The Four Pillars of Burnout
What are the four pillars of burnout and how to improve them to prevent burnout or recover from it
Over the years, I have developed my personal philosophy in which I believe that our health, well-being and ability to prevent, overcome and conquer burnout is based on four major pillars.
In this article I’m going to talk about the four pillars of burnout, what they are, what they encompass, how they affect our ability to prevent and overcome burnout and what we can do to improve each one of them.
The one magic pill
In my own experience I’ve fallen victim to the belief that there’s the one new thing that I’ll incorporate in my life that will somehow — sometimes even “magically” — help me recover from my burnout.
The carnivore diet. Ziva Meditation. Adjusting my sleep and lifestyle to my chronotype. The biofeedback practice. The breathwork practices and the Wim Hof methods. Psilocybin mushrooms and other plant medicines. The Self-Love practice. The Gratitude practice.
I could go on and on.
I think I’m not the only one. It’s human nature to look for simplicity and for an easy way out, so we’re searching and even hoping that there’s a “magic pill” that will solve all of our problems.
It’s also not completely our fault because this is how our modern world and marketing work.
Every coach, author, guide and guru bets on their “magical recipe” that will solve our problems and help us achieve our goals — whether that’s to get healthy, lose weight, end procrastination, achieve our dreams or end and recover from burnout. If you want to succeed in such a competitive and crowded field, market and world of fitness, wellness and self-help, you have to play the “magic pill” game.
Maybe it’s true that some people will find that one thing that will change their life for the better: every practice, method and technique has a group of witnesses who benefited greatly from it.
But it is far more likely that we’ll change our life by making small changes and improving different areas of our life than it is to find the one thing that will radically transform our lives. Many small improvements will eventually raise the quality of our life and change our life for the better.
That’s where the holistic approach to burnout comes to play.
Holistic approach to burnout
Like I talked about in my article Holistic Approach to Burnout Recovery, I look at burnout condition holistically.
The word “holistic” by definition means “dealing with or treating the whole of something or someone and not just a part”. So a holistic approach means not focusing just on one aspect or symptom of burnout, but rather focusing on the whole: improving all four pillars to improve and raise the whole well-being and burnout condition.
So instead of focusing just on one symptom or cause of burnout — most often that’s either physical and/or mental — and solely addressing them, we should focus on improving all four pillars to prevent and recover from burnout.
Because things form a whole, we need to pay attention and strengthen all four pillars. That’s what I mean by “holistic approach to burnout”.
So what are those four pillars?
The Four Pillars of Burnout
My personal philosophy, which I have been researching and developing for the last few years, is that our health, well-being and ability to overcome and conquer burnout is based on four pillars.
These four pillars are:
1. The Body and Physical realm
2. The Lifestyle
3. The Mind and Emotional realm
4. The Soul and Spiritual health
Although it might seem that these areas are not connected and that they each operate separately and individually, things form a whole and imbalances between these four pillars can result in burnout.
Let’s break down each and one of them.
1. The Body and Physical Health
Our body is our “avatar” — the game character or protagonist — with whom we move around this world and through our life path.
The body is the base — the bottom layer of a pyramid, the foundations of the house — and if it’s not strong enough, our health will collapse.
If something in our body doesn’t function as it is supposed to, many problems can occur — poor energy, sleep problems, lower ability to handle stress, mental functions impairments, emotional distress, and even problems with mental health — which will furthermore negatively affect our well-being and burnout condition.
That’s why the body and physical health is the first pillar.
Once the body is healthy, operates and functions properly and optimally, it will support all the other pillars.
To get our body healthy, we should focus on:
fueling our bodies with healthy foods and nutrition and supporting it with the right supplements,
supporting and improving our gut health and digestion,
releasing stress and tension from our body,
making our body stronger and more resilient.
2. The Lifestyle
Our lifestyle is one of the most important pillars for our burnout prevention and recovery because it’s usually the main cause and reason for burnout.
If we’re hustling and grinding all the time without taking a proper break, if we don’t get enough quality sleep, if we don’t recover properly and we don’t maintain a positive energy budget, we have no chance of preventing or recovering from burnout.
To optimize our lifestyle, we should focus on:
making changes and tweaking things in our lifestyle to get closer to our optimal life balance or equilibrium,
improving and optimizing our sleep to maximize our energy levels, recovery and healing resources of our body,
improving our breathing and creating regular breathing practice to elevate our well-being and prevent or recover from burnout.
optimizing the environment we work and live in and learn to use technology and social media to our advantage and minimize its negative effects.
3. The Mind and Emotional Health
Our mind plays a much bigger role in our lives than we usually think.
Our mind controls our physical, mental and emotional functioning and thus influences how we perceive the world and how we operate in it.
Once we realise the importance of the role our that our mind plays, we can start learning how to take control of it and become the master of it, instead of being its slave.
It’s not an easy fix, but often a lifetime task — but it’s the one worth pursuing.
To master our mind and emotions, we should focus on:
understand, control and process our feelings and emotions — which include repressed emotions, fears, guilt, anger, resentment and trauma — so we’re in control of our feelings and emotions and we’re not enslaved by them.
break down psychological patterns and beliefs, get rid of the ones that don’t serve us and install new, better ones that will help us get closer to our goal of preventing, ending and recovering from burnout.
harness the power of our mind to break the habit of “being our past selves”, heal our body, mind and spirit to end burnout and create a new reality.
4. The Soul and Spiritual Health
The last aspect is the soul, the spirit or the psyche — whatever you want to call it — and spiritual health.
This is the most overlooked and poorly understood aspect of the four pillars and also often quite a taboo topic, but has a huge importance for our health and other three pillars.
Soul is an integrated part of our health and well-being: Every human being has his own soul which is connected to the body: That’s why many healers around the world believe that man is a spiritual, energetic and physical being, and that imbalances between these levels can have consequences on physical and mental health — sometimes resulting even in burnout.
Because of this it’s important to focus on our spiritual fitness: connecting to our true self, doing things that bring us happiness, a sense of purpose and fulfillment, working towards an important and ambitious goal and pursuing the vision of our life.
In better share our soul will be, in better shape our bodies will be.
To gain “spiritual fitness”, we should focus on:
developing and improving our spiritual energy that comes with cultivating joy, happiness, good and right vibrations and frequency, manifesting our new reality and cutting out bad energy from our lives,
harnessing the power of passion, purpose and mission for our lives,
creating and being part of a community of like minded people who support us, accept us and love us unconditionally,
establish and strengthen the spiritual connection to “higher power”: whether that’s connection to God, Saints, your Soul, your Higher Self, Dhrahma, etc…
How to improve and elevate each of the four pillars
First we have to evaluate each of the four pillars and areas and see where we stand. Based on that we then make the plan to start working and improving these pillars one by one or all four at the same time.
Elevate only one area and you will see an improvement in all other areas. Elevate all areas and you will see how your life will change!
I’ll explore each one of the four pillars of burnout separately in the following weeks, so stay tuned for that.
I’m working on a course about how to prevent and recover from burnout. In the course I’ll teach you everything I learned from my burnout journey, including how to improve and elevate all four pillars of the body in much more detail.
The course is in the making, but you can join the waitlist and get updates on its progress and when it’s about to launch.
Members of the waitlist will get a limited special offer when the course launches, so make sure to secure your spot and grab that special offer!