5 Lessons I Learned From Burning Out At 27

Illustration by the author.

Do you suspect you’re close to burning out?

Are you often tired, but finding it hard to give yourself permission for a break?

Have you felt overwhelmed with work recently, but decided to ignore it for the sake of personal success?

These are all wake-up calls. Signs that you most likely need to stop — or at least, to slow down.

Burnout doesn’t happen overnight. It gives you many signs that it’s coming. But they are only helpful if you treat them seriously.

I know how hard it is to stop. Your own ambition and the environment’s pressure combined make you feel like a failure if you slow down even just a bit. Everywhere around, you hear success stories of people who worked 80+ hours a week to build a thriving business or get promoted.

Naturally, you think:

If they could do it, so can I.

So you push yourself a little more. You hang on to motivational speeches from great entrepreneurs. You convince yourself that if you only work a bit harder, you’ll manage to keep up with all the demands.

But deep inside, you start realizing that this is a slippery slope, taking you down — not up.