15 Signs You’re Burned Out, Not Lazy

Over 70% of professionals feel burnt out at some point, yet many dismiss it as mere laziness. But the great news about burnout is that it's solvable. The bad news about laziness is that, in this video, we're about to call you out. Here are 15 signs you're burned out, not lazy. Welcome to Alux, the place where future billionaires come to get inspired.

All right, so let's set the stage. First, am I burned out or am I lazy? Well, if you're asking yourself this question, you're burnt out. If you were lazy, you wouldn't be asking in the first place.

Now, here's how we distinguish between the two.

Number one: After a full night's sleep, your internal battery is still under 50%. You're not resting; your body is stressed, tense, and for a while, it doesn't seem to get any better. We'll keep it 100 with you. Here's why: fatigue does not come from work but from worry, frustration, and resentment. Fatigue from work is usually solved by a nice bath and a fresh set of sheets and pillows. Lazy people stay up late doing nothing; they wake up late and then do nothing. With burnout, you can't sleep because you're anxious about what you should be doing the minute you wake up. But with laziness, you said you were going to start working on that thing weeks ago, yet you still haven't started.

Number two: You fail the break test. Take a break and come back; if you're still not getting your work done, you might be lazy. Breaks are important because they provide a new perspective on things. More often for us, taking a break can lead to breakthroughs. It allows your mind to distance itself from the day-to-day grind and look at the big picture. When you come back from a break, productivity skyrockets for the short to medium term. Lazy people, on the other hand, are always on break when they're not; they aren't experiencing the productivity boost you do.

Number three: You start dreading doing the things you used to enjoy. Although your life is measurably better than it was five years ago, and probably your work volume has been reduced, you're still finding it hard to deliver even on the most menial parts. You used to be able to do it for hours, but now, even after a couple of minutes, you start dreading it. You move from fun and exciting to “I have to do this, or else.” The most probable reason is that you've distanced yourself from the art, from the creative parts that made it exciting in the first place. The great news here is that it's an angle issue. What happened is you evolved; you grew, so your preferences evolved with it. The way you solve this type of burnout is by altering your work to better fit who you are now—the more complex version of the old you.

Number four: You cuss at and resent even completely reasonable requests. Every little thing irritates you in your daily life. You feel unhappy; you almost feel angry. You're always complaining to everyone; you want them to feel sorry for you, but in a way that spews negativity toward the world. Everyone who's not coddling you is now an enemy. You have one safe space—you'd want to crawl up in a ball and turn the world off. Now, this is a good moment to let you know this is not a YouTube channel for kids, okay? What we're about to say is not PG-13. Stop acting like a... and do your freaking part! Lazy people complain about the minimum amount of work required of them. Burned out people feel tired because the hard work they put in isn't showing results yet. But it's a part of the process; it takes time to grow a garden. You plant each seed, and there's plenty of competitive work mixed in with the creativity until you see it bloom. That's why building anything of substance is hard; it takes the patience and mind required to navigate moments like this. You're going through the hard part right now. If you're in a leadership position, people look up to you to give off the general vibe. If you're an employee getting paid every month to do some work, stop pretending like you're doing your employer a favor and hold up your end of the bargain. Life is a mix of all these social contracts. Be a good partner to your spouse, deliver professionally, and don't let your friends down. The moment you do, you break these contracts, and your life is in jeopardy.

Number five: You feel like you're not living up to your potential. Or better put, you hoped you would be much further along by now than you are. You feel like you've done the work already and that the world owes you your success. What if the truth is that you're not actually as great as you think you are? What if there are smarter ways to go after the goal you seek? What if what you're feeling is just your body adjusting your expectations to your reality? The truth is that all our rewards in life are exactly in proportion to our contribution. If you feel like your rewards aren't what they should be, instead of complaining or throwing in the towel, maybe look at your contribution. How big is it? How many people are you contributing to? Are you delivering actual value, or are you just bullshitting your way through life? Both lazy people and burnt out people face this challenge, but the aftermath is different for each one. The burnt out person, well, they seek vetted wisdom. You feel burnt out because you took an overwhelming amount of effort, and there's little to show for it right now, which means you have what it takes to put in the work; you just can't pinpoint where to deploy it for maximum impact. And lucky for you, you can solve this problem today for the rest of your life. We paid the most expensive coaches in the world to break down exactly how to focus your efforts for maximum return on time. We took all of that wisdom, distilled it, and organized it so you can access anything you need in under 15 minutes in a way that actually works. And we put all of it into the Alux app. Go to alux.com/slapp right now and download it because you're in for a treat. Put it on your phone, do the survey, and allow us to craft a personalized path for you that will take out the guesswork of achieving the goal you're after. Get yourself a subscription, and we'll help you put order to the chaos of your life starting right now. And to make it extra fun for you, we'll hide a QR code with a secret 50% discount somewhere in this video that only the true Alers will be able to find. Use that 50% discount to get the app; we'll get your mind back to you along with your health, finances, relationships, and your intellect. Alux.com/a, and you'll avoid everything else on this list.

