The Fastest Way to Burn Out, Shut Down, and Doubt Yourself
7 easy steps
Want to guarantee burnout and endless self-doubt?
Just follow these 7 easy steps.
7. Say yes when you mean no
Feel the knot in your stomach when someone asks for more of you.
Ignore it. Smile. Tell them, of course, you’ll help. Pretend your exhaustion is just a phase.
Call it loyalty. Call it being a good friend, a good partner, or a good employee. Tell yourself you’re strong enough to handle it. Watch how grateful everyone is. Let that gratitude be the reason you keep betraying yourself.
Swallow the guilt. Swallow the anger.
Swallow the truth that you’re terrified of being seen as difficult.
Keep saying yes. Keep abandoning yourself.
Eventually, you’ll forget what it feels like to trust your own limits. You’ll start to believe your needs are a burden. You’ll wonder why you feel so empty all the time.
Let it lead to resentment. Start hating people for not noticing how much it costs you to be everything to everyone.
6. Measure your worth by how much you get done
You wake up already feeling behind.
The list never shrinks. There’s always one more thing to fix, one more task to prove you’re not lazy. You don’t remember what a slow morning feels like. You tell yourself you’ll rest later, when you deserve it. When everything is finally under control.
People admire your dedication. They call you unstoppable. You let their approval fill the cracks in your self-worth for another day.
Skip meals. Cancel plans. Stay up late chasing a feeling that never comes—enoughness.
Ignore the signs of your body: the headaches, the tension in your shoulders, the heavy breaths. Continue believing that if you slow down, you’ll disappear. That, without constant motion, you’re nothing.
Call this success.
5. Overthink every word, decision, and emotion
“Are they upset with me?”
“Should I have replied sooner?”
“What if I made the worst decision?”
“Did I make it weird when I said that?”
Replay every detail in your mind. Turn small moments into evidence that you’re failing. Imagine all the ways people are judging you. Move through life looking for proof you don’t belong.
Don’t you dare give your thoughts a rest. Stay worried and entangled in them.
Keep putting off important decisions. Avoid making mistakes. Tell yourself you need to show up perfectly so no one can judge you. Assume the worst about other people’s feelings.
You’ve got this.
4. Take responsibility for everyone’s mood
Scan every room for tension before you even speak.
Adjust your tone, your words, and your expression to keep the peace. If someone seems distant, assume it’s your fault. Apologize for things you didn’t do.
Offer solutions to problems that don’t belong to you. Feel your stomach drop when someone’s upset, convinced you must have caused it.
Drift into a life where your worth depends on how well you anticipate everyone else’s feelings. Start believing that love is measured by how useful you can make yourself.
Eventually, you’ll stop noticing your own needs altogether.
3. Keep everything to yourself because “others have it worse”
Rank your wounds.
Compare your pain against someone else’s until it feels too small to matter. Remind yourself you have food, a job, a roof, so what right do you have to feel sad?
When the heart feels heavy, dismiss it as weakness. Tell yourself you’re just ungrateful. You should be stronger.
Stay quiet about the nights you can’t sleep. About the thoughts you can’t shake. Offer comfort to everyone else while you pretend you don’t need any.
Call it maturity. Call it strength.
Notice how the loneliness grows louder around you. How you feel empty and disconnected, not only from others but also from yourself.
2. Apologize for your needs, emotions, and existence
Say sorry before you speak.
Apologize when you ask a question. Apologize when you share something that matters to you. Wonder if you’re being too much. If people roll their eyes when you open your mouth. Maybe they’re just tolerating you.
Feel embarrassed for needing anything. Feel ashamed for taking up space. Decide it’s easier to pretend you don’t have feelings at all.
Keep rehearsing all the ways you might inconvenience someone, and before 2025 ends, you’ll become invisible.
1. Absorb everyone’s emotions
Don’t just feel for others. Feel like them.
Jump in to fix their problems, rescue them from hard moments. Stay in conversations long after you’ve run out of capacity. Then blame yourself for being “too sensitive.”
And don’t even think about setting boundaries.
Believe they make you rude, selfish, and a bad friend or partner. Let empathy erase you until you’re carrying everyone else’s burdens and responsibilities. Stay awake at night thinking about other people’s lives.
Wonder why you feel exhausted all the time. Never take time to rest or do what you enjoy.
Within weeks, you’ll have no energy left to invest in your own life.
Soon, you won’t remember what it feels like to have emotions that belong only to you. You’ll start to believe your purpose is to absorb, to soften, to sacrifice.
There you’ve it.
7 easy steps to guarantee you burn out, shut down and doubt yourself.
Don’t want that life?
Flip the script. Choose differently, even if it feels unfamiliar at first.
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Understanding that you're absorbing others' emotions is one thing. Actually protecting your energy consistently is another.
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✅ Sleep peacefully without replaying others' problems (release absorbed emotions before they keep you awake all night)
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Remember: You don't need to cut people off to protect your energy. You need the right boundaries and the tools to maintain them without guilt.
Question: Which of these steps made you pause and say, “Ah, already doing that”?
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Guilty of all! Grateful to walk this path alongside others to reverse and rewrite the story!
This is fantastic, concise, and also very cleverly organized. I especially like that you have an "Energy Shield" which is so important these days with out slipper boundaries and chronic guilt.