1. You’ve Got No Routine – If you find yourself skipping workouts, not eating well, not resting enough, avoiding your social support or keeping a schedule that’s all over the place, you may be experiencing one of the first signs of burnout! Self-care goes out the window.
  2. You’ve Become Super Cynical And Negative – If you routinely feel like nothing you do matters or can change your situation, you may be developing a burnt-out-attitude. It can begin as joking and then humorous social media posts or shares but ultimately it can take over your whole outlook.
  3. You’ve Got The Attention Span Of A Toddler – If you can’t focus on one thing at a time or complete a task without ending up surfing the web or picking up another project midstream, your body’s natural stress response may have halted your brain’s concentration process. It does this when you’re under street in order to make your senses hypersensitive to what’s happening around you, it’s helpful when you’re in actual danger, but otherwise it causes a mean case of overstimulation.
  4. You’re Numbing The Pain – If you’re drinking more alcohol, eating more junk, or sleeping to much, you could be trying to satisfy your body’s natural needs with cheap, unhealthy, and readily available crap. For example, when you drink a gallon of coffee each day instead of resting and eating well for energy, your body cries out for one thing but you give it something else to make it shut up!
  5. You Never Stop – If the only time you’re not busy is when you’re sleeping (aka passed out from complete exhaustion), you may be depriving yourself of much needed decompression time and preventing your brain from relaxing the stress response. An inability to just sit and relax without expending mental energy stewing about something or having your face stuck in a computer or mobile device all evening is a sign that you don’t know how to shut down!

We all have our days when we experience one or more of the above, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Instead, look for patterns that are not normal for you. Compare yourself today to where you were six months ago and look for patterns.