Stress, Burnout, and a Ten-Foot Sapling

If you walk into a woods and select a ten-foot sapling, you can bend that sapling over, let it go, and it will return to its normal height and straightness. However, if you bend it again, this time a bit further, then further, then further yet . . . eventually you will hear a snap. Let it go now, and the sapling stays down. It’s broken. This is an effective illustration of what happens from the spectrum of stress to burnout. With stress, first you bend, then you recover. With burnout, first you bend, then you break. And you stay broken.

Burnout is a real phenomenon, not a figment of…