The Burnout Puzzle: The Role of Expectations, Boundaries, and Ego
Burnout is often framed as an organizational failure — long hours, excessive workloads, toxic workplaces. Despite changes for the better, the workplace has become even more challenging to our mental equilibrium. But what if our own mindsets, expectations, and cognitive distortions contribute to burnout just as much as external demands?
This is not just a theoretical question—it’s an urgent one. Across industries, burnout has become a defining workplace crisis, with researchers and writers warning that employees are reporting feeling emotionally and physically depleted at alarming rates.
In fact, in the 2023–2024 SHRM State of the Workplace Report, approximately half of workers report feeling used up (51%), emotionally drained (45%), or burned out (44%) from their work. (“Used up” in this context refers to employees feeling physically and emotionally depleted by their work responsibilities).
Burnout is a growing epidemic that affects professionals across industries and individuals in all walks of life. It is a state of emotional, physical, and cognitive exhaustion caused by chronic stress that goes unresolved.
The World Health Organization describes burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” It identifies three core symptoms:
- exhaustion: a depletion of physical and emotional energy that no amount of rest seems to fix;
- cynicism: a growing detachment from work, where once-motivated employees become disengaged or resentful; and,
- reduced efficacy: a sense that no matter how hard they try, they are not making an impact.
Given that burnout is an occupational phenomenon, most writing about it seems to focus on the role of the organization in creating it.
In this enquiry, we explore alternative underlying causes, effects, and potential preventive medicine for burnout, arguing that we are often the architects of our own struggles. In doing so, we hope to give us more agency to better inoculate ourselves against burnout — and, in the process, help create more resilient and less toxic organizations. We also broaden the notion of “workplace” to include being a nonpaid caregiver or prison inmate — as well as doctors, founders, team leaders, or academics.
(As authors, Sreedhar Potarazu and I recognize that many workers face burnout due to systemic challenges beyond their control. We have written about how healthcare professionals, educators, non-profit workers, corporate employees, first responders, and caregivers experience burnout from relentless emotional and physical demands. Mid-career professionals juggle leadership pressures and family responsibilities, while younger workers navigate job insecurity and long hours. Women often carry disproportionate emotional labor, while men may experience burnout in ways that go unreported. Low-income workers face unique stressors, from multiple jobs to financial instability, often with fewer workplace protections. Addressing burnout requires organizational change and personal awareness — recognizing what we can control and advocating for systemic improvements where needed.)
The tension between expectation and capacity
The unrelenting tension between expectation and capacity is at the heart of burnout. Burnout does not come just from working too much — it comes from feeling like you can never stop working. Consider Maria, a manager in a high-growth tech company, is known for getting things done.
Her boss praises her dedication, fast responses, and willingness to go the extra mile. Over time, this praise turns into an expectation — her workload keeps growing, yet she feels pressured to maintain the same high standard.
Her capacity hasn’t changed, but the demands have. She skips breaks, answers emails at all hours, and pushes through exhaustion. Saying no feels like failing — after all, she has always “figured it out.”
Burnout doesn’t happen overnight. It creeps in as expectations quietly outstrip reality. Maria’s over-functioning reinforces a culture where boundaries feel like weakness and overwork becomes the norm.
Under this lens, burnout is not just about workload — it is about how we manage energy, ego, and expectations. Burnout is not just a workplace phenomenon — it is deeply personal. It is shaped by the stories we tell ourselves, the expectations we carry, and the unchecked ego that fuels the fire.
For Maria to avoid burnout, she must challenge the idea that saying no makes her less valuable. But her company must also recognize how high performers are set up to fail when overwork is mistaken for commitment. Sustainable success comes not from doing more, but from doing differently.
Maria could also be a manager who unconsciously rewards overwork, a startup founder who equates self-worth with hustle, a doctor who cannot disconnect from patient care, or a medical entrepreneur…
The view from various trenches
“For many of us,” explains Dr Potarazu, one of the authors of this piece, “bunrout is a deeply personal trial. Each setting reveals distinct facets of exhaustion, yet the core thread is remarkably similar: our ability to meet expectations, many of which we set on ourselves.”
Dr. Potarazu shared three settings in which he experienced burnout:
In healthcare, I witnessed burnout manifest as the silent companion of caregivers who sacrificed their own well-being in the pursuit of healing others. The pressure to perform flawlessly, the emotional toll of life decisions, and the constant race against the clock formed an overwhelming cycle.
In the business world, the stakes were different but no less intense. The relentless pursuit of success and recognition demanded sacrifices — late nights, endless meetings, the suffocating pressure to outperform competitors and fear of failure. Here, burnout was often cloaked in the guise of ambition, yet its impact was just as debilitating. The worst enemy was my own ego.
In prison, I saw another dimension of burnout—one rooted in the loss of autonomy and identity. The monotony, coupled with the gnawing weight of time and regret, eroded individuals from within. Burnout in this context wasn’t about overachievement; it was about a soul’s slow erosion under the strain of despair and disconnection.
