The Real Reason You’re Burned Out (And What To Do About It)
You’ve heard the word a thousand times: burnout.
It gets thrown around in staff meetings, joked about in break rooms, and Googled late at night by pastors, teachers, parents, and professionals alike. But what if burnout isn't the most accurate word for what’s really happening inside of you?
Burnout vs. Wear Out
Burnout is commonly described as the result of long-term, unrelieved job stress. According to psychologist Christina Maslach, it shows up in three main ways:
Emotional Exhaustion (EE): Feeling depleted and overextended.
Depersonalization (DP): Becoming cynical or emotionally distant from the people you serve.
Reduced Personal Accomplishment (PA): Feeling ineffective or like your work no longer matters.
But here’s the problem: as a construct, burnout has notable psychometric weaknesses. The Maslach Burnout Inventory, though widely used, has been critiqued for inconsistent factor structures and for treating what may actually be downstream symptoms, rather than root causes. Many practitioners and researchers are now asking: Are we even measuring what we think we’re measuring?
That’s why we prefer a different frame: wear out.
Where burnout sounds like something that happens to you, wear out speaks to the gradual erosion of your interior world, especially when you’ve spent too long giving without receiving, leading without being led, or ignoring the ache of your own unmet needs.
The Hidden Wound Beneath Burnout
Wearing out does NOT come from high output. It comes from prolonged inner disconnection.
We wear out when we don’t:
Feel and name our feelings
Seek out what we need
Monitor and nurture our craving for more of life
Pursue what we long for, even as we grieve that it won’t always come true
Take time to picture what we’re hoping for regularly
Most of us don’t forget how to do these things. We just start believing they’re optional.
Especially when we’re in roles of service, ministry, or leadership.
If you are a gifted person within a profession or service that your gifts align with, you will eventually be counted upon to lead. This means you’ll have more tasks to do in a day than can be done, while also carrying the emotional and interpersonal weight of others.
Although this is an unsolvable dilemma, and one that naturally causes stress, we stay healthy by naming our experience. Sharing your inner experience is not self-indulgent; it can lead to thriving.
Warning Signs You're Wearing Out
Some of the signs might surprise you. Here’s what we often see:
You feel emotionally numb or “past feeling”
You begin using the people you serve to avoid your own emotional world
Your family or close relationships feel like a task instead of a refuge
You become irritable or cynical about your calling
You “feel guilty” for setting boundaries or canceling commitments
You stop imagining what you want or need and you stop asking
A major red flag? You begin to believe you don’t need care beyond the relief of “getting away” from your work. In other words, we stop seeking true relational needs to pursue relief.
Another major red flag: Your pain is less important than the people you’re serving. That is pride, not resilience. And it doesn’t end well.
The Bottom Line
Wear out is real.
Healing won’t come just from adjusting your calendar. It begins when you return to what was lost when you got busy being useful without heart: your humanity.
You’re not weak for being tired.
You’re not broken for needing help.
You’re not disqualified for wanting more than just survival.
You’re human. And humans need connection, not just calling.
Care, not just competency.
Presence, not just performance.
You can serve well without losing yourself.
Let us help you come home to the parts of you that are still waiting to be known.
Want to talk to someone who understands this tension?
Written by Colton Shannon, Ph.D.