The authors worked with the best athletes and executives for years, and found that the best ones knew how to push themselves, then recuperate, push, recuperate. Take this same approach to your emotional, mental, physical, and even spiritual life, and it's a powerful metaphor. Think of sprints, not marathons. Be fully in whatever you're in, then give time to recuperate. But push futher each time, past your comfort zone, like a good exercise plan.
I wasn't saying "stop being stressed and burned-out".
I mean that any time any of us get to that point, there are a few approaches we could take.
(1) - Go take a long vacation.
(2) - Quit and change your approach.
(3) - Don't change a thing. Sleep tonight, but tomorrow just keep pushing the same direction as you've been doing. It'll be painful, you'll scream and complain, but just keep working anyway.
I've tried all three. When I do (1) or (2), it throws me so far off course that I never come back.
But powering through it is also the advice that ultra-marathon runners advise. They say you feel the pain, but just ignore it and go anyway. You don't take a break. You just keep running.
When I've taken this approach to the work I'm doing, I tend to find joy and an easier road ahead, past the painful burnt-out feeling I felt the day/week before. I'm glad I didn't take a vacation or change course.
I guess the thing to bear in mind for this sort of lifestyle advice is: your mileage may vary. While one person experiencing "burn-out" may respond well to powering through it, as in your case, another person feeling "burned out" may follow the same suggestion only to run themselves into the ground doing so.
A close family member of mine tried to power through her feelings of being burnt out, and wound up spending the next two years debilitated by chronic fatigue -- needing lifts to her various therapists because even just walking to the bus stop caused her physical pain, never mind the sensory overload she suffered in noise & crowds.
As such, I just felt it was important to emphasise that "powering through" doesn't work for everyone or every situation. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
I think that, like many disagreements, this is just a question of semantics. If your definition of "burnout" is "feeling unmotivated after playing video games for a while," that's a bit different from and calls for a different response than the kind of burnout that requires a shrink.
Yeah, I hear what you're saying. Some people will say they feel burned out when they're tired after a long day at work, some people won't say they're burned out 'til they have a nervous breakdown.