Number six: You feel overwhelmed by everything. The smallest tasks feel like mountains in your mind. There are so many unknowns; you don't even know where to start. In times like these, you question yourself on all of the choices you've made up to this point. But knowing what you don't know is a sign of burnout, not laziness. Being overwhelmed is burnout, not laziness. Lazy people dismiss progress as impossible; they'll give you all the reasons why it won't work. Those who win are those who do it anyway. You push through the block by doing it poorly. The goal is no longer the big kahuna; instead, the new goal is to move away from your current state, even if it's by tiny increments. This will build momentum, and you'll be able to overcome the block. Lazy people, well, they just quit.

Number seven: You can't focus and problem solve. Experiencing issues with concentration and memory, you might read a page in a book and realize you haven't absorbed a single word. The fact that you're reading means you're not lazy; the fact that you can't absorb means your brain is already full, and something else is eating your bandwidth. This is your body signaling that you have to address a big thing on your internal list. No matter what else it is you try to do, your mind will go to this, and until that one thing is resolved, you won't get your focus back. If you can't get out of it, get into it. The way you solve this is by tackling it head-on. We know you're tired, okay? We know you don't want to do it, but do it tired. Do it anyway.

Number eight: You're just going through the motions but with less and less outcome to show for it. You already spent your excitement and exhausted your original ideas; now, going through the motions feels bleak and boring. This is why your outcome suffers. Your work is decent but not great. Go through the motions for hundreds of times, and your new work starts to seem very familiar to your old work. People begin to notice your magic is fading because you were so busy putting out work that you forgot to refill your magic stash. The way you solve this is by throwing yourself into new environments, taking in new stimuli that allow you to come up with original thoughts and ideas. Lazy people will blame the world, the audience, the algorithm, but the truth is you've been stagnant in a world that has increased its threshold.

Number nine: It feels like you have too many tabs open, and it feels like it never ends. You do a little bit of work here, a little there, but nothing to completion. This is a massive multitasking trap. Fifty percent work on ten things is less than two things completed. Even 90% work done on three things is less than one thing completed. Although it won't make sense to an untrained brain, spend enough time around billionaires, and you realize the last 10% takes 90% of the work. Closing the deal takes more effort and time than anything else. There are two ways to solve this, depending on your level of burnout. One: You go for the big one and you only solve that. Ignore all the noise from the other tabs and get the big thing done. It'll feel like a win, and the rest will fade in comparison to your achievement. Or two: If you can't muster the strength or focus to go after the big one, go after the one that takes the least time to fix. You'll realize you've been postponing five minutes of work for the past six days, and now you feel like you're an idiot because you could have gotten it all out of the way sooner. If it takes five minutes, do it now and close that tab.

Number ten: You don't feel successful, although others think you are. Being successful and feeling successful are two very different things. We all use different scales of measuring success. While a Lambo might signal success to one, a happy marriage would signal it to another. Humans are wired in such a way to look for what's missing, not for what we already have. We place more value on what we don't have than on what we do—on our existing treasure. If you're watching this right now, chances are that out of 8.1 billion people in the world, over 6 billion of them would gladly switch their lives with yours. Based on our analytics, you're in your 30s, you've got access to technology, and probably have health. Take Warren Buffett, for example; the man is worth $131 billion, and we can guarantee you that he would trade it all for being your age again. This is how rich and successful you are. A 93-year-old man would give up over $100 billion to be you if he could, and it's the same for all of these old folks we tend to look up to when measuring success. This is why others look up at you and see you as successful. The thing is, there's actually a way for you to measure just how successful you are. We spent the last decade figuring out how to measure it for ourselves. We factor in the five pillars of a good life: money, health, relationships, intellect, and emotions, into a proprietary algorithm we call the Alux score. When you download our app, you're prompted to fill in a survey where we break down where you are in life. Every three months, we do a reassessment, and your Alux score gets adjusted. Over the course of one year, you should have a clear, objective understanding of how well you're doing. Our thesis on investing over $1 million of our own money so far into the app is that you can't improve what you can't measure. And here's the thing: if you can't find the hidden QR code, you can still go to alo.com for 25% off and get yourself 25% off the yearly plan.

