There’s a conversation I keep having with people about burnout—friends, colleagues, even strangers on the internet. It goes something like this:
“I feel stuck. Work is draining me, and I don’t have any energy left at the end of the day.”
I nod, empathize, and then ask, “What do you do outside of work?”
And more often than not, the answer is a blank stare. Or some version of: “Not much, really. I watch Netflix, scroll through my phone, and do chores. Then I go to bed and do it all over again.”
Sound familiar? If so, you’re not alone. The reality is, many of us have fallen into a rhythm of living that feels more like surviving. Work takes up the majority of our waking hours, and what’s left gets siphoned off by errands and passive distractions. The result? A life that feels like an endless rerun of itself.
But here’s the thing: burnout isn’t just about overwork. It’s also about a lack of balance. And the antidote isn’t always more rest or fewer hours at the office—it’s finding something that makes you come alive outside of your 9-to-5.
The Science of Stuck
Researchers who study burnout talk about it in terms of three dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. But what often gets left out of the conversation is how much our personal lives influence our experience of work. A 2019 study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology found that people who engaged in hobbies they were passionate about—anything from painting to gardening to playing pickup basketball—reported lower levels of burnout than those who didn’t. Why? Because those hobbies gave them something to look forward to. They created a sense of meaning and accomplishment that work alone couldn’t always provide.
Breaking Free From “Groundhog Day”
The problem isn’t work, per se. The problem is what happens when work becomes the only thing. Without something in your life that excites you—a hobby, a goal, a creative project—it’s easy to fall into what I call the “Groundhog Day cycle.” You wake up, go to work, come home, do chores, maybe zone out in front of a screen, and go to bed. Rinse and repeat.
But what if you could disrupt that cycle? What if you could inject a little bit of passion or curiosity into your day-to-day?
Finding Your Thing
Here’s the good news: you don’t need to become a master ceramicist or train for an Ironman to break free from the monotony. You just need to find something that feels meaningful to you. It could be as simple as:
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Picking up an old hobby you’ve neglected for years.
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Trying a new activity you’ve always been curious about, like learning a language or playing guitar.
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Setting a personal goal, like running a 5K or reading 50 books in a year.
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Volunteering for a cause you care about.
The key is to pick something that sparks joy or curiosity, not something that feels like another chore. This is about creating a space in your life that’s just for you—a space where you can recharge, grow, and rediscover what makes you tick.
The Ripple Effect
What’s fascinating is how these small changes can create a ripple effect. When you have something outside of work that excites you, it changes your relationship with your job. You might find that you have more energy, more patience, or even a fresh perspective on challenges you’re facing at work. Instead of feeling like work is the center of your universe, it becomes one piece of a much larger, more fulfilling puzzle.
Start Small, But Start
If you’re reading this and thinking, “That’s great, but I’m too busy,” I get it. Life is hectic. But this isn’t about carving out hours of extra time every day. It’s about starting small. Maybe it’s 20 minutes in the evening to sketch in a notebook. Or one morning a week to take a walk in a new neighborhood. The point is to start somewhere—anywhere.
Because the truth is, burnout doesn’t just happen because we’re working too hard. It happens because we forget to live. And sometimes, the best way to beat burnout isn’t to work less. It’s to live more.