Burnout or Breakthrough? How to Know the Difference Between Burnout and Personal Growth

Are you exhausted or expanding? When you're stretching into new territory, it can be hard to tell if you're growing or burning out. In this powerful episode, Michelle Vande Hey breaks down the key differences between burnout and personal growth—and why being able to tell them apart is essential for creating sustainable impact.

You'll learn:

• The emotional, physical, and spiritual signals of burnout
• How growth feels different—even when it's hard
• Why your “why” matters more than your workload
• How to reconnect with your intuition and body
• A simple 3-step practice to know what’s really going on

✨ Plus: Join the 7 Days to Reignite Your Inner Light Challenge — only 7 minutes a day to feel like yourself again. Sign up at michellevandehey.com

Thoughtful Three:

1. Pause and feel – Are you depleted or expanding?
2. Check your “why” – Is it from fear or alignment?
3. Notice your recovery – Does rest help or leave you dreading?
   
   

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Transcript

When you are pushing yourself.  And stretching into a new territory or taking on your big mission. Sometimes it can be hard for you to tell the difference between, am I burning out and heading towards collapse and needing to quit, or am I growing and expanding and going beyond my comfort zone in a healthy way?

In today's episode.  I'm going to share the differences between burnout and personal growth and knowing the difference between these things and being able to recognize it can be the difference between you creating more impact in the world or having to quit. So let's explore the differences and how to tune into what's really going on.

And then at the end, in my thoughtful three, I will share how to know the difference between them.

   📍   After a lifetime of prioritizing everyone else's needs over your own, do you feel like you don't know who you are anymore?  You might be moving into a next phase of your life or going through a life transition with kids getting older? Kids moving out, parents moving in. Your career changing. Maybe you're deciding you want to go all in with your career.

Maybe your partner relationships are shifting and changing, and you might be asking yourself, who am I?  You are not alone.  It is time for you to prioritize yourself and power your mission. It's time to love your life on purpose. I'm Michelle Vande. Hay trauma sensitive, holistic life and biz coach. To change makers around the world making more impact without burning out.

Let's explore who you are and discover who you want to become because you are worth it.     If you are new to my podcast or my channel, I put out a new episode every two weeks about creating more impact without burning out. So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.  Let's talk about the difference between burnout and personal growth because I know for me.

When I was really focusing on my personal growth and transformation, there were times where I was wondering when I was going through a health challenge or when these just life challenges started coming up when things weren't working out, like technology and all of these things.  Was this burnout or was this something that was in alignment that was trying to help me grow?

And so let's talk about some of the differences. First of all, burnout typically comes from depletion of doing too much for too long. Going, going, going. And not taking breaks and feeling like you need to keep going and going and going. Whereas personal growth is going to come from this place of expansion, of stepping into the new territory.

I often use the framework of conditioned self versus authentic self, or I like to sometimes call it Wonder Woman versus superwoman in this context, burnout really comes from fear of maybe not doing enough where personal growth comes from expansion of love.  Another difference is burnout is going to drain your energy.

You're going to feel drained. Very often, personal growth uses your energy, but it regenerates over time where if you're taking breaks, you're feeling energized after that break with burnout, taking a break might not be enough. Another difference between burnout and personal growth is burnout.

Feels overwhelming. Resentment might show up. You might start feeling numb or apathetic. You lose some of that empathy and compassion. That is one of your superpowers. You start losing that because of overworking and leaning into burnout. Whereas personal growth may feel uncomfortable and vulnerable, but often it feels purposeful.

Like there's an end in sight. Conditioned self and authentic self, your conditioned self can be very judgmental and resentful of yourself, other people where your authentic self is going to let go of judgment and let go of things more easily another aspect of burnout is you're doing it because you feel like you quote, unquote have to, or you feel pressured to do it. That if I'm not doing it, nobody else can do it, so I have to do it. Or if I don't do it, it's not gonna get done right, or I have to do this because if I don't, then these people aren't gonna get the help that they need, so I have to do this.

 That comes from that place of fear, of worry of that condition self, whereas personal growth and transformation, this is coming from a place of you are doing it because it aligns with your values and your vision and it aligns with your mission. So instead of saying, I have to do this, you get into this place of I get to do this, and it feels that way too.