Number eleven: You lack the strength and belief that you'll make it to the summit. When you started, you were ready to take over the world, and you started your climb. You've been climbing for years now. The thing is, when you look up toward the summit, you realize just how much more you still have to climb. Your feet hurt, your brain is telling you to turn back, and everyone around you doubted you'd even climb as far as you did before quitting. What you're trying to do is literally life-changing. People quit at 40% of their ability; let that idea sink in for a bit. Deep down, it's not a physical limitation you're fighting but a mental one. This moment right here is challenging your mental capacity to keep going. These are the moments that make or break the great success stories. Keep going, my friend; no matter how hard it seems, keep on going. Put one foot in front of the other because we guarantee you the view is a whole lot better at the top.

Number twelve: Any small thing throws your life into a whirlwind. Small things set you ablaze like you were waiting for even the smallest spark to blow up. The worst thing is you're taking it out on people who have no fault in you being so burnt out. You're being overly dramatic with everything; it's not the end of the world. It doesn't take much to fix or get it done. You're just at a point in your life where, instead of trying to fix the world around you, you should probably fix yourself. You're so damn stressed because you try to mold the world into fitting into your cookie-cutter shape, and it is fighting back. Allow life to reshape your optics. That's what they mean when they say go with the flow; stop swimming against the current and just ride the waves of life instead.

Number thirteen: You're starting to feel like you're being used. Even if it's true or not, you're beginning to feel like you're being used, taken advantage of, and even taken for granted. Whether you are or not, burnout makes you despise anyone who puts more onto your plate. You've got this tendency of thinking other people are just milking you dry for their own emotional or financial benefit. And because social media is highlighting only the best moments of someone's life on a 24/7 basis, you begin to think that's what your life was supposed to be like nonstop. So when it isn't, you believe others are using you in order to make their lives like that. All of a sudden, you assume malice of your family members, your colleagues, your boss, your spouse, or your friends. Deep down, you have this tingling feeling that it's not true, but admitting that would be admitting that there's something wrong with you.

Number fourteen: Even when you're around friends, it still feels like work. We realized something in the past couple of weeks while we were in New York. Even if you do things outside of work, they can still feed off of that work battery. We've been meeting with friends and Alux team members, and although we always have a phenomenal time, we laugh, we eat, we share stories, it is still draining. When we're meeting potential investors, even if it's just for lunch, you still are putting on a show. You're still putting on a mask and want to present yourself in a certain way. It's draining, only adding to the burnout. The goal is to find people who refill you with energy or create environments where hanging out with friends no longer feels like work.

Number fifteen: The excitement is still there. Here's the truth: if you've been burned out since day one, it's probably laziness. Laziness is a character trait. If the excitement is still there, your body is just telling you that you need to rest. When the excitement goes away, you're closing in on depression. Even the word depressed signals your body needs deep rest.

So now you know. You've learned a lot about yourself. So we're curious: what's your go-to solution to dealing with burnout? How do you get yourself out of it quickly and effectively? And since you're still sticking with us to the end, here's your bonus: life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. Yes, yes, we stole this line from John Lennon, but it is true. There are times when you need to be strategic and use leverage, and then there are times when nothing but brute force will get you there. Do both for as long as it takes to get yourself where you want to be in life—or at least close enough. But here's the tricky bit: in order to win at life, it's more of a dance than a game of chess. It requires emotion, rhythm, and looking into your partner's eyes every now and then. The grind is important, yes, but don't forget to sprinkle in some core memories on that life of yours, or the grind won't feel like it was worth it in the end.

And since only the true Alers watch these videos until the very end, here is your secret QR code for a 50% discount on a yearly subscription plan to our app. If you made it all the way here, write the word "end" in the comments. Let's see how many of you will put an end to a boring life and embrace the adventure that awaits.