Burnout grows in the gap between our reality and our ideals. When the chasm between our musts and coulds and our lived experience becomes too big, and, as one of my clients put it, “we ‘should’ all over ourselves,” we feel like failures. Plagued by guilt and shame, we become convinced that we must either dramatically change ourselves or else change our circumstances.

A third, more Stoic, option is to adapt our horizon of expectation and to investigate the nature of our shoulds and the ideals upon which they are built. Are these ideals realistic, obtainable, or helpful, or are they designed to make us feel forever faulty and not good enough?

I am currently reading Oliver Burkeman’s excellent new book Meditations for Mortals, and I was particularly struck by one image he shares early on. Burkeman’s Meditations impart his philosophy of “imperfectionism”—the idea that if we embrace our limitations and accept what is rather than constantly chasing what could or should be, we will be able to live a much more satisfying life.

Our time on this planet is limited, as is our energy, and we will never get everything done that we want to do. No productivity hack or time management regime on Earth can save us from this fact. The only thing we can hope for, according to Burkeman, is a sense of inner release by accepting our human limitations.

The late British Zen master Hōun Jiyu-Kennett deliberately decided never to lighten the burden of her students but instead to make it so heavy that they would put it down. Rather than making them feel that their struggles might be overcome for good one day by investing sufficient effort and time, she felt it would be kinder “to help them see how totally irredeemable their situation is, thereby giving them permission to stop........

© Psychology Today