How do you define what is and isn't burnout? Most people have a general idea of what it is, but I think it's kind of a fuzzy concept in most people's heads. I think it makes it easier to dismiss if you don't have a concrete understanding of exactly what it looks like.
The stupid thing about work environments that push people to burnout is that it just gives the illusion of increasing productivity. It's more just increasing short-term productivity at a big cost to long-term productivity. You either get massive turnover or people who are too demoralized to do more than the bare minimum or avoid mistakes. I think it also makes people focus on the easiest way to take care of the short term instead of performing tasks that may take more time and energy up front but pave the way to make future work easier and more efficient. I think it may also make people dramatic which undercuts benefits you might get from coworkers collaborating or passing on knowledge.
It's really simple: is your mental and physical well being getting worse over time? If yes, you are burning out, because what burnout means, is that you are functioning beyond your adaptive capacity.
You either need to reduce your strain or increase your adaptive capacity.
Not trying to be obtuse, but that still seems kind of vague.
Well yeah, because it's different for everyone.
For one person, they may absolutely need to cut back at their job or quit altogether because the job may be truly toxic and the primary source of their overburden.
For another person, their job may be the key burden, but if they were to ease the load at home and seek help with establishing better boundaries at work, they might be able to bring their load back within their adaptive capacity.
For yet another person, they may have untreated mental health issues and are always working beyond their capacity, in which case they may need therapy and medication to expand their adaptive capacity in order to be able to handle anything.
And for another person, they may be drinking too much to cope with their burdens, which overall reduces adaptive capacity, so if they just managed to quit alcohol and introduce healthier coping mechanisms, they may find that that alone brings their overall burden to within the range that they can start thriving again.
Basically, the concept is that if you are on a path that is leading you to more and more damage as time goes on, then don't use visualization or meditation or gratitude as tools to keep going on the path that is fucking your life. Instead, change something.
Either lighten your load, or change the makeup of your load, or develop skills to expand what you can handle *in a healthy way*, or all of the above.
What's scary is that people are not taught to even be able to evaluate as to whether or not they are in fact thriving or deteriorating. Deteriorating is so common and so "normal" that it doesn't strike people as a problem, just something to continue coping with.
I can't tell you the hundreds upon hundreds of people I've advised who were in very rough shape, and yet they felt their circumstances and state of being was pretty much normal because so many of their peers are the same.
There's actually a really simple metric though: if you don't have the capacity for basic, minimum standard, self maintenance: healthy diet, regular exercise, daily flossing, good rest and sleep, and quality time with your loved ones, then you are operating beyond your adaptive capacity.
You might not be burning out yet, but without those things you will. They're the canary in the mineshaft telling you that you are over burdened.