4 Skills I Never Knew I Needed Until Burnout Put Me In the Hospital

If you want to avoid burnout, these are the skills you need

Shannon D. Smith
7 min readFeb 6, 2024

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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

I must confess…

I didn’t know much about burnout until after it happened.

That’s the thing about burnout, it creeps up on you.

First, I shrugged off the persistent fatigue as a need to go to bed earlier.

But when I did, I’d still wake up exhausted.

So I shrugged it off as a need for more vitamins or something.

Yet, I never made the time to see the doctor to confirm.

Afterall, I am a working mom raising 4 kiddos on my own.

In my mind, I didn’t have time to go to the doctor.

I’ve since learned that if you ignore your body’s gentle cries for help, it’ll roar to get your attention and when it does, you will wish you had listened to the gentle nudges.

So the fatigue and waking up exhausted escalated to suddenly feeling irritable about everything.

The job that I’ve loved for years suddenly felt pointless.

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Shannon D. Smith
Shannon D. Smith

Written by Shannon D. Smith

The Alignment Architect | I help professionals and organizations cultivate alignment in their careers, teams, and workplaces for sustainable success.

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