The real cost of burnout. Hint: It isn’t financial.
Nearly half of Australians (46%) say they’re experiencing burnout and, it’s costing us A$39 billion a year.
But the real cost isn’t financial.
It’s human.
Here’s the part no one is talking about:
Most people aren’t burned out because they’re tired.
They’re burned out because they’re grieving.
Not grieving a person, necessarily, but grieving a version of themselves that no longer fits.
And neuroscience backs this up.
1. Burnout is identity grief.
When the life you expected and the life you’re actually living no longer match, the brain experiences what’s called “prediction failure”.
It can’t reconcile the gap.
So it shuts down motivation to protect you.
That “numbness”?
That “I can’t do this anymore”?
That’s not laziness.
That’s your nervous system defending you.
2. Grief isn’t sadness, it’s the brain rebuilding its self-map.
The Default Mode Network (the identity hub) destabilises when you lose someone, something, or some part of yourself.
This is why grief feels like disorientation:
You’re not just grieving the loss.
You’re grieving the version of you who existed before it.
3. You can’t power through what your brain is trying to rewire.
The subconscious doesn’t store events.
It stores threat patterns:
“Change = unsafe.”
“Visibility = risk.”
“Failure = danger.”
This is why self-talk isn’t enough.
4. Healing isn’t slow because you’re stuck.
It’s slow because the brain needs time to reorganise identity.
This is the part we keep getting wrong.
High performers think they can “push through” grief or burnout with willpower.
You can’t.
You’re fighting biology.
5. And the closest thing to a shortcut?
Co-regulation.
Your nervous system rewires faster in the presence of another regulated person.
Not when you isolate.
Not when you overfunction.
Not when you pretend you’re fine.
Connection is the accelerator.
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If you’re in a liminal space right now, you’re not broken.
You’re not behind.
You’re not “failing.”
Your brain isn’t collapsing.
It’s becoming.