If you don’t take a break, your body might

I thought I needed to work harder and more to be successful, but that isn’t true — and that myth was killing me.

If you don’t take a break, your body might…

That’s what happened to me: in graduate school, I was carrying so much stress and dread that my body rebelled against me.

You can be as hard-working as you’d like, as dedicated as you can be, but that doesn’t change the truth. Burnout is inevitable when you aren’t aligned with your work: and the harder you work, the harder you’ll crash.

Burnout is now an official medical condition: the World Health Organization defines it as “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed” characterized by: feelings of exhaustion, increased mental distance from one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy.

That might sound familiar to you. Many people experience burnout, and the symptoms may become routine: moodiness, dissatisfaction, and lingering unproductivity that can’t be worked through by working harder.

Burnout is a unique challenge for many leaders — unlike other work-problems, this one can’t be beaten with hard…