Should You Stay or Should You Go? The 3-Question Burnout Test for Leaders

It's the Season 2 finale, folks! We're talking about burnout and how to really figure out if it's time to leave your job. And we'll jump right in with a three-question burnout test that'll help you see if you're stuck in a toxic work environment. 

This episode is packed with real talk about misalignment, emotional tolls, and actions you can take to regain control of your life. Whether you're a high achiever or just plain tired, this one's for you. 

Let's get honest and make some plans for a better, balanced life. 

Check out the detailed show notes (https://tarakermiet.com/podcast/) and leave your thoughts or questions about today's topic. 

00:00 Introduction and Personal Update
00:34 The Burnout Dilemma
02:08 Understanding Burnout: The Three Question Test
05:06 Question 1: Can I Recover in This Role?
11:23 Question 2: Am I Still Aligned with This Work?
17:44 Question 3: Would I Stay If Nothing Changed?
22:23 Final Thoughts and Next Steps
23:57 Season Finale and Farewell 

Need a little more balance and a lot more badass in your life? Check out my 1:1 coaching sessions designed to help you tackle your biggest challenges, manage stress, and create a personalized plan for success. Your first 30-minute session is free! Visit tarakermiet.com to get started. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Personal Update
• 1:20 The Burnout Dilemma
• 2:54 Understanding Burnout: The Three Question Test
• 5:52 Question 1: Can I Recover in This Role?
• 12:09 Question 2: Am I Still Aligned with This Work?
• 19:14 Question 3: Would I Stay If Nothing Changed?
• 23:53 Final Thoughts and Next Steps
• 25:27 Season Finale and Farewell

Transcript

[00:00:00] Can you believe it? This is the final episode of season two. If you follow me on Instagram, you probably know that I have a torn meniscus in my right knee from putting away a rice cooker. Welcome to your forties, friends. But anyways, I'll be having surgery to repair that in a few weeks, so I'm gonna be taking some time off to focus on recovery.

And hopefully getting back to normal and being able to walk again, which means you'll be getting a little break from me. So congratulations. But before I ghost you for a while, we need to talk because there's this one phrase that I hear over and over again. It pops up in my coaching calls, in my dms, and even in my conversations with friends and they say, I just don't know if I should stay or if it's time to go.

And if you've ever whispered that to yourself at 2:00 AM lying in bed with your heart racing and [00:01:00] your brain doing that greatest hits reel of everything that's wrong with your job, or if you've cried in the shower because that's the only time that no one bothers you. Or if you stared blankly at your laptop on a Monday and thought, I literally cannot do this again, then babe, you are burned out.

And because I know you and I know how your brain works, you've probably told yourself it's just a rough season. I should be grateful. I mean, I make good money. I have benefits. Hell, I have a job in this crazy market. This is just how leadership is. Everyone feels this way. Or maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this.

You gaslight the hell out of yourself into thinking you are the problem, because that's easier than facing the possibility that the entire system you're operating in might be fundamentally unsustainable. And I get it. If you admitted that out loud, then you'd have to do [00:02:00] something about it. And the thought of doing anything on top of everything else that you're carrying, that feels impossible.

So today I wanna help you start peeling back the layers by using the three question burnout test. it's deceptively simple. These questions sound straightforward when you hear them, but don't let that fool you.

They can cut pretty deep. They get under your skin, They make you confront some really uncomfortable truths, like what you've been tolerating, what you've been hoping would magically change, and what version of yourself you've been performing to keep all those plates spinning. And the truth is, they don't always give you a black and white answer.

This isn't a Buzzfeed quiz. You're not going to walk away with a neon sign that says, quit tomorrow, or stick it out. But what they do offer is some clarity. And once you've got clarity, you can finally stop spinning and start making intentional aligned [00:03:00] decisions, whether that means redesigning your role, setting new boundaries, or finally building an exit plan that lets you leave with your dignity, your health, and your sense of self intact.

But before we jump into the questions, I do want to name the real reason. You might still be stuck in indecision because this moment that you're in. It's not just about whether you should quit your job. It's about identity. It's about agency, it's about grief, and it's about power. Yeah. We are going there, friend, because what keeps most people in the burnout spiral isn't just the workload or the toxic boss or the broken culture.

It's the invisible stuff underneath. It is the guilt of walking away from something that you've poured years of your life into. It's the fear of disappointing people or of being seen as flaky or [00:04:00] ungrateful or too emotional. It's the shame of not being able to hack it, even though your body is breaking down from trying to do the impossible, and it's the grief of realizing that the job or the version of yourself who wanted this job might not fit anymore.

We stay because we think quitting means failure. We stay because we think endurance is a virtue. We stay because we're exhausted and can't imagine figuring out what's next. and we stay because we've been taught to confuse burnout with ambition. So when I say we're going there, I mean we are going to name the shit that's been sitting in the background, making you feel like you are the problem.

And then we're going to start clearing it out together because the question isn't really, should I stay or should I go? The question is, what's the version of me that's trying to make this decision, and does she or he or they [00:05:00] even believe that they're allowed to want more? So let's get into it. So the first and perhaps most important question of the burnout test is.

Can I actually recover while staying in this role? And I'm not talking about can I slap a few boundaries in place and muscle through until my next PTO day. I'm talking real recovery, nervous system regulation, cognitive clarity, the kind of rest that actually sticks, that lets you feel like a human again, and not just a walking to-do list with legs.

