Burnout is often a skills or information gap

When work becomes emotional, work is hard

Burnout is a mismatch between skill level and challenge. Typically, when we feel burnout it is the opposite of flow. Let’s define flow:

Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi, the father of flow, describes eight characteristics of flow:

• Complete concentration on the task

• Clarity of goals and rewards in mind and immediate feedback

• Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down)

• An intrinsically rewarding experience

• Effortlessness and ease

• A balance between challenge and skills

• Actions and awareness merged, losing self-conscious rumination

• A feeling of control over the task

The wrong blend of challenge and skill results in an emotional experience, and the lack of clarity in an emotional experience can be a culprit of burnout. We attribute burnout to workload — but an excessive workload may be attributed to a lack of clarity, skills, or challenge.