Take a breath.
If 2025 has felt relentless, you are not alone.
Across industries, this year has brought a rare convergence of stressors: a new political administration, market volatility, and the accelerating disruption of AI. Even the most resilient professionals have found themselves operating at a sustained sprint rather than a manageable pace.
As the year winds down and the pace (hopefully) begins to ease, many people are taking stock of how they are really doing. For a growing number, that assessment leads to an uncomfortable but important realization: burnout.
Business Insider recently explored this reality in a five-part series, The Burnout Cure, following five individuals who reached burnout and worked to recover. Their stories reinforce a critical truth:
Burnout is not something you can simply power through.
A long weekend, a short vacation, or a promise to “just get through this quarter” rarely addresses the root cause. Real recovery requires meaningful changes to how we work and live.
Here are several key lessons that emerged.
1. It’s Okay to Be Selectively Selfish
When Kristi Coulter reached her breaking point as an Amazon executive, she instituted a simple but radical rule: she would only say yes to work opportunities that either clearly benefited her or were truly important to her boss.
The result was not professional collapse, but the opposite. By declining work that diluted her energy, Coulter became more engaged, more effective, and more present in the responsibilities she chose to keep.
Burnout often thrives on overcommitment. Learning to say no is not selfish—it is strategic.
2. Burnout Isn’t Limited to Having a Job
Burnout does not require a demanding employer. For some, the job search itself can be just as consuming.
Kirsten Bradford spent up to eight hours a day searching for work for over a year. The cycle of applications and rejection began to spill into her personal life, eventually to the point where her son noticed the emotional toll.
Her solution was not to quit trying, but to put firm guardrails around the process—limiting how much time and emotional energy she devoted to job hunting each day.
Burnout is about sustained stress without recovery, regardless of where it comes from.
3. Recovery Is Not a One-Time Event
Successfully overcoming burnout does not grant immunity.
Natalie Holloway left her advertising job and took a burnout recovery trip abroad. During that time, she developed an idea for a side hustle that eventually became her dream career. Yet even in a role she loved, burnout resurfaced.
The lesson is sobering but important: burnout is often cyclical. Awareness helps, but it does not eliminate the need for ongoing boundaries and recalibration.
4. Expertise Doesn’t Protect You
If anyone should recognize burnout early, it would be Jan Gerber, who runs a $130,000-a-week burnout clinic serving executives, founders, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals.
Yet even constant exposure to burnout did not prevent him from experiencing it himself.
Knowledge alone is not a safeguard. Burnout is not a failure of insight; it is a consequence of prolonged imbalance.
5. There Is No Universal Cure
Perhaps the most important takeaway is that there is no single solution.
When Kirsten Hurley faced burnout, she immersed herself in research, trying every recommended fix she could find. Instead of relief, she felt increasing frustration when those solutions failed to work for her.
What ultimately helped was not a productivity hack or wellness framework, but her partner’s validation of her decision to quit.
Sometimes recovery begins not with action, but with permission.
Burnout is not a sign of weakness, nor is it something that can be solved with grit alone. It is deeply personal, highly contextual, and often requires real lifestyle changes rather than temporary relief.
As this year comes to a close, the most productive thing you may do is pause, assess honestly, and acknowledge what you need—without comparison, guilt, or shame.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution. And that is not a failure. It is simply reality.