How to Cure Burnout by Doing More of the Right Things

Key takeaways

• Burnout isn't always fixed by rest alone. When you've stripped your life back to only work and survival, adding the right things back in is what refills the tank.
• Your instinct in burnout is to say no to everything non-essential. That instinct is often wrong, because the things you're cutting are the things that were giving you energy.
• Pick one activity you genuinely enjoy, schedule it weekly, and treat it as non-negotiable. Consistency matters more than grand gestures.
• Expect it to feel uncomfortable at first, especially if you're driven. The discomfort is a sign you'd wired your worth to output, not a sign you're doing it wrong.
• You don't need three months in Europe. You need one small, repeatable thing that is yours.

Burnout keeps coming up for me lately. Just about everyone I speak to says the same thing: they're exhausted, and they're living in survival mode. It's the background hum of almost every conversation I have, from senior leaders to the person making my coffee.

Rewind a couple of years and I was working with a business strategy coach, trying to hustle a new business off the ground. The trouble was, I was doing it off the back of a marriage breakdown, closing a business, and losing my father, all at once. In one session she brought in a productivity coach, which, in hindsight, is a little bit ironic.

The productivity coach looked at me and asked, "How do you feel within yourself?" I met her eye and said, without a second's hesitation, "I am tired to my core. Every cell in my body feels exhausted, and the only thing that might come close to fixing it is running away to Europe for three months."

Why resting harder didn't cure my burnout

Here's the part nobody tells you. I'd already tried resting. I'd had the early nights, the quiet weekends, the odd day where I did absolutely nothing. And I still woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck.

That's when I started to suspect that rest, on its own, wasn't the whole answer. Covid made the Europe plan impossible anyway, so I had to ask a harder question: what could I actually do to give myself what I needed most?

One thing became clear pretty quickly. Pushing through, which is exactly what I'd been doing, was not it. But neither was collapsing on the couch and waiting to feel human again.

When I looked honestly at my life, I saw what I'd quietly done in the chase for success. I'd stopped doing everything I enjoyed. I had zero hobbies. I felt guilty spending time on anything that wasn't work or an adult responsibility, and I'd been telling myself that was just what commitment looked like.

How to cure burnout by doing the opposite of your instinct

When burnout sets in, your instinct is to say no to anything that isn't survival: work, food, keeping the kids alive. You genuinely don't have the energy for more, so more feels absurd. But this is exactly where I'd suggest you do the opposite of what instinct is screaming at you.

Energy comes from doing the things that make you happy. So if you're doing little or none of that, is it any wonder the mundane tasks of adulting are draining you dry, with nothing left in the tank?

Think of it like a bank account you've only ever withdrawn from. Work takes a withdrawal. The mortgage takes one. The kids, the inbox, the never-ending admin, all withdrawals. If nothing is going back in, the account runs dry, and no amount of "trying harder" makes the numbers add up.

The things you love are the deposits. A pottery class, a long ride, singing badly in a choir, whatever it is for you, those are the moments that put energy back rather than draining it. Cutting them to "save time" is like cancelling your income to save on tax.

So here's what I'd actually do, in order:

• Reacquaint yourself with the things you used to love. Think back to what lit you up before life got busy. Not what you think you should enjoy, what you actually did.
• Pick one, and only one, to start. Trying to reinstate five hobbies at once is just a new way to burn out. Choose the one with the least friction.
• Book it in like a meeting. Put it in the calendar, weekly, and give it the same weight you'd give a client. If it lives in the "when I get time" pile, it will never happen.
• Do it even when you don't feel like it. Especially then. The days you least want to go are usually the days you most need it.
• Protect it from guilt. The guilt will come. Let it sit in the corner and do the thing anyway.

For me, it started small. I picked up things I'd abandoned and stopped treating "fun" as a reward I had to earn by finishing an impossible to-do list. And be warned, if you're a driven person, this will feel bloody uncomfortable at first. I'd sit in a class with my leg jiggling, half-composing emails in my head, convinced I was wasting time I didn't have.

What happened when I did more, not less

The change wasn't a lightning bolt. It was slower and quieter than that, and honestly more believable for it.

What I noticed first was that the dread lifted a little. The work that had felt like wading through wet concrete became just, well, work. Hard sometimes, but not soul-destroying. I had a bit more patience with my kids and a bit more of me left over at the end of the day.

Since Europe was off the table, I ended up packing up and going caravanning for a year instead. That's a bigger story for another day, but the seed of it was the same idea: stop treating my own enjoyment as the thing to sacrifice first.

I want to be clear about what I'm not saying. I'm not saying rest doesn't matter. If you're running on three hours' sleep, no hobby on earth will save you, and sometimes the honest answer is fewer commitments, not more. Real burnout can also need proper support, a doctor, a therapist, a genuine break. Adding a weekly class is not a substitute for any of that.

What I'm saying is that for a lot of us, especially the high-functioning, always-on crowd, the missing ingredient isn't more rest. It's more of the right things. This is the same principle I bring to the work I do with teams through Whyser Work, because a culture that only ever takes from people, and never puts anything back, will hit the same wall an individual does.

Frequently asked questions

Isn't adding activities the last thing a burnt-out person should do?

It depends what you're adding. Adding more obligations, more meetings, more "shoulds" will absolutely make it worse. Adding one thing you genuinely enjoy, that restores rather than drains you, is different. The test is simple: does this give me energy or take it? Protect the ones that give.

How do I find time for a hobby when I'm already stretched thin?

You probably won't find it, you'll have to make it, and that means something else gives. Start with one hour a week, booked in like an appointment. Most of us can reclaim an hour from scrolling or low-value tasks. The point isn't volume, it's consistency, so keep it small enough to actually stick.

What if I've forgotten what I even enjoy anymore?

That's incredibly common, and it's worth sitting with rather than rushing. Think back to what you loved as a kid or before your career took over. Try a few things with zero pressure to be good at them. Enjoyment often comes back slowly once you stop demanding it prove its usefulness first.

So let me ask you the question that coach effectively asked me: when did you last do something purely because you enjoy it, with no other reason attached?