Across these worlds, I learned that burnout isn’t merely about working too hard. It’s about the stories we tell ourselves, the expectations we carry, and the unchecked ego that fuels the fire. Whether you’re a doctor, an executive, or an inmate, the essence of burnout is universal: a state of disconnection from oneself, often driven by a relentless need to meet — or escape — the demands placed upon us.
These experiences formed the foundation of my understanding of burnout and the importance of resilience. The antidote to burnout lies not in doing more but in doing differently: in discovering our inner strengths to endure (or “silience”), managing expectations, and recognizing our own limits before they consume us. Ultimately, the consistent theme in all of these scenarios is the role of the ego and its fight for survival.
Despite the differences, the emotional toll is strikingly similar (AFR, 2024). The ego dictates that we are never good enough. The CEO is trying to beat the clock. The inmate is trying to beat time. Both are trying to face failure and impending doom. One for business, the other for life. It’s this fear of failure that causes the walls to close in and where thinking errors start to accelerate
Managing expectation and meaning-making machines
Business schools, competitive workplaces, and tournament systems such the ones that govern the up-or-out pyramids of many professional service firms reward leaders who can convince themselves that they thrive under pressure.
Some of us are natural-born leaders and diamonds in the making, but most of us are not. As we rise up and the pressure increases, the energy drain accelerates as the workload increases but the weight of unspoken fears: the fear of being seen as ineffective, the fear of making the wrong call, the fear of not being enough, the fear of losing control which we have written about (see a post here on Lost in Transition). Of course, social media further fuels the fire for the fear that we are missing out when others post their fairytales.
The more successful someone becomes, the greater the stakes, the more invisible the anxiety, and the more damaging its effects. Many leaders do not burn out because they are overworked; they burn out because they do not know how to stop overfunctioning for everyone around them. This anxiety can manifest in behaviors like overworking, micromanaging, or struggling with difficult conversations, ultimately leading to emotional exhaustion rather than just physical overwork.
Understanding leadership anxiety
Some of these feelings have been described as leadership anxiety by pastor and author Steve Cuss. To help, the former trauma and hospice chaplain authored Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs and founded Capable Life, an organization dedicated to helping individuals reduce internal and relational anxiety in both workplace and personal settings.
He argues that burnout is not about how much we work — it is about how much anxiety we carry. The chronic stress of needing to perform, please, or control is the real culprit behind burnout. Leaders do not just manage tasks; they absorb expectations, criticism, and emotional burdens — and the growing chaos and unpredictability of the workplace.
In addition, the pressure to have the last word in meetings, to appear endlessly competent, or to shield a team from difficulty is not just a personality trait — it can be an anxious response. Left unchecked, it is what drives high-achievers to exhaustion, not the length of their to-do lists. Burnout is not simply the result of long hours but rather the accumulation of unmanaged anxiety.
Withstanding the Flames of the Ego
The identity of ourselves, the ego, is an important driver behind burnout. The ego is essentially the image of ourselves that is created by emotions, experiences, expectations, memories, and many other factors. It is the internal storyteller that formulates the narrative.
The ego only has an appetite for the past or future. The present is its enemy. Fear of letting go of the past and anxiety of the future are what the ego thrives on, and it is in constant survival mode because of the threat of the present moment. Every decision is based on two words, “ I “ and “ My,” and how our identity is defined by people , places, or things. This is especially true in the workplace as to how peers and supervisors perceive us. There is a constant gap between who we think we are and who we really are. We develop an inflated sense of self that forces us to continue to try to complete the picture in our head.
Whether at work or home, how we are perceived is integral to how we behave. The same applies to work if our peers get a promotion or raise. In an era of social media and mobile phones, these triggers are exaggerated because we live in a world of constant comparison. In a world of social media, these stressors are amplified because everyone else seems to be thriving, and you are not. There is a mismatch between us and “life.”
It’s a firestorm of perceived good news that makes us feel inadequate, and so we push harder to catch up (FOMO- fear of missing out). Some believe they really have to go above and beyond, which makes you vulnerable. Also, there is the constant need to meet people’s expectations of you (ego), such as investors or bosses or the board who may be overly demanding. Sometimes, when we see somebody working harder than they really should be, we seek to be better than them.
Initially, when we are motivated to work and in the “zone,” dopamine levels are high. The more we succeed, the more we need in success. It’s a drug that needs higher doses until our response system fatigues. At some point, the dopamine surges we experienced on the way up are not enough to keep us going at the top.
At the level of the brain, it involves a breakdown in the ability to manage stress and its neural circuits. There are specific changes in our brains that trigger burnout. Overstimulation of the limbic system, which controls emotions, amplifies anxiety and fear. When we feel overwhelmed, stress hormones like cortisol surge, which ultimately lead to exhaustion and fatigue. This chronic stress ultimately impairs the decision-making part of our brain, the pre-frontal cortex. Our internal thermostat, which is supposed to regulate emotional control and rational thought, breaks down.
. and its accelerant: thinking errors
A feeling of impending doom from our identity crisis and emotional storm leads to thinking errors. Remember, when the emotions are raging, the smoke clouds judgment. The amygdala takes hold of the steering wheel, and we start pressing panic buttons. The most common warning signs are thinking errors: blaming, cynicism, and withdrawal.
