp-photo-syndey-16X9.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/tcp-photo-syndey-1x1-2.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"Get more insights from Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic","dek":"Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a professor of organizational psychology at UCL and Columbia University, and the co-founder of DeeperSignals. He has authored 15 books and over 250 scientific articles on the psychology of talent, leadership, AI, and entrepreneurship. ","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/drtomas.com\/intro\/","theme":{"bg":"#2b2d30","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#3b3f46","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91424798,"imageMobileId":91424800,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} 1. Emotional exhaustion (energy depletion) I feel emotionally drained by my work. By the end of the workday, I feel used up or wiped out. I wake up feeling tired at the thought of another day at work. I feel I have nothing left to give emotionally at work. 2. Depersonalization (psychological distancing and cynicism) I have become more cynical or negative about my job. I feel detached or emotionally distant from my work. I am less interested in what my job means or contributes. I find myself being more irritable, blunt, or indifferent with colleagues or clients. 3. Reduced professional efficacy (poor self-evaluation and self-perceived impact) I feel that I am not accomplishing worthwhile things at work. I doubt my effectiveness or competence more than I used to. I feel less confident in my ability to handle my job well. Even when I work hard, it feels like it does not make much difference. A workplace epidemic As with most modern workplace malaise, precise prevalence figures are elusive. Yet multiple surveys show burnout is widespread in the industrialized world (where working conditions are actually better). According to a recent Gallup study, about 48% of employees globally report feeling burned out at work, and three-quarters say they experience burnout at least occasionally. Regional data paints a similar picture. Surveys across Southeast Asia find that 62.9% of workers report high or very high burnout, and U.S. workforce research shows that roughly 31% of employees feel job-related stress often or always, a common precursor to burnout. Younger workers and those with high-demand roles typically report even higher rates, with some employer studies suggesting more than 80% of workers have experienced symptoms such as exhaustion or cognitive strain. Overlapping forces Burnout, like most behavioral outcomes, reflects the interplay of internal and external forces. Individual differences in personality and resilience shape vulnerability, while job design, organizational culture, and leadership determine exposure. The same role can exhaust one employee and leave another largely unscathednot because the pressures differ, but because their capacity to absorb and interpret them does. So, for instance, job control, or the degree to which individuals experience control over their jobs, is a consistent negative predictor of burnout: The less control you feel you have over your job and career, the more at risk of burnout you are. In contrast, when people are given autonomy and resources to perform their jobs, they will experience a sense of control and agency, which in turn increases employee engagement and motivation, and decreases exhaustion and depersonalization. Much like the difference between driving a car and being a passenger stuck in the back seat, having control makes even demanding journeys more tolerable. It increases motivation and engagement while reducing the emotional fatigue and cynicism that sit at the core of burnout. Personality as predictor But no matter how well jobs are designed, individual differences matter a great deal. Most notably, personality is a remarkably consistent predictor of burnout, with lower emotional stability (or higher neuroticism) standing out as a particularly strong risk factorincreasing vulnerability while eroding resilience. Meta-analyses evidence suggests that a substantial share of the variance in burnout symptoms can be traced back to personality, which in turn helps explain downstream outcomes such as job performance, absenteeism, and turnover. The implication is not that burnout is a personal failing or that organizations should select only the psychologically bulletproof. Rather, it is that prevention and support efforts should be unevenly distributed. Some employees are naturally more resilient and will weather demanding environments with little lasting cost. Others, equally capable and motivated, will require greater support, flexibility, and early intervention to avoid being pushed beyond their limits. Treating everyone the same may feel fair, but it is rarely effective. In practice, this means paying closer attention to those most at risk and designing support systems that recognize differences in resilience, rather than assuming that the same pressures will be absorbed equally by all. Situational factors To be sure, some features of work increase the risk of burnout for almost anyone, helping to explain the high prevalence figures reported earlier. These risk factors are, for the most part, intuitive. Chief among them is workload. When demands consistently exceed the capacity of individuals or teams, energy is depleted faster than it can be restored, making recovery impossible. Burnout, in this sense, is less a sudden collapse than a slow failure to recharge Workload problems are not limited to quantity. A mismatch can also arise from the nature of the work itself. Even moderate demands become draining when people lack the skills, inclination, or temperament required to meet them. Emotional labor is especially costly: Roles that require employees to display feelings they do not genuinely experience (perpetual enthusiasm, calm, or empathy on demand) create a form of psychological friction that accelerates exhaustion. Unsurprisingly, workload mismatches are most strongly linked to the exhaustion component of burnout, the first and most common stage of the syndrome. Another powerful driver of burnout is perceived fairness. A serious mismatch between individuals and their work arises when people feel they are treated unjustly. Fairness signals respect and affirms self-worth; its absence does the opposite. Perceptions of unfairness emerge in many familiar forms: inequities in workload or pay, favoritism in promotions, opaque performance evaluations, or grievance processes that deny employees