You're not just psyching yourself up. You're not saying it as like toxic positivity of like, oh, I get to do this, even though you're really not feeling that way. It really comes from that, that internal feeling of I do get to do this. That it's a, it's an honor and privilege. And then one of my favorite things to talk about is noticing our body.

So  with burnout.  It can be chronic exhaustion like I talked about before, where taking a break might not even be a enough. You might still feel exhausted. Brain fog comes up a lot, getting sick more frequently, not sleeping well. Your sleep patterns change. It gets harder to fall asleep. It gets harder to stay asleep.

Those can be body signals that you're burning out.  Whereas with growth and transformation, it, you might feel temporary fatigue. But you also feel moments of inspiration and moments of clarity as well, that fatigue isn't the default, that you feel fatigue and you're also feeling inspiration and clarity, and you're typically also recognizing, okay, I'm tired.

Maybe I do need to take a break.   Lastly, with burnout. You're oftentimes feeling stuck  and maybe just kind of like feeling flat and disengaged, where with personal growth and transformation, you're gonna feel challenged, but like you're.  Becoming something that you're feeling this growth and transformation happening, and it's, it's this good challenge, not this arduous feeling.

Challenge burnout is typically gonna disconnect you from your body and your intuition. So that's the other piece of it is  when I talk about body signals of chronic exhaustion, brain fog, illness, and poor sleep, sometimes you're.  Body to keep this sense of safety turns off your sense of being able to even notice those things.

 Why I am a huge advocate for trauma sensitive yoga and that practice of noticing your body and making choices based on what you're noticing is so important because burnout can disconnect you from your body and your intuition. Which also means it's disconnecting you from your spiritual connection.

It's really disconnecting you from all aspects of your life where growth and transformation is challenging you, and it can actually help you to reconnect more deeply with your body, with your intuition, and with your spiritual connection.  For those of you that are feeling depleted and stuck and like you need some accountability without adding one more thing to your plate you're welcome to join the seven Days to Reignite your Inner Light Challenge.

It's seven minutes a day. For seven days to help you to reconnect with yourself and feel re-energized about your mission, all you need to do is go to michelle vande hay.com or the link is in the show notes and join this challenge. You can do it asynchronously all by yourself, or you can join the group to do it with a little bit of extra accountability and feel like you're not doing it alone.

So join the challenge. Again. Go to michelle vande hay.com, or the link is also in the show notes.  Let's finish up now with the thoughtful three, which is  how to know the difference. So I talked about the differences between burnout, and personal growth and transformation.

So now let's get into these  three ways to know how to know the difference.  One. Is pause and feel.  Ask yourself, am I feeling depleted or am I feeling like I'm expanding?  Depletion feels like running on fumes. Like you just have  no more energy.

Where expansion might be tiring,  but it also feels like there's meaning behind it and that you're building momentum.   Number two is check in with your why. Ask yourself, why am I doing this? If it feels like it's from obligation or fear or pressure, that's probably something from the burnout territory. 

If it feels like it's from passion, growth, or aligned. Vision and mission, even if it's hard, it's most likely personal growth and transformation.  And then lastly, number three is to notice your recovery after you rest, after you take a break, are you feeling restored or are you dreading going back to it?

When it's burnout, a lot of times rest doesn't help much. I've mentioned that before, that if you're resting, it's not helping much with growth and transformation. REST is gonna help you process and integrate.  It's gonna help you process your emotions and things that you're going through, and then it's also gonna help you to integrate and move forward in maybe a different way. 

Let me know in the comments first of all what your big aha moment is from this episode of the difference between personal growth and burnout. And if this is something that you've struggled with or let me know which of the thoughtful three you are going to try out and see what difference it makes.

 Lastly,  while you were listening to this, if you thought of someone else, please send them this episode. Not just for me, but for them, because I'm a true believer that if someone's name popped into your head that they've been asking for this,

 Your intuition is there to guide you and help you, and also guide and help the people that you love and the people around you.  As always. I want you to remember to be gentle with yourself. 

You are not broken, and you deserve to love your life on purpose because you are worth it.