10. Burnout: When Is Enough, Enough?
You can also listen wherever you normally get your podcasts.
Burnout: Fourth episode of the burnout miniseries — Unrelenting Standards: When Nothing Is Ever Good Enough
High standards are not the problem
Ambition is a strength. So is conscientiousness. Wanting to do a thing properly isn't a character flaw, and nobody listening to this needs talking out of caring about their work.
The problem is narrower than that, and it turns on one word: chosen.
A high standard you've chosen is yours. You can set it, meet it, and put it down. An unrelenting standard isn't chosen. It's owed. And it doesn't come with a finish line, because the moment you clear it, it moves.
What the lens sounds like
I can do better than that. I should be further ahead by now. If I'm going to do it, I'll do it properly. I haven't got time to waste. I'll relax when it's finished.
That last one is the giveaway, because it never is finished. There's no moment of putting something down and feeling satisfied with it. There's only the faint, persistent sense that you could have done a bit more.
Why it leads to burnout
Burnout tends to happen where demands outrun resources for long enough. This lens attacks the problem from both ends at once.
It raises the demands, because nothing is allowed to be adequate. And it removes the resources, because rest, pleasure and limits are the first things to go. Evenings get absorbed into catching up. Sleep gets shortened, or spent anxious about tomorrow. Downtime stops being downtime and becomes a quieter, guiltier version of work.
Then there's the structural problem underneath it: there's no reliable route from achievement to recovery. Finishing something doesn't release you. Finishing something simply activates the next demand. The reward for clearing the list is a new list.
What coping looks like here
Submitting means believing the lens and acting on it. Working beyond your capacity. Treating the critical voice as correct. Procrastination belongs here too, which surprises people, because it looks like the opposite of perfectionism. It isn't. If it can't be done to the standard, better not to start — so the thing sits there and the dread builds.
Opting out means stepping away from the arena altogether, because the standard feels impossible. It buys quiet in the short term. But hiding isn't rest, nothing gets resolved, and because nobody can see what's happening, the people who might have helped don't know to.
Storming in means fighting the vulnerability sitting underneath the lens. Tightening control. Taking over because everyone else is getting it wrong. Becoming impatient and critical, and putting the standards onto other people. Or doubling down after a mistake so it can never happen again. This one's easy to miss, because from the outside it looks like competence. You can be burning out while appearing to be thoroughly on top of things.
Bringing in the Lifeguard
The Lifeguard isn't asking you to lower every standard and stop caring. That would be its own coping mode, not a healthy response.
What it does is question the assumption that everything requires your maximum effort. Does this need to be perfect? Who set that standard? What would good enough genuinely look like here? What am I afraid would happen if I stopped now? Am I respecting a limit, or treating it as a weakness? Have I let myself register what I've already done?
Then RESET. Recognise the loop and the pull towards more, better, faster. Exhale before automatically starting the next thing. Slow it down and resist the urge to redo, add, or squeeze one more task in. Explore what the actual need is and what standard would be enough. And take one step, which can be very small: finish at good enough, send the email, leave the washing, delegate the task, sit down.
One question to take away: if nobody were assessing you, what would actually be good enough?
Prefer to read?