a genuine voice. Such experiences are not merely irritating but emotionally corrosive. They drain energy, erode trust, and weaken the sense of mutual obligation that underpins healthy workplaces. Over time, persistent unfairness accelerates burnout by intensifying emotional exhaustion and fostering cynicism, as individuals disengage not because the work itself is unmanageable, but because the system governing it feels arbitrary or rigged. Likewise, burnout is more likely to take hold when a sense of community at work erodes. People function best when they feel socially connected to colleagues they respect and trust, and when everyday interactions allow for shared recognition, support, and even humor. Such connections do more than provide emotional comfort; they reinforce a sense of belonging and shared purpose. By contrast, work environments that are isolating, transactional, or impersonal deprive employees of an important psychological buffer against stress. Most damaging of all is chronic, unresolved conflict. Persistent tension with colleagues or managers generates ongoing frustration and hostility, undermines trust, and steadily reduces the availability of social support. Over time, the workplace ceases to feel like a community and becomes merely a site of strain, accelerating the path to burnout. The role of engagement A final and often overlooked point concerns the relationship between engagement and burnout. Intuitively, the two are negatively related, but empirical evidence suggests the connection is far stronger than commonly assumed. Meta-analytic findings indicate that the overlap is so substantial that engagement and burnout may best be understood as opposite ends of the same underlying continuum rather than as distinct constructs. Across studies, the average true correlation between burnout and engagement dimensions rises to nearly .80, with burnout explaining well over half of the variance in core engagement components such as absorption, dedication, and vigor. The broader pattern of correlates is almost identical, with vector correlations approaching .90, implying that what predicts burnout largely predicts disengagement in reverse. Complicating matters further, longitudinal evidence suggests burnout may also reshape personality over time: Higher burnout predicts subsequent declines in extroversion, challenging the assumption that more outgoing individuals are simply less vulnerable. Finally, job control is more strongly associated with cynicism and diminished efficacy than with exhaustion, a finding with important implications for practice. Given how frequently organizations track engagement, these measures may offer an early and scalable way to detect emerging burnout risks at both group and individual levels, often even before exhaustion becomes visible. Taken together, the evidence suggests that burnout is neither a passing fad nor a purely individual affliction, but a predictable outcome of how modern work is designed, managed, and experienced. It emerges where chronic demands overwhelm recovery; where control, fairness, and community erode; and where individual vulnerabilities go unrecognized or unsupported. Because burnout closely mirrors disengagementoften preceding visible declines in performance or well-beingit can be detected earlier than many organizations assume, especially through careful attention to engagement data. Ultimately, preventing burnout is less about eliminating pressure than about restoring balancebetween demands and resources, effort and reward, autonomy and accountability, and uniform policies and differentiated support. Organizations that understand this are not just protecting their people; they are safeguarding their capacity to perform. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/tcp-photo-syndey-16X9.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/tcp-photo-syndey-1x1-2.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"Get more insights from Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic","dek":"Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a professor of organizational psychology at UCL and Columbia University, and the co-founder of DeeperSignals. He has authored 15 books and over 250 scientific articles on the psychology of talent, leadership, AI, and entrepreneurship. ","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/drtomas.com\/intro\/","theme":{"bg":"#2b2d30","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#3b3f46","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91424798,"imageMobileId":91424800,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
One of the things that I love about working for myself is that I dont need to ask anyones permission before making a decision. If I want to make a change, I go for it, on whatever timeline makes sense for me. But the freedom of solopreneurship can be a double-edged sword. Since you dont need approval from other people, nothing is stopping you from chasing every shiny tool, course, or strategy that promises to solve your problems. The ability to say no to distractions is an underrated skill for solopreneurs. Theres a difference between making strategic decisions and letting yourself be pulled in a million directions. You need to master the former and resist the latter. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/work-better-1.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/work-better-mobile-1.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Work Better\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn\u0027t suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.workbetter.media\/\u0022\u003Eworkbetter.media\u003C\/a\u003E.