How Cognitive Distortions Lead to Burnout

1. All-or-Nothing Thinking

This type of cognitive distortion is sometimes known as “black and white thinking” because it doesn’t allow for nuance or shades of gray. For instance, you may think that things in your life and relationships are either a total failure or a complete success, instead of acknowledging the good, bad, and neutral.^[1]

A good example of all-or-nothing thinking is making a mistake at work and thinking, I’m a terrible employee, they’ll definitely fire me for this.

2. Mind-Reading

As the name suggests, mind-reading is when we assume the thoughts of another person and treat them as fact. Otherwise known as “jumping to conclusions,” mind-reading is an automatic and quick thought process that doesn’t consider a wide range of evidence.^[1]

For example, imagine someone noticing that their partner seems grumpy. Mind-reading would be assuming they are feeling annoyed at them and failing to consider they might be tired or worried about something else.

3. “Shoulds” and “Musts”

“Should” and “must” statements impose judgments and expectations on ourselves and others. They’re often accompanied by feelings of shame, guilt, and fear of negative judgment. This is a type of cognitive distortion because it doesn’t consider alternative explanations or circumstances. Instead, it imposes rigid rules.^[1]

An example of this distortion is thinking I should always put on a smile when seeing my family.

4. Control Fallacies

This type of cognitive distortion can take two forms. Firstly, someone may believe that they are in total control of their life and surroundings. Secondly, they may think that they have no control at all.^[1]

For example, some people feel terribly guilty and persistently anxious because they believe something like Other people’s feelings are my responsibility. Meanwhile, others may think The world is always beating me down, resulting in a persistent sense of victimhood.^[1]

5. Magnification and Minimization

When people magnify or minimize, they either give too much weight to negative things or very little weight to positive things. Therefore, this type of cognitive distortion skews one’s perspective by exaggerating or discounting something’s meaning, likelihood, or importance.^[1] It’s also known as “catastrophizing” when someone assumes the worst-case scenario.

For instance, someone with high academic expectations for themselves may minimize the fact that they were accepted into grad school. They may think They must have made a mistake by letting me in. Alternatively, they might think I’ll never get into grad school after one rejection.

6. Labeling and Mislabeling

Labeling and mislabeling can occur alongside the other cognitive distortions we’ve mentioned. For instance, someone’s all-or-nothing thinking and magnification about failing a test may be accompanied by labeling themselves “stupid.”

While labeling applies a broad and harsh label based on one characteristic or action, mislabeling applies highly emotional and inaccurate language.^[1] For example, thinking My life is over or I’m a dangerous driver after having one car accident.

7. Overgeneralization

This is when people come to broad conclusions about themselves, others, or the world, based on one event. Over time, overgeneralizations can lead to extremely harsh self-criticism and persistent pessimism about life.^[1]

Overgeneralizations include thinking things like I have the worst luck or Nobody wants to be my friend.^[1]

8. Emotional Reasoning

When we see our emotions as facts, we are said to be engaging in emotional reasoning. Even though emotions can be extremely powerful and true for us, it doesn’t mean they indicate the truth about a situation.^[1] For example, someone may feel they’ve been rejected socially and think These rejections mean I must be unlovable.

Over-interpreting benign or mildly negative social cues is common in people who are highly sensitive to rejection.^[3] However, the perceived rejection doesn’t mean they aren’t loved or liked by other people.

9. Mental Filtering

This type of cognitive distortion involves discounting the positive in favor of focusing on the negative. Similarly to magnification and minimizing, this results in a distorted perception of reality in which things are worse than they really are.^[1]

A common example of mental filtering is when someone receives feedback for an assignment or performance and only focuses on the negative comments.^[1]

10. Disqualifying the Positive

Related to mental filtering, disqualifying the positive is when people ignore or minimize positive evidence.^[1]

For example, ignoring the times when people have laughed at your jokes or invited you to hang out, and thinking I am not well liked.

11. Personalization

When people personalize, it means they assign blame and responsibility to themselves or assume they are at the root of other people’s behavior.