The first error is blame. the criticism of everybody around you. “ The investors don’t understand me, my collaborators are stupid, my spouse is intolerant.” We are stuck in developing productive relationships and growing new ones because we are perpetually complaining about the other. Blame is a common tactic of the ego to defend its identity. It’s never my fault. “How dare they?”
Here, we also use labeling as a form of thinking error: “ These guys are complete idiots. “ “ How could the leaders not see this coming?” It is not uncommon to also have a fear of doom and gloom, which is called catastrophizing.
Another typical reaction is cynicism. Other errors in thinking that occur in this phase of burnout are a lack of objectivity, thinking in absolutes, and being overly critical. This can be followed by some form of withdrawal.
Again, withdrawal can take many forms, ranging from, “I cannot go to this party because I have to work on the business” to “I cannot attend this event because there are too many demands on my time.”
If the ego does not allow you to escape, then it resorts to an artificial escape through alcohol, drugs, sex, or overwork, and you remain stuck. You start denying all the things that really used to bring you joy and solace.
Towards Greater Energy Efficiency
Stressors from personal and professional life combine to stretch us to our limits, often leading to emotional and physical fatigue.
Major life events like promotions, parenthood, divorce, or death act as inflection points that test our limits. These events can create emotional and physical strain, highlighting the interplay between supply (capacity) and demand (expectations). As a society, we are experiencing higher burnout rates and lower job satisfaction.
These challenges are tied to what has been previously described as the “pressure paradox” — the simultaneous societal expectation to deliver high-impact results with minimal resources. Addressing these issues is crucial for organizational sustainability and employee well-being. The challenge arises when our internal thermostat is not able to regulate properly.
The overload often happens at work. What happens next is neglecting our own needs. Neglect can come in various forms. It could be of our family; it could be of our body. Once individuals see patterns of neglect, there is a sense of panic or jitter that sets in. We go from “excel mode” to “survival mode.” We start tapping into the reserve tank of oxygen. The urge to prove ourselves remains strong even when we are running out of fuel. We can see a change in personality, in how we view the world and ourselves, but we continue to run our wheels like hamsters. Whether we are the CEO trying to keep the business and our image afloat or in the walls of a prison cell, the feeling is the same. The ego for the CEO and the inmate is at threat.
Run far enough along the stress-strain curve, and burnout ensues. Like materials, human mental health can experience points of total failure or denaturation (see a post here on the process from material science to help you visualize where you might be).
How we react to pressure is also impacted by our attachment patterns and the context in which we live through the pressure events (see here for a post with resources on how to self-assess). Understanding this stress curve can help prevent burnout and allow us to conserve energy efficiently ( just like cars that are more efficient at lower RPM!).
The antidote is not self-care platitudes or cutting back hours — it is radical clarity. Leaders must ask themselves: What is actually mine to carry? What expectations have I mistaken for obligations? What would really happen if I cut back? What am I really afraid of?
To thrive under situations of high demand, there are certain skills that can be effective to ensure that burnout does not kick in.
Recalibrating
An example that can help us understand the components of burnout is the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. A thermometer rises and falls with temperature fluctuations, while a thermostat detects changes and adjusts the temperature accordingly. Fine-tuning our” internal thermostat “to better understand situations, emotions, strengths, and limitations can help us avoid burnout.
The difference between burnout and resilience lies in how we manage our internal thermostat. Rather than simply reacting to stress like a thermometer—rising and falling based on external conditions—leaders and employees alike must learn to self-regulate like a thermostat, actively managing energy, expectations, and capacity.
Three key strategies can help:
- Reset the alarm: Burnout does not happen overnight. It starts with small warning signs—exhaustion, frustration, or avoidance. Recognizing and addressing these signals early can prevent a full-blown crisis.
- Calibrate a new set point: Burnout thrives on unrealistic expectations, whether self-imposed or external. Breaking down large objectives into smaller, manageable steps helps create a sense of progress and control.
- Celebrate small wins: Recognizing accomplishments, no matter how minor, reinforces motivation and rewires the brain’s reward system.
And how should managers shift workplace culture to prevent burnout? Can managers be trained to spot burnout risk more effectively? How can they move from rewarding overwork to valuing sustainable performance?Finally, how can leaders reduce the pressure to perform perfectionism rather than just expect employees to manage it on their own? And for ourselves, how can we better separate self-worth from overachievement? What is one workplace expectation we can challenge this week?
References
● World Health Organization. (2019). Burnout: Definition and Scope. Available here.
● Arnsten, A. (2009). Stress Signaling Pathways that Impair Prefrontal Cortex Structure and Function. PubMed.
● AFR. (2024). Reducing Investment Banker Burnout is Proving Unrealistic. Financial Review.
● Forbes. (2023). How Leaders Can Address Burnout in Their Organizations. Read here.
● Harvard Business Review. (2022). How to Help Your Team Fight Burnout. Read here.
● YouTube. Discussion on Burnout Symptoms and Remedies. Watch here.
● In the Trenches: Interview with Carin-Isabel Knoop https://otter.ai/u/qUs5FGwkDZm4RGHYGVUHE4yJqNQ.
