Stop Calling Everything Burnout

Have you noticed how often the word burnout gets used these days?

It seems to have become the explanation for almost everything. If a leader feels tired, loses focus, starts procrastinating, or simply feels like work has become harder than it used to be, the answer is almost always the same:

“You’re burned out.”

Sometimes that’s true, but over the last several years, I’ve started to wonder if we’re using one word to describe a whole range of very different experiences.

That question didn’t come from reading research or studying burnout. It came from sitting across the table from CEOs who kept telling me the same story.

These were successful leaders who cared deeply about their companies. They were ambitious, disciplined, and still wanted to grow. Many exercised regularly, slept well, and had routines most people would envy.

From the outside, there was no obvious reason to think anything was wrong, yet the conversations almost always sounded the same.

“I know what I need to do. I just can’t seem to do it.”

Or,

“I feel like I’ve lost my edge.”

The more I heard those words, the less the burnout explanation made sense to me.

What I Was Seeing Didn’t Match the Diagnosis

Years ago, I probably would have called it burnout too. It was the best explanation I had, but the more I listened, the more I noticed things that didn’t fit.

These leaders hadn’t checked out. They hadn’t lost their ambition, and they certainly weren’t looking for an exit. What had changed was something much harder to describe: Their performance had become inconsistent.

One day they were decisive, creative and completely on their game. A few days later, they’d spend hours avoiding a conversation they knew they needed to have. They could think brilliantly in one meeting and then second-guess a simple decision the rest of the week.

That inconsistency is what made me stop and ask a different question.

Is this really burnout?

Maybe. Or maybe we’re looking at something else entirely.

The Problem With the Wrong Explanation

I’ve always believed the words we use matter.

The moment we settle on an explanation, we also settle on a solution.

If we decide the problem is burnout, we naturally focus on rest, recovery, and stepping away. But what if the explanation is incomplete? Then the solution probably will be too.

That’s what kept bothering me. I wasn’t trying to disprove burnout. I was trying to explain something it didn’t fully account for.

That’s why I stopped using burnout as my default explanation. Not because I think it’s wrong, but because I don’t think it explains everything I’m seeing.

After decades of working with high achievers, I kept noticing the same pattern. These leaders weren’t becoming less capable. They were losing their ability to access the strengths they’d already demonstrated over and over again.

That’s a very different problem and different problems deserve different explanations. That’s where Performance Drag™ came from.

It gave me a way to describe something executives had been experiencing for years but couldn’t explain. Something that felt real to them long before they had words for it.

Once you can name a problem accurately, you can finally start asking better questions.

Instead of, “What’s wrong with me?”

Maybe the better question is, “What’s getting in the way?”

I think that’s where the real conversation begins.