Burnout Doesn’t Look the Same for Everyone (and Neither Does the Fix)

During the last year of my career in corporate America, I hit a wall.
Full-blown burnout.

I tried everything to fix it — long weekends, extended breaks, new routines — but nothing worked.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t find the motivation to do my job. And that was hard for me. I’ve always taken pride in doing great work. I wanted to do an amazing job. That’s who I am.

But it took everything I had just to get through the day.
I poured what little energy I had into mentoring my team, and whatever was left (which wasn’t much) went to keeping up with my own workload.

By the end of every day, I was completely exhausted.

Still, I didn’t give up. I kept trying to find that thing that would reignite my motivation— but it never came back.
At least, not there.

The Layoff That Changed Everything

About a year into my burnout, my company restructured and my role was eliminated.

When they told me, I didn’t even fight it. I didn’t look for another position internally. I just… let it happen.

Fortunately, I received a severance package that gave me time to breathe and figure out what was next.

During that time, I started a small health coaching business.
Completely different from the world I’d been in for 20+ years — technology.

I’d always been interested in health and wellness and had taken a year-long certification course about five years earlier, but I never thought I’d actually do anything with it. Now, suddenly, I had the chance.

And I loved it.
I loved working for myself, on my own terms. I didn’t mind the long days — 8, 10, even 12 hours — because I was energized. I’d fall into flow every day.

That’s when I started to understand where my burnout had really come from.

It Wasn’t the Work — It Was the Environment

It wasn’t that I’d worked too hard, or that I’d burned out on technology itself.
It was the politics.

It was working for a company that didn’t care about me — where I was just a name on a list. When it came down to it, if I fit the criteria, I was gone.

I had been giving my time, energy, and loyalty to something that didn’t give anything back.

I came to that realization when I eventually started taking on tech work again — but this time, on my own terms.

My health coaching business wasn’t taking off as quickly as I’d hoped. It was something totally new, and I didn’t have the same confidence there that I’d always had in technology.

So I decided to go back to tech part-time — doing what I loved and knew well, but in a way that worked for me.

That’s when it clicked: it wasn’t technology that had burned me out — it was the corporate environment.

All the politics.
All the pointless meetings.
All the pretending to care about people when, really, it was about saving their own a**.

What I’d lost was pride — that feeling that my work mattered.

Burnout Doesn’t Look the Same for Everyone

That’s the thing about burnout — it’s not one-size-fits-all.

For some people, it’s solved with a real vacation — one where you actually unplug.
For others, it’s taking on a new challenge or finding meaning in a different corner of their work.
And for some of us, it takes a much bigger transformation — a total reset of what we want and how we define success.

If you’re feeling burned out, try a few things before making any big decisions:

• Take real time off. Not a long weekend where you check your email “just in case.” Unplug completely. Let your brain reset.
• Find fulfillment outside of work. Maybe it’s a new hobby, volunteering, or joining a networking group. Sometimes, balance comes from adding joy elsewhere.
• Seek new challenges at work. A special project, a stretch role, or mentoring someone new can reignite your spark.
• And if none of that helps… it might be time for something new. A new role, a new company, or even a new career.

There’s no shame in that.

Sometimes burnout isn’t a sign that you’re broken — it’s a signal that you’ve outgrown where you are.

If you need someone to talk it through with, I’d love to help however I can.
amy@thesmarttechcoach.com

Remember: burnout looks different for everyone — and so does recovery.
The important thing is to give yourself permission to find what works for you.