What is Misalignment Burnout?

I’m so glad you asked! Burnout generally is a serious medical/mental health condition characterized by a state of extreme mental, physical, and or emotional exhaustion resulting from long-term exposure to stress (read my full take on burnout here.) With misalignment burnout, the long-term stress you’re exposed to is generated by chronic exposure to environments that go against your values, beliefs, interests, or essential self.

Misalignment burnout has many of the same symptoms as burnout. Psychologists Gail North and Herbert Freudenberger coined the 12 Stages of Burnout, which read like an indictment and the warm embrace of recognition at the same time. It can look like an intense need to prove yourself, to work harder to change your situation, a tunnel vision on succeeding despite the odds. Then it can move into neglecting your needs and the messages from your body that tell you something is wrong. You learn to tolerate the intolerable, your values start to get fuzzy, and you may lose connection to why you began work in the first place. You can be jumpy, panicked, or have a walking on eggshells feeling. Eventually, you can become withdrawn from the people and activities you love, or lose sight of your value. You may experience a sense of inner emptiness, anxiety, or depression. And, in the final stage: total physical and mental collapse.

If you’re able to explore why you’re burning out and trace it back to the source, misalignment burnout is about losing yourself. Losing your values, losing your why, and or losing your essence.

So before you read any further: if you are feeling any of this right now please know that you are not alone, what you’re feeling is real and serious, and you deserve to be well. I am beaming you care and strength.

Ending Misalignment Burnout is an Imperative

Many voices talking about misalignment burnout online take a pro-corporation lens. For example, how companies can maximize employee productivity by ensuring values-task optimization (did your eyes glaze over reading that sentence?!). Here on this blog, my lens is intrinsically humanist. I want you to be well for wellness’s own sake— not so you can be more pRoDuCtiVe.

Another common take on misalignment burnout is that it’s indulgent or luxurious to care about things like purpose, values, or your essential nature. I call BS on that. There is a pandemic of burnout. One study of over 10,000 participants across four countries found that 42% of respondents were burned out. That number was even higher among women (46%) and Gen Z (48%). With the last stage of burnout “total mental and physical collapse,” nipping out a leading source of burnout seems neither luxurious nor indulgent: it is imperative.

3 Things You Can Do to Avoid Misalignment Burnout

Here are three tips from a Master Certified Alignment Coach (me) to help you break out of or avoid misalignment burnout:

1. Ask & Act: For many of us, our needs can become an afterthought while building our careers. Indeed, many of the stages of burnout involve actively denying, avoiding, or becoming blind to one’s needs. One way to guard against this pull is to build a practice of asking, “What do I need to be well,” and then trying like hell to take action that aligns with those needs. Holding your needs as valid and in the forefront of your mind. If one of your needs is to be treated with respect, and that need goes unmet in a toxic workplace, one compassionate and aligned action you could take is to switch roles/managers or leave.

2. Take a Values Inventory: Values are very often running in the background operating system of our lives. Values are like a compass that you can’t see. And when you can’t see them clearly, it’s hard to identify when they have been violated. Several stages of burnout have to do with losing connection to values, violating your values, or changing them to suit an unhealthy environment. Losing focus of my values contributed to my own misalignment burnout and eventual corporate dropout, so bringing these into focus is no non-negotiable for me. I have a practice of regularly doing a values inventorying exercise (once a year). What do I really value? Are these values mine, or did they come from somewhere/someone else? How am I living these values? Are any of these values being violated at this time (by me or by others)?

3. Alignment Coaching: Coaching is a wonderful modality that differs from therapy in that it is focused on action, outcomes, the present, and the future. In alignment coaching with my clients, I work with driven, professional women who have hit the wall of misalignment burnout. We do a rundown of values, dreams, visions, wellness, and actions that point toward the transformation necessary to recover from misalignment burnout. Considering an alignment coach can help support you to build a professional and personal life of sustainable wellness. If coaching isn’t accessible to you, check out this blog about what alignment coaching is to steal my four-pillar framework for yourself.

May you be well,

S