Negotiating With Passion

Burnout culture has already created widespread ripple effects within our modern landscape. The recent global healthcare crisis had only given greater exposure to how people were stretched beyond their limits while becoming altogether emotionally worn down. Disruption became a constant while interruption was never-ending since the early days of the novel coronavirus outbreak. There has been a generation of workers that grew up under the adage, “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Many educators and field instructors alike compel their students to consistently pursue their passions to overcome the current ubiquitous burnout culture. Many studies have declared that maintaining passion in the workplace can be associated with positive outcomes as a radical reduction in stress, personal boost in focus and productivity, and also a positive assent in career trajectory. Yet, more recent research has indicated that maintaining high levels of passion in the workplace can cost emotional exhaustion as well contribute to the burgeoning burnout culture.

Following a study to better understand the ramifications of the various effects of passion being realized in the workplace, more than 700 full-time U.S.-based workers were asked to maintain daily reflections of how burned out they would have felt at the start and at the conclusion of each workday’s flow. Employees cited those increased levels of passion at work led to less subjective experiences of burnout; yet, on the days of particular passion – these employees felt even more burned out the following day. Higher levels of passion had led to more of an energy boost; additionally, this energy boost led to more investment of time and energy into various projects and assignments but a self-negligence to rest and recover well. The extra energy boost also led to further rumination about job responsibilities and less time and personal mental resources to recover for the days ahead – ultimately leading them to feel even more depleted and explicitly lower in energy levels for future work experiences.

Many attest to this burnout cycle when at its peak: passion bubbles up and rises to the top and sap full of vigor, we exert ourselves even more without giving notice to our growing fatigue, and this extra energy boost disallows us to completely detach and withdraw from work while engage in rest. Passion causes individuals in the marketplace to not take a break, and this cycle creates a true inner exhaustion that maintains witness to the burnout culture.

We must maintain passion in a healthy state and prevent it from leading to further burnout and exhaustion; many highlight that passion can be a performance indicator. Passion can readily become a performance indicator in the sense that it creates a tolerance for failure, willingness to experiment hard, cultivate psychological safety, and support more innovative performance across workplace cultures. We can continue to be mindful of how passion, even as a performance indicator, can have parameters that prevent individuals from spiraling into more inner exhaustion and burnout.

Take time to rest, recover, and bounce back

The proven practices of playing, relaxing, writing, reading, and moving during a designated Sabbath will allow you to experience continuous rest, creatively problem solve at a much deeper level, and develop a more internal rhythm of wholeness and personal satisfaction. You can read more here. Authors Joel and Michelle Levey state, “Daily meditation and worship, observance of the Sabbath, times of pilgrimage, vision quest or contemplative retreat have all been integral ways of life for people and cultures to stay tapped into the wellspring of inspiration that continually revitalize their lives. For the historic Judaic people, the Sabbath is a time when … for 24 hours we simplify our lives in order to abide in communion, sanctified and blessed with this mysterious presence, remembering, affirming, and celebrating the deep, subtle, and universal dimensions and mysteries of our being that we so easily forget during our busy weekday lives. As the Sabbath ends, we dedicate ourselves to keeping this spirit alive as we launch back into the complexity of our lives and work in the world.” An intense micro-burst of passion in the workplace today may produce an inner exhaustion tomorrow. Rest and recovery that are prioritized will promote a more sustainable daily living and working experience.

Pursue a more sustainable level of passion

At the same time, it’s important to acknowledge that there’s only so much you can do as an individual employee. Especially for people who work multiple jobs, work in industries that are particularly exploitative, have additional caregiving responsibilities, or face other systemic barriers that make it harder to rest and detach from work, sustaining passion without succumbing to burnout can be challenging or even impossible.

“Passion” draws its roots from the Latin pati, which means suffering. In German, this word for passion is Leidenschaft, which roughly depicts “the ability to endure hardship.” Passion is often seen as the true feature to a very fulfilling career path, and yet the very origins of the word indicate that it can contain a secretive and darker side. Passion tends to deceive us by making work not feel like work; yet, this can deplete us of both our energy and passion itself.

The opposite of job burnout is job engagement. Forecast what it would take for you to be engaged. Where would you like to be? What comes to mind when you think about a great place to work? How can you feel like you can have some autonomy within your work, rather than having decisions made for you?

The ability to endure suffering and hardship is mission critical for our success. It is also equally important to understand the toll that long suffering takes and pursue steps to protect ourselves and our teams — before passion burns us out