How to set boundaries
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The Real Causes of Burnout (Hint: It Is Not Just Hours)
Have you ever looked at your week and thought, this actually looks fine, and still felt completely drained? You’re not working wild hours. Your team is decent. Your paycheck is fair. And yet something feels off. If that sounds familiar, you’re not imagining it. Research into the real causes of burnout shows it rarely comes from one single source, and the most overlooked cause has nothing to do with your schedule at all.
What You’ll Learn
- Understand the six research-backed causes of burnout identified by Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter
- Recognize why rest alone often fails to fix burnout
- Identify the hidden trigger that can drain you even when everything looks fine on paper
- Name your own core values so you can spot a conflict before it wears you down
- Take one simple first step toward addressing it this week
The Six Causes of Burnout
For decades, Christina Maslach at UC Berkeley has led the research on burnout, and along with Michael Leiter, she identified six specific mismatches between a person and their work. Any one of these, sustained long enough, is enough to cause burnout on its own.
The six causes of burnout are:
- Work overload — simply having too much to do in the time you have
- Lack of control — not having a say in decisions that affect your work
- Insufficient reward — not feeling recognized for what you contribute
- Breakdown of community — losing trust or connection with the people around you
- Unfairness — being treated inconsistently or watching favoritism play out
- Values conflict — being asked to do work that doesn’t line up with who you are
Most conversations about burnout focus on the first cause, overload. But the sixth cause, values conflict, is often the most overlooked, and it can hit just as hard.
Why You Can’t Rest Your Way Out of a Values Conflict
Values conflict burnout doesn’t look like burnout. Your hours can be reasonable. Your team can be kind. And you can still be running on empty, because something about the work itself doesn’t line up with what you believe.
You can’t outrest values conflict. No amount of sleep, no vacation, and no spa day will fix a mismatch between your values and what you’re being asked to do, day after day.
How to Spot a Values Conflict
A simple way to check is to ask yourself: is there a specific task or meeting that drains me every single time, even when it’s short? That’s often the tell. It’s not the workload. It’s the friction between what you’re doing and what you believe.
Here’s the catch, though. It’s hard to name a values conflict if you’ve never actually named your values in the first place. Without putting your values into words, all you have is a gut feeling. A quick way to start: think of a moment at work that made you genuinely proud, and a moment that made you angry or uncomfortable. The answers usually point straight at your core values.
This is exactly the kind of clarity work we go deeper on inside the It’s About Time Academy, where getting clear on your vision and your values makes every decision about your time so much easier.
Your Next Step
Before you close your laptop today, name one recurring task that drains you and ask what value it bumps up against. You don’t have to solve it this week. You just have to see it clearly.
Episode Links and Resources
- Free time management coaching session: freetimecall.com
Related Episodes
- Ep. 302 – 3 Simple Practices to Avoid Burnout and Stay Intentional in Busy Seasons featuring Larisa Harrington
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