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91457605,"imageMobileId":91457608,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} Questions to ask yourself when evaluating something new Before jumping on something new, run it through a quick filter. Ask yourself: What specific problem does this solve? (If you can’t name it, it’s probably a distraction.) Is this solving a problem I actually have right now? If I have this problem right now, is it urgent? Or merely annoying? What’s the cost of looking into this more? (Consider the time to learn something new, the time away from existing work, and the potential to derail other plans you may have.) Most shiny objects appeal to problems we think we have, not problems we’re actually facing. Or they dont address an urgent need, and it makes more sense to look into them later. If you ask yourself these questions, the answers can prevent you from hopping on the latest bandwagon when the shiny object doesnt actually make sense for your business. Im guilty of not always taking the time to stop and think. I vibe-coded myself a new website the other weekend. Did it solve a problem? Yes. Was it necessary at that exact moment in time? No. I put other things aside to tinker with the website. In hindsight, it wouldnt have passed the urgency question, and I should have stayed focused on other projects. Tactics to stay focused (when everything looks interesting!) As a solopreneur, you have to create your own guardrails. You don’t have a boss or a team to push back when you want to overhaul your entire tech stack or change your business model. If you follow a few constraints, you can stay focused. Set boundaries for yourself. Try a “no new tools” or “no new strategies” rule for a specific period of time (like 90 days) unless something is truly broken. This prevents you from making snap decisions. Keep a running list of things to try. When something catches your eye, write it down so you don’t lose the idea. I have a list in my project management tool called Ideas. I include a few notes to myself about why I think the idea might be good for my business. Review your list quarterly. When you sit down and look at your ideas list a few weeks or months later, some things will have lost their appeal. The ones that still seem worthwhile? Now you can formulate a plan and set aside time to work on them. If the answer is still, Not yet, but maybe someday, the idea stays on your list until the next time you review it. Develop the discipline to say “no” The solopreneurs who build sustainable businesses are the ones who learn to distinguish between opportunities and distractions. They know that changing directions too often holds them back. If you chase every shiny object, you sacrifice time you can spend on client work (or your personal time). You need to have the discipline to say “not right now” to most things that cross your path. Dont be like mevibe-coding on a whim because an idea popped into my head. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/work-better-1.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/work-better-mobile-1.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Work Better\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn\u0027t suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.workbetter.media\/\u0022\u003Eworkbetter.media\u003C\/a\u003E.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91457605,"imageMobileId":91457608,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
Mark Cubans enthusiasm for artificial intelligence is well known. He has called the technology the ultimate time-saving hack and bluntly stated that if youre not learning AI, youre fed. But with his latest investment, the billionaire bypassed the plethora of AI startups and focused instead on something more human-centered. Cuban has invested an undisclosed amount in live events company Burwoodland, which produces nightlife experiences throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The investment will make him a minority owner in the company. Founded in 2015 by Alex Badanes and Ethan Maccoby, the New York City-based company says it has sold more than 1.5 million tickets to live events like Emo Night Brooklyn, Gimme Gimme Disco, All Your Friends, and Broadway Rave, which center on DJ sets that are themed to a certain musical genre. Its time we all got off our asses, left the house, and had fun, said Cuban in a statement. Alex and Ethan know how to create amazing memories and experiences that people plan their weeks around. In an AI world, what you do is far more important than what you prompt. Thats not the first time Cuban has touted the potential of real-world experiences in an increasingly AI-dominated environment. Last June, he took to social network Bluesky to write, Within the next 3 years, there will be so much AI, in particular AI video, people wont know if what they see or hear is real. Which will lead to an explosion of f2f [face-to-face] engagement, events, and jobs. Burwoodland leans hard into that way of thinking, producing over 1,200 shows per year. Strategic partners of the company include music industry veterans Izzy Zivkovic (founder of artist management company Split Second, which counts Arcade Fire among its clients) and concert promoter Peter Shapiro. Klaf Companies, the investment and advisory platform founded by Justin Kalifowitz (who also created Downtown Music Holdings, which represents songwriting copyrights from John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Ray Davies, and One Direction), is also a partner. Ethan and I started this company because we know firsthand how powerful it is to find your people through the music you love, Badanes said in a statement. That sense of community shaped our lives, and creating spaces where others can feel that connection has always been our purpose. Having the confidence of an investor as respected and accomplished as Mark is a tremendous honor. With concert ticket prices continuing to escalate, Burwoodland keeps entry fees low, offering a low-cost live experience for music lovers. Tickets to its events generally run in the $20 to $40 range, though some events cost more. The company has already booked 2026 events in Milan, Brooklyn, Louisville, Nashville, and Antwerpand later this month will host the Long Live Emo Fest at Brooklyns Paramount theater, which holds up to 2,700 patrons. The experiences have become popular enough that some of the artists being celebrated in the various genres Burwoodland focuses on have shown up at the events, with some even performing. Maccoby and Badanes didnt plan to start a business. The two, who have been friends since childhood, began throwing house parties in college and kept up the practice afterward, when they lived in Brooklyn. When those soirees got too big for their apartment, they took over a nearby bar to host them and Burwoodland (named after an area in London where they grew up) was born. The duo quit their day jobs in 2022 to focus exclusively on the startup. There has been increasing interest in the live event space from investors lately. Last June, NYC-based Fever, a live-entertainment discovery platform, secured a $100 million investment from L Catterton and Point72 Private Investments. And in September, DJ/producer Kygos company Palm Tree Crew (which hosts music festivals) received a $20 million Series B investment led by WME Group, giving it a $215 million valuation.Chris Morris This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister publication, Inc. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||