I'm going to begin this topic with a somewhat pessimistic and deterministic outcome: you can't heal from chronic burnout without quitting your job.
This is uncharacteristically grim coming from me, and it doesn't make sense when compared with my previous messages about unconditional happiness. So there must be a nuance to this, and you're right! There is a nuance to this.
To understand how to have your job and not burn out at the same time, let's start by understanding how burnout happens in the first place.
The Achievement Model
The Venn diagram of burnt out people and overachievers / perfectionists tend to be close to a single circle. Why? Because burnout requires two components:
1. A net negative energy expenditure
2. A reason to continue participating in the expenditure
Suppose I need to plant some tomatoes in my lawn. Tomatoes don't really care if I lovingly put it down on the soil with the most tender attention and kiss it afterwards or just chuck it down the dirt. They just require soil, water, and sunshine to start growing.
But when I want to do a good job at planting them I do more and more things outside of the bare minimum. I start aligning them. I try to make the dug dirt be as even as possible. I sort the tomato seeds so that they are in ascending order. I name them and print name tags to put next to the seed and so on. None of these things after the initial planting are required to make the tomatoes grow.
Then why do we do this in the first place? Because we want to do a good job, since doing a good job feels good and validating. We get caught up in a false binary of good job vs. bad job, so the ONLY way to not do a good job is to do a shitty job. There is no middle ground of just doing a reasonable amount of work to plant the tomato seeds. It's either I give it my all and get recognized for my good job or I just don't bother at all if it's not even going to matter.
When you approach work this way, every single part of work will be demanding. Even worse, it will get even more demanding over time because people will get used to how good you are at working; so now if you do the work at the same level of quality it will feel like you regressed. So you need to constantly put more effort in, and now since people know you're good at work they'll be prone to give you more work!
Again, since doing a good job feels so validating and makes you feel worthy you just can't stop and let yourself be criticized. So the individual net negative energy expenditure from units of work keep accruing because you have to keep up your positive image to get validation. Unfortunately you run out of energy at some point and you're running on negative; this is what burnout is.
Quitting
The fundamental solution to burnout is re-thinking the priorities of your life in accordance with the convergence model. But old karma dies hard; as long as you're in the same environment you'll constantly be reminded of how you reacted to work requests, approvals, disapprovals, and annual reviews. The urge to continue overperforming will be so strong that it will be very difficult to set up the initial momentum required to align with the convergence model.
So, you need to quit. It's time to turn in the badge and gun along with a two week's notice. Can you do this step for your happiness? Are you going to do it? Chances are, you're scoffing at this and you're not even entertaining the idea. And therein lies the reason why you cannot heal from your chronic burnout: you're holding on to the reason why you're burning out.
In real life, before you turn in your resignation letter you decide to quit first. This decision is usually made when there is a better offer waiting for you after you quit, or when you're so emotionally charged you're effectively ragequitting. When the decision to quit is made by someone else (laid off, fired) it hurts so much because YOU are not the driving force behind the decision to quit.
It makes me sick, just thinking about it.
I'm not really interested in you physically quitting your job. I'm interested in your decision to quit your job, FOR REAL. Can you make that decision, instead of THINKING you can make that decision? Anybody can THINK they can do anything. Are you going to be that person who quits their job, for themselves?
Taking Things Personally
The likely answer is, NO. Why not? Because we generally have a tendency to discern what's real to us vs. not. I can tell you to imagine entering into a competition for the final match, where you'll either get a gold medal or a silver medal. Sure, you'll be able to see how you'd get anxious and nervous but it will never feel exactly like actually entering into the arena on your own two feet.
This inability to put yourself in real stakes without being in the physical situation that warrants it is the reason why most people end up regretting things in the future. You're so used to reacting to "real" things when it materializes in front of you, you never think to do it before because you're (honestly) quite okay with how life is going. Especially when compared to all the overwhelming possibilities you'll have to encounter in facing the consequences of making a decision.
So how do you harness the ability to put yourself in real stakes and get yourself to shift? This is where a personality trait traditionally considered a flaw comes into shining play: taking things personally.
Contrast two people who have different personalities. Person A is relaxed and okay with everything, person B takes everything personally. I make fun of person A saying that their fart smells. Person A jests that they did have 5 deviled eggs. When I do the same to person B, why do they get so mad even though everyone in the room knows that it's not real that they farted and it smells bad?
Person B takes a possibility and is able to take its consequences and ramifications to 110%. They know what can happen if they don't address this rumor right here and right now; their reputation will be at stake and they will be the laughing stock of the group going forward. This example can sound a bit ridiculous, but if you're able to distill this ability to contemplate the realness of a situation from over-protecting your ego… That is the golden essence that will allow you to quit your job from your heart.
As Buddhists, we give up our identity, our belongings, and our anger. Ordained monks give up their family and home. All of this we do willingly because we can see how much suffering can come when we implicitly let these things settle into our unconscious with the help of our karma. We are able to cut down the cycle before it runs deep, because we see clearly what it leads to.
Your physical job contract can coexist with healing from chronic burnout, as long as you stop living the life of a person tied to a job forced to do a good job all the time to be validated by others. As strange as it sounds, the more you take that life personally offensive… The easier it will be to quit from the heart and start healing.