Read an article the other day on Forbes about Millennial women (my generation!) burning out by the time they hit the age of 30.
…..ambitious [women] go-getters are working as doctors, lawyers, engineers, and advertising executives, blessed with great salaries, health benefits, and paid vacation.
…these women understand the protestors’ frustration and unhappiness over the fact that their lives aren’t supposed to turn out this way. This is why a growing number of young professional women who seem to “have it all” are burning out at work before they reach 30.
One reason that women are burning out early in their careers is that they have simply reached their breaking point after spending their childhoods developing well-rounded resumes.
‘CALCULATED LAZINESS’
I am definitely classed as a “Millennial” (still a few years before I hit 30), but I think it’s safe to say I won’t be burning out any time soon, much less by the time I hit 30.
The major reason for that is probably because I’m very laissez-faire, and while others might scoff and call me ‘lazy’, I like to think of it as ‘calculated laziness’, or “working hard only where it really counts”, or simply “knowing your priorities”.
How so?
Well to start, I did spend my childhood developing a well-rounded resume, so to speak. I started a few businesses for instance, but never bothered spending time on extracurricular activities, except for playing a few musical instruments.
I was never a Girl Scout, I never tried to be the president or head of any association/club, and I didn’t volunteer my weekends away at the soup kitchen, or rescuing animals.
In school, I was never the go-getting academic either, to the chagrin to my professors.
I loathed the idea of spending hours on homework just to get it perfect, and during exam periods, I never freaked out and drank any coffee (the sheer amount of caffeine makes me throw up) to stay up all night for a month straight, studying like a maniac. I studied, just not obsessively.
As a result, my GPA wasn’t in the gutter, but it wasn’t a 4.0 by any means, but I didn’t really see it as such a big deal.
Everything for me was very cool, easy-going, and I was a girl who works-hard-only-where-it-really-counts.
I could pull out all the stops when I wanted to, but I knew if I kept on a treadmill of perfection, I’d burn out in no time (hence why I avoided applying to any investment banking jobs).
I had a good intuition that NO ONE would ask for my GPA after I landed my first job, and so far no one has ever brought up what I got as my final mark in Economics 101. 🙂
(It was a very dismal 62/100, if any of you were wondering)
What I lacked in academic and lifestyle perfection, I’d like to think I made up for in diverse, curious interests, an entrepreneurial spirit (read: businesses I’ve owned) and sheer tenacity, which I think seemed to be more interesting to employers than a cookie cutter perfect 4.0 GPA graduate with the bleach-white smile.
I was probably just lucky, but ‘calculated laziness’ may be part of the reason why I haven’t burned out yet, nor am I reaching any kind of burnout stage (far from it!).
OVERACHIEVING, PERFECTION-DRIVEN BURNOUTS
In contrast, I think the women they are mentioning above, were probably the presidents of their sororities who were also captains of their field hockey teams, in addition to maintaining a 4.0 GPA.
Oh, and they probably mentored Girl Scouts, led summer camps every year, all while trying to help fundraise to find a cure for cancer (bless their hearts!).
Did I mention that they are probably also drop dead gorgeous?
These women scare me in a good way……in a very “wow.. when do you find time to sleep and eat!?” way.
They’re admirable, fierce and formidable, but perhaps as the article mentions above, their Amazonian lifestyle is not sustainable.
You simply cannot have it all as well as a life.
Like with money management, you have to make sacrifices/decisions (whatever you want to call it!), and decide what is important for you.
This, I think is what is missing from these inspiring and exhausting women of my generation. They need to realize that there’s more to life than becoming the youngest advertising executive in the history of the company, and to find a balance in their lives.
Interestingly enough, most of my business school friends (who are these Amazonians I mention above) have reached the same sort of burnout conclusion as above — they’ve all quit their jobs and started trying to find themselves, or to restart their careers in directions that don’t involve working for someone else.
They hate the jobs they once coveted in business school, and are going back to get their MBAs at Insead, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford in hordes! I think in the past 3 years alone, 25% of my class has gone to get an MBA and/or quit and started their own company (myself included for the latter).
http://monicarosestylist.blogspot.com/2011/07/paris.html
SO WHAT ABOUT THE GUYS?
Yes, what ABOUT the guys? Don’t they burn out too? (as asked by @financialuproar, fellow Canadian who writes a witty blog of the same name that doesn’t put me to sleep or make me want to tear my hair out)
Aside from the stats thrown in from the article above:
Men are 25% more likely to take breaks throughout the day for personal activities, 7% more likely to take a walk, 5% more likely to go out to lunch, and 35% more likely to take breaks “just to relax.”
This, I can understand.
