An alarming 82% of workers feeling at risk for burnout this year, according to a Mercer study. And it’s clear that this phenomenon is more than an issue of exhaustion. Burnout usually involves the crippling burden of the “shoulds” and “supposed to’s” that dictate how we live and work.

Burnout, as I define it, is the feeling of getting the same result repeatedly with no agency to fix it. It’s the realization that following the path of “shoulds” and “supposed to’s” no longer works, but an alternative path doesn’t exist. Burnout often makes itself known when you land a major life accomplishment. Rather than feeling anticipated levels of satisfaction, you ask yourself: “Is this really it?”

In a previous piece, I wrote about how reframing my relationship with “no” helped me navigate my own journey with burnout. After years of following the “shoulds” and “supposed to’s,” the word “no” helped me reclaim my agency and rewrite the rules of my game. Learning to get comfortable in saying no was the first step in moving toward reclaiming a life that I wanted to live. But how did “no” translate into how I lived my life?

1. Reframing my ‘assignments’ across the different areas of my life

During this time of change, I realized that I needed to be better at specifying how I wanted to show up in the assignments across my life—rather than who I felt like I should be. Across the roles I played, how was I showing up at work, for my friends, for my family, for my community, and for myself?

A key contributor to my burnout was putting myself under tremendous pressure to be everything-to-everyone across all areas of my life. When society tells you that you need to do it all, it usually translates into trying to live up to some invisible standard and be “good” at everything, whether that means being a good mother, leader, friend, wife, or employee. So I started asking myself—how would that change if I intentionally defined what that meant to me? I realized that I needed to rewrite my life assignments to shift my mindset away from the “shoulds” to how I wanted to show up.

Reframing my assignments across the roles in my life was such a clarifying exercise. As an example, I reframed my assignment as a mother from: “To be a good mom” to “Connecting and caring with my kids with wisdom and love.” When I got clear on my assignment, it made prioritizing so much easier. It wasn’t about making the perfect, balanced dinner day in and day out. It was about prioritizing sitting down and eating dinner together, even if it was just over a bowl of oatmeal.

2. Prioritizing myself first

In the first draft of my life assignments, I actually forgot to include myself in the exercise. I was so focused on how I was going to show up for everyone else, I’d forgotten that I actually needed to show up for myself. Sadly, it wasn’t surprising. From a young age, I’d been conditioned that prioritizing oneself was selfish.

Let me tell you now—reframing your relationship with yourself is not selfish. In fact, it’s critical. For women, attempting to cure burnout with “self-care” can be destructive, as they imply that one-off fixes like spa days can actually relieve the burdens we carry on a daily basis. In reframing my assignment with myself, I shifted my language from: “To live up to my potential in everything I do” to “To prioritize activities that spark creativity.”

This decision came from the realization that the act of—whether that be speaking, writing, or building—sparked far more joy than adhering to what I “should be doing” to live up my potential. It helped reframe what “self-care” meant to me. For me, self-care isn’t about temporary relaxation. It’s about actively prioritizing the things that bring me alive.

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