For example, someone may think It’s my fault that my friend is in a bad mood or My child is struggling in school because I’m a bad parent.^[1]

Defining Burnout

Burnout is sometimes seen as a purely occupational hazard, arising from chronic work stress.^[5] However, it can also arise from chronic stress relating to multiple areas of life. For example, if someone is experiencing relationship problems, illness, and multiple intense responsibilities.

Burnout can be defined as a state of exhaustion, fatigue, and frustration, causing harm on cognitive, emotional, and physical levels. Not only is it characterized by emotional exhaustion, but some will experience depersonalization (feeling detached from one’s sense of self). Burnout is not the result of personal failing, but a natural consequence of stress-inducing circumstances.^[5]

Cognitive Distortions and Burnout

While lifestyle factors are definitely relevant when dealing with burnout, cognitive distortions should be examined, too. If you’re having both negative thought patterns and work stress, your emotional load will likely be that much greater.

Here are some ways distorted thinking can lead to burnout:

• Perfectionism and all-or-nothing thinking: If it always feels like the stakes are high, there is tremendous pressure to perform well. This can quickly drain you of energy and even result in a lack of motivation because doing something that’s only “good enough” is out of the question.
• Catastrophizing: At work, some of us jump to the worst conclusion when things go wrong. This can create a sense of alarm or emergency, otherwise known as “fight-or-flight.” Naturally, this state of stress can result in burnout if it persists for too long or too frequently.^[6]
• Overgeneralization: Life and job stress can increase when we overgeneralize about negative outcomes. Thinking along the lines of Things never work out or I always make mistakes can erode self-confidence and create a persistent negative narrative about yourself and the world. This might lead to burnout if it causes feelings of pointlessness and overwhelm.
• Mental filtering and negative focus: Only focusing on the negatives can quickly lead to emotional exhaustion and burnout. This distortion may cause you to feel unskilled or unworthy, and prevent you from feeling a sense of satisfaction from your efforts. If nothing you do is ever good enough, when do you ever get to rest?
• Personalization and self-blame: Consistently taking the blame when things go wrong is a heavy weight to carry. This distortion may cause excess guilt and self-criticism, pushing emotional fatigue into burnout.

How Does CBT Challenge Cognitive Distortions?

CBT uses a range of cognitive restructuring techniques to identify, challenge, and replace false and distorted thoughts. Treating and preventing burnout through cognitive restructuring can take time and persistent effort, but it can help people learn to question their automatic thoughts in daily life.^[7]

Common techniques include:^[7]

• Thought records: Taking note of recurring thoughts and those that crop up around stressful situations is the first step in challenging them. Many CBT practitioners will invite you to keep a journal for this purpose.
• Socratic questioning: Asking whether thoughts are realistic, based on facts or feelings, and if there is evidence to back them up.
• Decatastrophizing: Following imagined scenarios to their completion and asking yourself What’s the worst that could happen? Laying these scenarios out can help you determine what’s likely and reveal deeper fears about managing the unknown.
• Reframing and positive beliefs: These interventions give you the opportunity to consider alternative evidence and identify realistic and positive beliefs you can rely on.

However, burnout doesn’t just involve your thoughts; it can also be contributed to by actions. CBT can also be used to highlight and challenge these behaviors.

CBT and Burnout Behaviors

Burnout and distorted thinking prevention might also involve looking at your behavior. For instance, you might identify certain behaviors that contribute to feeling overwhelmed and the thoughts that drive them.  For example:

• Procrastination might be caused by all-or-nothing thinking around getting things perfect.
• Saying “yes” to every task or opportunity may be driven by a control fallacy that says you are responsible for everything at work or in your relationships.
• Never taking a break might be the result of disqualifying positive results or mental feedback if you feel you haven’t “earned” it.

Identifying these behaviors can help map out the links between situations, automatic thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and actions.^[7] Understanding these links provides you with greater self-understanding, enabling you to challenge the automatic thoughts and behaviors that can result in burnout.