As a woman, I would probably be less likely to go out for a walk or take a break, for a few reasons:
- Not wanting to come off as lazy and unproductive to other co-workers
- Feeling guilty
- Wanting to get the impossible done by the end of the day (a futile task)
- Feeling the need to prove myself as a woman
- Feeling unproductive
As I later mentioned to Nelson, I think that men don’t feel the same way about their jobs as women do.
Disclaimer: This is all speculation without any studies or research. Just my own ramblings, traveling from my brain through my fingertips onto a blog post.
I feel like men thrive on the stress, pressure, adrenaline and general competitiveness of having to fight, negotiate, be confident and basically push to get their way to the top.
Women, are less likely to be confident in their abilities and accomplishments (and therefore less likely to want to talk about them, in fear of coming off as boastful or arrogant).
Women are also less likely to thrive on any kind of pressure or competitiveness, and will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid conflicts (myself included!).
Women are just concerned about their public image — of what people think of them, who will talk about them, who will be disappointed in them, and so on. They get to the point where they psych themselves out and don’t do anything at all.
Men are just as concerned… but less so. They may have fleeting doubts of what they’re doing, then they just brush it off with: “Well if I fail I fail, but I’ll try my best to make sure I succeed before I give up.”
Men see their careers as something they have to grab by the reins and take for themselves. If they don’t do it, they won’t get it — that’s what they’ve been taught, and they are taught to give off an air of confidence even if they aren’t feeling it.
Women see their careers and promotions as a gifts bestowed upon them as soon as the other people gradually recognize how brilliant they are without having to actually point it out to them and come off as boastful or a show-off.
The difference between being arrogant and confident, is that confidence has to be backed by actual ability and skill.
If you are arrogant, it means you are saying you can do all these things without actually knowing how to do them (or if you actually can!).
If you are confident, it means you are simply stating what you can do because you’ve done it before and/or you are confident in your abilities to do it.
It seems to me that men seem to grasp this difference in being arrogant versus confident a lot more naturally than women do.
SO WHAT DOES CONFIDENCE HAVE TO DO WITH BURNING OUT?
Women who burn out, do too much so that they gain a sense of security from having overachieved in every aspect of their lives.
It’s kind of like a career security blanket — do more than what any human can do, so that you are assured of the position.
- Say yes to every job that comes your way.
- Never say no.
- Grit your teeth and smile graciously if someone stomps on you unfairly.
- Never brag or show off.
They do everything they can to be the best at the youngest age possible, so that they can avoid talking about themselves or marketing how fabulous they are — their accomplishments should say it all.
Men may not burn out as much, because they don’t go crazy and go above what they think is possible for any human, because they are better at marketing themselves with less ammunition (so to speak), and they are not afraid to fight for anything they want.
They take more risks with having LESS on their resumes (not being a Boy Scout leader for instance), whereas women take less risks by having MORE on their resumes to secure positions.
Buy you know what? Sometimes, a little fight for your salary and some creative marketing can make your employer see you in a different light.
Just read about what happened to Fabulously Frugirl:
People remember you for negotiating. The principal who hired me is currently my manager.
2 years later, when we were discussing my performance he reminded me that I negotiated for my salary and that stood out to him.
It took him aback since he thought that as a new grad, I should have been “grateful” for a job offer, but it also made him think that I was going to be able to interact well with clients since I was able to stand up for myself.
So in short, women seem to work harder beyond what is capable for any human for the same results as a man because of a lack of confidence, not so much of a lack of ability or talent. It’s all mental.
BF has always maintained the belief that women tend to work harder than men in workplaces, something he’s seen in France as a manager. He thinks women have a need to prove themselves whereas men feel less of the push of what others will think of them.
This may be one of the reasons why WOMEN burn out by the age of 30, and not men. (Who knows, we need a study made on men too!)
Men, work just as hard but they realize there’s a balance and are more likely to say “screw it, I’m OUT OF HERE”, even without a Plan B or an Exit Strategy. They also have the gift of risk, confidence and marketing on their side which helps show their accomplishments in the best light, and they aren’t afraid to tell you about them to get a leg up over the other guys in the workplace.
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
Interesting article and interesting comments but what about women actually enjoying their jobs, enjoying working and not seeing anything wrong with working 50 hours a week??? When you enjoy yourself and that your partner works as many hours as you do, you don’t mind spending your life in the office doing what you like.
The sad truth is that most people ( myself included ) fail to recognize the signs of stress and the effects on their body until it’s too late.
I left my job of 12 years due to a real burnout, mainly because I could no longer balance working in the City ( London’s financial quarter ) and caring for my 2 daughters. I tried… for 7 years but something had to give.
