Burnout comes from a gap between what you do and what you believe in

Last week, we explored how rest and silence can help repair burnout. But what actually causes it in the first place?

It often begins when motion replaces meaning. Modern life rewards busyness, especially the kind that looks productive. You stay in motion, meet expectations, keep the engine running. But over time, purpose falls out of sync with effort. The work continues. The meaning thins out.

That slow erosion of inner presence is the heart of ’s essay on burnout. Drawing on philosophers Byung-Chul Han and Heidegger, he writes about how modern workers are conditioned to optimize, perform, and self-regulate until their labor becomes disconnected from any internal source. Meaning isn’t lost through exhaustion, it rather slips away when action no longer reflects intention. He invokes the myth of Prometheus to make the point: in a system hostile to inner-directed work, offering something meaningful isn’t rewarded. It’s punished. And when effort becomes hollow, burnout follows.

Psychologist Mark Travers calls the exhaustion that sets in when your work consistently diverges from your values “misalignment burnout.” He writes that when our behavior is driven by external rewards — money, status, other people’s expectations — rather than internal alignment, we gradually lose our sense of self. That dissonance builds into cynicism, anxiety, and emotional fatigue. A 2015 study published in the Journal of Managerial Psychology found that employees who feel aligned with their work and role are far less likely to burn out. Travers suggests that recovery begins with clarity: unplug, reflect, and realign your behavior with your values. Without that step, even success can feel empty. But when alignment returns, so does a sense of direction. You stop just managing tasks and start acting with purpose again.

Both writers stress that burnout comes not from overwork but from a gap between what you do and what you believe in. Reconnection begins by naming the gap, then choosing work that reflects your values.

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