5 Signs You’re Not Broken. You’re Just Burnt Out from Trying to Be ‘Better’

Don’t ignore these, they only get louder

Photo by RDNE Stock project

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Why can’t I just be okay?”

Why do I have to work so hard just to feel enough?

If you’ve been silently carrying these questions, you’re not alone.

For so many of us, growth doesn’t feel like freedom. It feels like pressure. Another metric. Another way to prove we deserve love, rest, or simply being here.

But what if I told you, you were never the problem

Here are 5 signs you’re not broken. You’re just burnt out from trying to be ‘better’.

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5. Rest makes you feel guilty

You know rest is important.

You say it to others all the time. But when it’s your turn to slow down? You can’t.

Even if you lie down, your shoulders stay tense. Your jaws remain clenched. And the silence? It’s not peaceful. It’s loud with pressure.

• “You’re wasting time.”

• “You haven’t done enough.”

• “You should be doing something more useful.”

Because your nervous system thinks rest is lazy, wrong, and unsafe. So it pushes you to find safety in doing. Performing. Achieving.

But here’s the thing:

Feeling guilty for resting doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. It’s a ghost from the past. Enforcing the rules you were taught in systems that rewarded burnout and called it success.

Let me reassure you:

You don’t have to earn your place in the world by staying busy. You are allowed to pause when your body needs, not once you’ve finished everything.

So rest, even with the guilt.

This isn’t self-indulgence. This is self-care.

4. You confuse performance with worthiness

“Achievements = worth” is tattooed into our minds.

You’re rewarded for results. Praised for how much you get done. And applauded for A+ and promotions. But no one sees the effort. The late nights. The spirals of self-doubt. The quiet, invisible persistence.

We live in a world obsessed with winners and losers.

So it’s no surprise you’ve come to believe: if you’re not constantly achieving, you’re falling behind. That you’re only as good as your grades, relationships and financial status.

But let me break this to you:

You are not your outcomes. You are not your productivity. You are not a project to be constantly optimized.

You’re allowed to have chapters that are messy and imperfect. To try and not win. To care deeply without always having something to show for it.

Of course, it’s okay to want the best results — that’s human. But tying your entire identity to how things turn out? That’s what keeps you stuck in “not enough.”

Be proud of the effort, even when the results don’t shine. That pride builds resilience. It’s what helps you bounce back after a fall.

3. You feel shame when you feel “negative” emotions

Any uncomfortable emotion is labelled negative.

And having them? It makes you negative as well. That’s what we learn, isn’t it?

Sadness is weakness. Anger is dangerous. Fear is overreacting. And if you feel too much, you’re “too much.”

So you are trained to hide it.

And now?

Every time you feel grief, frustration, hurt, or rage, shame creeps in, “Why can’t you just be grateful? Why are you like this again?”

But here’s the truth, my friend:

Sadness, anger, jealousy aren’t flaws in your system. They are the system. They're part of being human.

You don’t choose to feel them. They arise as signals. As stories. As reminders of what matters to you, what’s been crossed, or what still needs care.

And like pressure building under the surface, suppressing these emotions leak out in ways you don’t want: snapping at someone you love, spiralling into anxious overthinking, feeling disconnected from yourself.

So what if, instead of suppressing or fixing, you started listening?

What if anger isn’t something to silence but a sign that a boundary was crossed? What if sadness isn’t something to rush past but grief asking to be witnessed?

It’s not about indulging the emotion or getting stuck there. It’s about letting it move.

Give it a place to go: journal it. Cry it out. Walk with it. Talk it through.

You can have bad days and big feelings and still be a good person.

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2. You don’t know who you are without a problem to fix

Calm feels suspicious to you.

Not that you want chaos. But that’s what your nervous system has come to recognize as familiar.

You scan for tension. Notice the shift in someone’s mood. And you jump to solve it, before it even becomes a problem. So much so that you don’t know who you are when there’s nothing to fix.

You feel scattered and restless if you’re not needed. Unworthy when you're not performing some invisible emotional labour for others, or yourself.

It’s exhausting, isn’t it?

Living with a mind that won’t stop scanning. Carrying a body that only knows purpose through stress. Believing that if you let your guard down for even a second, everything might fall apart or worse, you might.

But until you stop, you won’t know who you are underneath the chaos.

Start with just 10 minutes of stillness.

Walking. Breathing or simply sitting in silence. Let your body learn that nothing bad happens when you stop solving.

It will feel unfamiliar. That’s okay.

Because unfamiliar isn’t unsafe. It’s new. And you’re learning to be safe in the new.

You don’t have to figure out who you are beyond fixing. That identity will emerge the moment you stop abandoning yourself to hold everything together.

1. You’ve internalized the belief that love must be earned

This one cuts deep.

You adjust your words, mute your needs, and sacrifice your time, hoping that you’ll be enough for someone to stay.

If anyone seems distant, you hold your breath. You overthink your tone after sending a text message. You work hard to be pleasant, helpful and easy to love.

And here’s the most heartbreaking part:

You tolerate bad behaviour. You make excuses for disrespect. You stay in spaces that drain you because you don’t want to be abandoned.

But what about abandoning your own self?

Is your silence and suffering worth the belonging and connection?

Deep down, you know you aren’t happy. That no matter how hard you try to win affection, you still feel lonely.

So here’s my request to you.

Notice one moment where you usually bend to be liked or accepted.

Whether it’s laughing at a joke you don’t find funny, overcommitting to a plan you don’t want, or nodding when you want to say no. Then, pause.

Dare to say what you really feel.

You’ll feel anxious at first. You’ll wonder, “What if they misunderstand and leave?”

And maybe someone will. But the people who truly love you? They don’t want a curated version of you. They want your authentic self—your messy, honest, imperfect, whole self.

And those you lose by being real?

Is not a loss. It’s a blessing in disguise.

Because the kind of love that’s worth keeping is the kind that doesn’t ask you to disappear.

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There you go.

Five signs that you’re not a problem to fix. So take a breath. Choose one small shift. And give yourself permission to heal without the pressure to perform.

Now, I’d love to hear from you.

Which one of these signs resonated with you the most?

Tell me in the comments. I’m all ears!

Here’s to softer days, deeper rest, and being enough, just as you are.

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