That brings me back to your recent blog about more time or more money and let’s say that, in my case, time prevailed over money.
Most co-workers are still amazed that I could leave ” at the peak of my career” ( I’m almost 40 ) and with such a good salary but frankly, I’m just relieved.
I think that our priorities change as we grow older. What mattered to me in my late 20’s and my 30’s (build up wealth) has now been replaced by looking after my girls. I still ‘work’ long hours but the pay is quite different: it’s usually a hug or a kiss lol.
I was an overachiever when I was in high school and college, and I regret (or see the futility) in a lot of it.
Stressing myself out by being an honor student who was also President of every club just wasn’t …. productive. And it didn’t teach me the most important skill I need as an adult: how to prioritize.
As a happy GenXer in college, I meet tons of Millenials who drive me nuts. They seem to intentionally set themselves up for stress. I take time out to cook a delicious, nutritious supper every night, and I plan for at least eight hours in bed a night, though a couple over those hours may be spent reading or with my boyfriend. Ladies I go to school with can’t believe that eating and sleeping are important to me while I’m in college. They eat convenience (junk) food and don’t sleep, then they fall apart at the first sign of conflict. Oi! Remember to leave some time for living in your life. I work, I go to school, I have a long-term boyfriend, several close friends and family members, and I go to school full-time, maintaining a 3.4 GPA. It takes fineness, but you definitely have to remember what’s important. Besides, anyone who has ever been to college knows you received that GPA by never stepping out of your comfort zone.
I also think that those over-achievers are on prescription pills. You know, to keep going and not mentally breaking down.
I think as women we often work ourselves harder because we feel we need to do so to compete. We are working to correct for what we perceive (real or imaginary) as gender basis in the workplace.
I have also noticed among my friends that my female friends are more conscientious about their work. They are more worried about how a single bad performance will affect them and their long term career. Just some thoughts…may take up this issue on my blog.
That is true. One small blunder for us, seems like a big blow. I read a short history of Lady Thatcher in England, and it was really tough for her to be a woman in a man’s world, and whatever mistakes she made, were negative x 1000, whereas men could blunder a little more.
Or even Hillary Clinton here in the US
One of my former coworkers posted this on FB, and I found it interesting. He’s 29. My only question was: why are millenial women burning out before 30, but X-ers did not? I know my generation was known as “slackers”, but at least in my circle, that was hardly the case.
Odd. I don’t know why it’s just the millennials. Perhaps it’s because it’s more prevalent/known?
I think that the study was only limited to Millennials so that they’d have one less variable to deal with.
Whenever I write I post, I ask myself if it will cause FB to tear her hair out or fall asleep. Okay, not really. But I appreciate the kind words.
As for ladies burning out, I think that both genders need to maybe take their lives a little less seriously. Yes, I’m all for getting wealthy and whatnot, but sometimes you have to take some time to yourself, finances be damned. I also believe our lifestyles play a role in this as well. If you have the nice apartment/car/whatever, there’s more pressure to work harder to afford all this stuff.
As you know, I sell potato chips for a living. My old boss always used to say “relax, it’s just potato chips.” I like that. Maybe more of us need to remember that advice.
Great post. I’m definitely including it in next week’s link dump.
I always think that too: relax, it is just ________.
It’s such a complex issue. I think that women are still finding their way in a workplace that was designed around men – men’s schedules, men’s attitudes, men’s temperaments. And to that end, I think that women still feel like they need to be “proving themselves” as the hardest workers in the company/organization for fear that they might be accused of not belonging there in the first place. Of course, no one would put that argument into those words, but that’s the underlying sentiment. Like, when a woman gets pregnant and ends up taking time off for appointments, maternity leave, etc. everyone sort of rolls their eyes in an “another one bites the dust” kind of way, even if that woman STILL outperforms her male colleagues. It’s just that she’s scaled back from her once-frenetic ways to being just an above-average (not superstar) employee.
Hence, women overdo it and end up getting burnt out.
That’s on the one hand. On the other hand I think this is just an overall phenomena that has arisen from way more people going to college and there being WAY more competition for white-collar work (the recession didn’t help matters either). I always felt like I had to be THE BEST at EVERYTHING, ALL THE TIME (yes, I talk to myself in all caps) or I would never get into college/get the internship/get a job, etc. I always had a sense that the competition was fierce, so I always had to be one better than everyone else. Probably my own neurosis, but I think it’s a common perception.
Thank you for including my link! 🙂
I can definitely see it in both my guy and girl friends burning out by their mid-late twenties. Several times, I’ve felt close to a burn out, and each time I struggle to find a better balance. Even now.
