Burnout whispers before it screams

I have this idea that I call the feather brick dump truck phenomenon, and basically what that means is when we are showing early signs of burnout, our body will give us feedback usually in subtle ways in the beginning. Ideally, you want to notice when it's the feather and then make adjustments or shift then and not have to wait until you experience the full-blown pain of the dump truck.

If you are not able to naturally downshift or down regulate your nervous system at the end of the day without something like wine or CBD or some kind of external substance, that's a sign that you kind of reached a certain threshold of emotional debt.

One of the biggest signals for me is adaptability goes down really fast. When you're looking for ways to minimize the challenge or the opportunity, I think that's a pretty good signal that they may be more burnt out than just exhaustion.

If your sleep always sucks, if your relationships are constantly strained or frequently strained, if your physical health is failing, there's so many ways that that can be measured. So there's really no excuse for that to say, 'Oh, I just didn't know.' When those are suffering or when they're really out of whack, it's undeniable that there is something that is detrimental to your wellbeing that's going on right now, and your body is telling you, 'Stop. Something needs to change.'

I'm working really hard. I'm in meetings all day, emails all night. Is this it? I'm very busy, but I'm not really productive. I'm not putting in a lot of creative input.

Rather than taking breaks, I just take a break by working on something that feels fresh. That can be super helpful... The more homogenous your life and career and job is, the faster you're going to burn out, so just making sure that you have enough variety and all the things that you do.

Bob Moesta is co-creator of the Jobs to Be Done framework and serial entrepreneur discussing post-startup recovery strategies.

When you're in a startup, it changes who you are and the moment that you get out of that environment, you need to take the time to reset your mind and your body. I call it a jobcation, which is a job I can go do with one hand tie by hide my back so I can rest and recover to go do something else.