The early warning signs hide inside your best qualities.
Burnout in senior people rarely looks like collapse. It looks like someone still hitting their targets, still first to reply at midnight, still holding everything together. That is exactly why it gets missed until something gives. Here are the signs I watch for, and what to do before you reach that point.
The dangerous thing about executive burnout is that its early signs resemble dedication. You are working longer. You are more available. You are pushing through tiredness that would floor most people, and everyone praises you for it. Meanwhile the interest has quietly drained out of work you used to care about, and you are running on obligation and the fear of dropping the ball.
Watch for the shift from tired to numb. Tired recovers with a good weekend. Numb does not. You stop feeling much about wins or losses. You are short with the people you love and flat with the people you lead. Sleep stops working, either because you cannot switch off or because you wake at four with your mind already racing. Small decisions feel heavy. You reach for a drink, or your phone, or more work, to avoid sitting still. Often the body speaks before the mind will admit anything, through headaches, a churning stomach, or a chest that never quite loosens.
If your identity is built on being the capable one, admitting you are struggling can feel like a threat to who you are. So you do the thing that has always worked. You try harder. Burnout is the one problem that gets worse the harder you push at it, which is why so many capable people walk straight into it with their eyes open.
Recovery is not a spa weekend, though rest matters. The deeper work is looking at what drives the overwork in the first place. For many people it is a quiet belief that their worth is only ever as good as their last result. Until that belief shifts, time off just resets the clock. We work on the practical load and the story underneath it at the same time. That is what makes the change hold.
You do not have to wait until you cannot function. The work is easier and quicker when you come while you are still coping. If you are reading this and quietly recognising yourself, that recognition is the useful part. Do something with it.
They overlap and can feed each other, but they are not identical. Burnout is tied closely to your situation and your demands. It is worth getting a proper view rather than guessing, and I can help you make sense of which is which.
Often, yes. Many people I work with stay in demanding roles and change their relationship to the work rather than the work itself.
Completely. Discretion is the foundation of how I work, which matters a great deal to people in senior and public-facing roles.
Psychotherapist and certified recovery coach. London in person, online across Europe and the Gulf, in English or Arabic.