I think women are definitely brought up in a manner that encourages excelling in everything all the time, and then, we continue to put the pressure on ourselves in our work life. We hate to disappoint but often forget that, we need to take care of ourselves and be realistic about what has to give. I can’t be the best sister, daughter, friend, girl friend and star employee all the time and I am starting to accept this.
Something has to give, for sure!!
You are welcome
Interesting post. Mrs. RB40 is burning out a bit. She used to be more of a go-getter, but now she is satisfied with her job and position. She is a bit older and have a kid now so it’s different than before. Who knows, maybe when the kid is a bit more grown up, she’ll get back to work on her goals again. As far as burnout goes, I got there before she did. 🙂
I am 20, was an overachiever in high school, and stopped the overachieving in college. There were times in college that I really didn’t get enough sleep for a month straight, but I was doing something interesting (playing with robots!) rather than trying to overachieve. Even so, it’s taken it’s toll on me, and I am definitely feeling a bit burnt right now… 10 years too soon!
I dislike bragging about my education, but the university I attend is always listed as one of the top ten universities in the world by the people that spend their time ranking schools. However, the school officials realize that getting everyone to compete ferociously is bad for the students and promotes a cooperative atmosphere. Freshmen don’t get actual grades for the first two trimesters – they only get pass/fail marks. This is supposed to help them get less competitive and learn that overachieving is overkill and unnecessary. However, that doesn’t stop some people (both male and female students – it’s hard to tell whether the men or the women do this more because the male students outnumber the female ones) from trying to overachieve and get perfect grades – those people really burn out and often have to take time off from school and graduate late. I for one, am graduating early. My grades are like yours – not spectacular or terrible – but I’ve gotten myself chances to play with robots!
Your rambling on marketing makes sense. I don’t like the fact that there is such a big difference between men and women sometimes, but if it exists, it exists!
I can absolutely sympathize with that. I like that pass/fail idea, rather than grades itself.. but it can be hard to not want to be competitive.
Hang in there 🙂 Take deep breaths!
I think part of it is due to women striving hard to achieve career success before they have kids. Not all women, but I definitely think it is a factor the Forbes article didn’t touch on.
I’ve always liked to get the highest grades on my exams and in my classes. I like (and still do) to be involved in activities mostly because i like to push myself to try new things. But i don’t think this has anything to do with being a woman. I was always competing with my guy friends to get the highest marks, and activities are very much for both genders.
I don’t feel burned out yet, and 30 is coming quicker than I’d like it to. To me, I get more bored/burned out if I’m not challenged than if I am!
I am 29 and sometimes I feel burned out, but I think it has to do with thePhD program I’m in. I went from BA to MA and then PhD with few breaks in between which has been intense. I used to have that desire to be the youngest professor ever, but once I started my doctorate I became more interested in doing the best work I can. I’ve always worked while in school, but like you I also have a laissez-faire attitude to life in general. I just think we live in a stressful world and a stressful time and as a result people are working themselves harder to attain more.
Sometimes we set limits on ourselves that aren’t attainable without sacrificing too much. 🙂
I am 33 and feel like I just got started at 30!! 🙂 I am just going to prove your point, though, because I was somewhat similar to one of those ladies you describe, above: tons of extracurriculars and 4.5!! GPA and then 7 years of (fun) schooling to get the perfect, dream job. Got the ‘dream’ job which was actually a nightmare but paid well (didn’t negotiate as the number I threw out first was $10K BELOW what they ended up offering me (did research, the number I said was $5K above the average going rate for this entry level position). Was definitely burned out and jaded by 28. Moved and found REAL dream job. Definitely negotiated this time. Definitely way more confident in my abilities and very willing to stand up for myself this go round, because I know my job is worth it the fight. Contemplating PhD for fun…if that is even a thing. 🙂 I feel like it just takes a longer time for some of us to figure out what makes us happy vs. what we think will make us happy?
Looking back, though–I have no idea how I did everything I did…I liked and had fun doing all of my extracurriculars, but none was my passion, really. No way would I choose to spend my time doing all that now. And the school thing was just out of self-motivation. I liked getting good grades, I compete with myself…
I have the same motivations to compete with myself, but I think I am far too lazy to have actually thought: hey, someone is going to care about my GPA once I get a job and have 5 years of experience.
Frankly, no one cares now. Even if I had a dismal (but passing) GPA, my experience speaks for itself.
I can speak only for myself and my specific industry – but burnout is very real for journalists. Passion is one thing – low pay and working all hours another. From my perspective, more and more people are only working in the field for a couple of years then getting out. I’m still in journalism but not in the huge machine (one of the two big players) anymore – am with an indie.
I am not surprised. Journalism doesn’t strike me as a 9-5 job.