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If you’re a high-performing worker who is conscientious and deeply accountable, you’re the type workplace psychologist and executive coach Marie-Hélène Pelletier is referring to when she speaks about employees who are “fabulous and at risk.”

 
 

“High-performing professionals and leaders often reach their positions by pushing through challenges and delivering, showing drive, reliability and responsibility,” she says. “However, as time passes and their context changes – including increased demands at work and often in their personal lives – that same approach becomes unsustainable and puts them at risk.”

 
 

Ms. Pelletier says that while there is no single profile of a worker who is most vulnerable to burnout, certain patterns show up consistently in both research and practice.

 
 

“High standards, strong accountability, a tendency to tie identity closely to performance and an overall tendency to be highly conscientious,” she says.

 
 

Workers today are dealing with a lot of chronic, long-lasting stress from factors such as layoffs, rapid technological change, return-to-office tensions and growing economic and political uncertainty. However, Ms. Pelletier says it’s important to think of burnout as a relationship between an individual and their work, not just something an individual experiences.

 
 
 

There will always be times when we need to step up, endure stress and do a bit of heavy lifting, but Ms. Pelletier says issues arise when we try to, or are expected to, operate at that level over the long term.

 
 

Over time, trying to sustain that level of performance erodes our capacity for key functions such as concentration, emotional regulation and decision-making. “These impacts won’t show up suddenly. The drift will be gradual and that is the risk; continuing to function while all of these key parts of performance quality decline,” she says.

 
 

Ms. Pelletier uses cognitive behavioural strategies with clients to help them deal with stress. One helpful strategy is to take two minutes to separate possibility from probability. When you’re stressed, your brain tends to assume the worst. This quick reset helps you step back and ask, What could happen and what’s actually likely? That way, you focus on what really needs your attention in the moment.

 
 

Workers can also build strategic resilience to help thwart burnout.

 
 

Ms. Pelletier, who is also the author of The Resilience Plan, says strategic resilience is “less about trying to add a check-list of recovery activities and more about protecting how you think, feel and respond under pressure.”
 
 

For example, a high-performer who suddenly has more responsibilities at home may need to adjust their expectations at work, alert their boss of the situation, protect more of their personal time and focus on sleep so they can still show up and not burn out when things do get stressful.

 
 

If you suspect you’re already close to burnout, Ms. Pelletier says one of the most effective first steps is to identify a demand you can realistically reduce, renegotiate or stop.
 
 

“Even small reductions in workload can create significant relief,” she says.

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

58 per cent
 
 

That’s how many American workers have considered calling in sick or quitting their job because of stress-related exhaustion, according to a survey from mattress company Amerisleep.

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Should you double down on your strengths or spend time fixing your weaknesses?

 
 

This Harvard Business Review article argues the best leaders don’t see it as an either-or decision. Instead, they take a step back and look at what the moment actually calls for, what the role demands, what they’re genuinely good at right now and where others can fill the gaps.

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

“We tend to equate burnout with just being exhausted, but technically burnout has three attributes. We need to be exhausted, but we also need to feel cynical about work and we need to feel a lack of productivity – we need to feel inefficacious,” says Chris Bailey, an Ottawa productivity researcher who studies attention and workplace performance.
 
 

This article explores the challenges and solutions around the cycle of toxic productivity that is embedded into corporate culture.

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

This column in The Wall Street Journal shares how one retired couple is navigating life after work, and how easy it is to fall into spending too much time on social media without a daily routine. It highlights a common challenge in retirement: figuring out how to manage your time in a way that still feels productive and good for your wellbeing.