Latest / The Burnout Podcast with Fexingo: Workplace Exhaustion, Recovery, and Sustainable Careers / How Career Burnout Makes You Lose Your Sense of Agency
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this moment in burnout that I don't think we talk about enough — it's when you stop believing your actions actually matter. Luna: That feeling of, 'what's the point, nothing I do will change anything anyway.' Lucas: Exactly. And psychologists have a name for it: learned helplessness. It was first studied by Martin Seligman back in 1967. He gave dogs electric shocks they couldn't escape, and eventually they just gave up — even when later they could have avoided the shocks by jumping a low barrier. They'd already learned that trying was useless. Luna: That's grim. But it maps so directly onto work burnout. You send in a proposal, it gets ignored. You suggest a new process, shot down. After enough times, you stop trying. Lucas: Right. And the data backs this up. There's a 2022 meta-analysis in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology — they looked at dozens of studies and found that burnout and low perceived control are correlated at about r equals 0.52. That's a strong effect. When you feel like you have no control, burnout gets worse. And burnout makes you feel even less in control. It's a loop. Luna: Huh. And you know, this reminds me — a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these episodes going. If you've gotten something out of our conversations, you can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It helps us keep doing the research and bringing you these angles. Lucas: Yeah, it really does. And speaking of research — that meta-analysis also found that one of the strongest buffers against burnout is what they call 'job control.' The ability to decide how to do your work, when to take a break, which tasks to prioritize. But here's the thing: when you're already burned out, you don't feel like you have that control, even if technically you do. Luna: So it's not just about your actual circumstances — it's about your perception. Your brain has literally learned to see the world as uncontrollable. Lucas: Exactly. I think about a case I came across: a marketing manager at a mid-size tech company. She'd been pitching creative campaign ideas for two years. Her boss rejected six in a row — sometimes with vague feedback, sometimes no feedback at all. By month eight, she'd stopped proposing anything outside her job description. She'd sit in brainstorming meetings and say nothing. Not because she had no ideas — she had plenty. But she had learned that her ideas didn't matter. Luna: And that's the tragedy of it — the ideas were still there. She just couldn't access them. I've been there. I remember once I stopped even choosing where to eat lunch because I figured someone else would override it anyway. Lucas: That's such a small but telling detail. And it's actually the key to breaking the loop — you have to start with micro-choices. Tiny acts of agency that prove to your brain that your actions do have consequences. Luna: So something like choosing your own lunch spot, or deciding to take a five-minute walk without asking permission. Lucas: Yes. Psychologists call it 'building self-efficacy through mastery experiences.' You need small wins that are under your complete control. The content of the win doesn't matter — what matters is that you decide, you act, and you see a result. Even if the result is just feeling better for five minutes. Luna: And that can start to rewire the learned helplessness. But I imagine it's hard to do when you're deep in burnout. When you're exhausted, even a small choice feels like too much. Lucas: Totally. That's why I think the first step isn't even action — it's noticing. Noticing that you've stopped making choices. Noticing that you're defaulting to 'whatever you think is best.' Just the awareness that you're in a passive mode can be a small crack of light. Luna: So you're saying: don't try to fix it all at once. Just notice that you're doing it. Lucas: Exactly. And then — maybe — make one micro-decision. Not a big one. Not 'I'm going to overhaul my career.' Something like 'I will use the blue pen today instead of the black one.' Or 'I will take my coffee break at 10:15 instead of 10.' The content is almost irrelevant. The point is to interrupt the pattern of passivity. Luna: I like that. It's almost like a hack for your nervous system. 'Oh, we are making choices again. Good, that feels safe.' Lucas: Yeah. And there's research on this too — a study from 2019 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that people who performed small daily acts of choice — even trivial ones — reported higher levels of perceived control after two weeks. Their sense of agency went up. Luna: So it's like a muscle. You have to exercise it, even if it's with tiny weights at first. Lucas: Exactly. And the beautiful thing is that these small choices can eventually lead to bigger ones. That marketing manager I mentioned — she started by deciding to leave the office at exactly 5:30 PM, no matter what. That was her one thing. After a week of that, she felt a tiny bit more in control. Then she started adding one small suggestion in team meetings. Not a full campaign pitch — just a comment on someone else's idea. 'What if we tried blue instead of green?' That kind of thing. Luna: And I bet people responded. Because when you say something, even a small thing, it invites response. And that response — even a 'hmm, maybe' — is evidence that your input matters. Lucas: Right. She eventually submitted another full campaign proposal. It got rejected again. But this time she felt disappointed, not crushed. Because she had rebuilt enough agency to know that one rejection wasn't proof that she had no influence. It was just one data point. Luna: So the goal isn't to never get rejected. The goal is to not have a rejection destroy your sense of self. Lucas: Yes. It's about uncoupling your sense of agency from external validation. You can have agency even when the outcome isn't what you wanted. You chose to submit the proposal. That's an act of agency. The outcome doesn't define you. Luna: I think that's a really important reframe. A lot of us tie our sense of control to results. 'I only have control if I get the promotion.' But that's not true. You have control over whether you apply. You have control over how you prepare. You have control over how you frame the experience afterward. Lucas: Exactly. And that's where the real work is — expanding your definition of what counts as 'having control.' Because if control only means 'getting the outcome I want,' you're always going to feel powerless. Outcomes depend on too many things you can't control — the economy, your boss's mood, the other candidates. Luna: So it's about shifting from outcome control to process control. I control the process. The outcome is a bonus. Lucas: Yeah. And that shift is actually well-documented in positive psychology. People who focus on process goals — 'I will write for 30 minutes a day' — report higher well-being and lower burnout than those who focus on outcome goals — 'I will get published in this journal.' The process is in your hands. The outcome is not. Luna: I want to go back to something you said earlier about micro-choices. Is there a risk that people think 'oh, I just need to pick a different pen' and that feels too trivial to matter? Lucas: Sure. And if someone is very deep in burnout, they might scoff at that. But the research is pretty clear — the brain doesn't distinguish that sharply between a 'big' choice and a 'small' choice in terms of the neural circuitry of agency. The same regions light up. So starting small is actually the most efficient way to rebuild the muscle. Luna: That's reassuring. Because I think a lot of us want a big dramatic fix — quit the job, move to a cabin in the woods. But that's not always realistic. Lucas: And honestly, big dramatic changes can backfire. If you quit your job without having rebuilt your sense of agency, you might just bring the helplessness to the next job. The problem isn't external — it's the internal wiring. Luna: So the real work is on the inside. Rebuilding the belief that you can affect your environment. Lucas: Right. And that's hard. But it's also deeply empowering. Because once you realize that agency is something you can practice and grow, you're not stuck. You can always start tomorrow with one micro-choice. Luna: I like that. It gives me something to try this week. Maybe I'll decide to take a different route to work. Lucas: There you go. That's perfect. And if you do, let me know how it feels. Luna: I will. And listeners, if you've been feeling like your actions don't matter, maybe start with something small today. A different pen, a different lunch spot, a different time for your coffee break. See what happens. Lucas: And if you want to dig deeper into the research, we'll put links to that meta-analysis and Seligman's original work in the show notes. Thanks for being here.