Here's where I want you to get brutally honest with yourself. And I say that with so much love because I know how tempting it is to sugarcoat this, but you have to ask, is it even possible to get better here, or is the environment I'm in actively working against my healing? Because if you are stuck in a system that's constantly undoing your [00:06:00] progress, where every time you rest, the work piles up even higher, where every time you ask for help, you're told to be more resilient.

Where you're expected to perform wellness on top of your burnout, like it's just another KPI, then you are not in a recovery ready workplace, and you're not being unreasonable for wanting to feel better. You are being human. And I'll tell you, here's what I see all the time in my work with leaders and high achievers, especially those of you that are in hr, DEIB, higher ed.

Nonprofits or any other kind of mission driven spaces, you are deeply committed to the work. You are values driven, you care, and that's exactly what makes you vulnerable to being exploited by systems that love your passion, but have zero intention of protecting your wellbeing. It's what I call the passion tax, the emotional surcharge that you pay when you care more than the [00:07:00] system you work in.

And if your body is breaking down, if you're crying before meetings like I was, or you're waking up in a panic or you're fantasizing about getting sick just so you can rest, it's not on you to get more resilient. It is not a personal development issue. It's a structural problem. Now, this is where the agency piece comes in, and it's a little tricky though because burnout makes you feel powerless.

Like no matter what you do, it's never enough. Like you literally can't win. Your only options you see are to quit or to suck it up, but that's the burnout talking. That's what happens when your nervous system is in a chronic state of fight, flight, or freeze, or my personal favorite fawn, where you're bending over backward to stay safe by being overly accommodating.

So let's slow this down for a second. [00:08:00] Ask yourself, do I have any real control over my workload, my schedule, or my priorities? Have I tried advocating for myself and been met with support or silence? And is there any evidence that things will change here in a meaningful, sustainable way? If you have already done everything you can within your circle of influence, if you've had the hard conversations, you've set the boundaries, you've tried to recalibrate and nothing's changing, then what you're dealing with isn't a lack of effort. It's a lack of capacity within the system. And the longer you stay in a system like that, the more your brain starts to internalize the failure as your own.

This is what psychologists call learned helplessness. It's what happens when you try and try and try to fix a situation that won't budge, and eventually your brain just taps out. It stops trying to [00:09:00] solve the problem because it doesn't believe the solution exists anymore. This is also why even small decisions start to feel impossible.

When you're deep in burnout. Your executive functioning goes offline. You can't make a grocery list, let alone a five year career plan. And that's not because you're incapable, it's because you've been stuck in a no-win situation for way too long.

And this is where I pause with clients and I say to them, let's stop trying to optimize something that's already breaking you. Because sometimes the problem isn't that you haven't tried hard enough. It it's that your role, your workplace, or the broader culture around you isn't designed to support you.

It was never built to. And continuing to gaslight yourself into staying just a little longer, trying just a little harder. It's not noble, it's unsustainable. So if you're listening right now and you're thinking, okay, [00:10:00] yeah, that's me. I've done everything I can and I still feel like shit. Then the next move isn't to try harder, it's to start asking yourself, what would it look like to redirect my energy toward recovery instead of survival?

And listen, maybe you're not in a place where you can just walk away. I get it. Bills exist. Health insurance is real. But even if you can't leave today. Knowing the truth about your situation lets you stop trying to do the impossible. It lets you stop blaming yourself, and that shift is where you can get some of your power back because recovery isn't just about rest.

It's about removing the things that keep breaking you. And that might mean staying and creating firm boundaries. It might mean having some tough conversations and renegotiating your role with your manager. or it might mean starting to build a runway out, even if that takes time. [00:11:00] But you can't design any of that until you tell yourself the truth about where you are. So again, the first question in the burnout test is, can I actually recover while staying in this role? And your body already knows the answer.

You feel it. You've been feeling it. So now it's time to stop ignoring it and start planning around it.  

All right. Now for question two in the burnout test, am I still aligned with this work? This one might hurt a little. But in the best, most, I needed someone to say it kind of way because here's what happens. You get the degree, you land the job, you climb the ladder, you do all the right things. You chase the title, the salary, the accolades.

You keep checking those boxes like a damn overachieving machine. And then one day you look up and think, wait, how the hell did I get here? [00:12:00] And why do I not feel anything when I accomplish things I used to dream about? That's the feeling of misalignment. And it can be subtle at first. Maybe it's the Sunday dread, the I'm good at this, but I don't care anymore.

The, this used to light me up and now it doesn't. You don't hate the work necessarily. You're just not in it anymore. It's like wearing clothes that technically still fit but don't feel right on your body, and you keep tugging at them hoping that maybe it's just a weird laundry day, but deep down, you know, you've outgrown it.

So when I ask, are you still aligned with this work, what I'm really asking is, does this job still reflect your values? Does this role support who you are now, not who you were five years ago? Are you proud of the work you're doing and the way you're being asked to do [00:13:00] it? Because misalignment is one of the sneakiest and most corrosive contributors to burnout.

It eats away at your energy, your joy, your motivation, and when your values start to drift apart from your workplace's values or even your own internal compass, you start to feel it in your gut. Sometimes the job changes, the company pivots, the culture shifts. You've got new leadership that comes in and suddenly the thing you signed up for isn't what you're doing anymore.

But more often you change, you evolve, you grow. You start healing parts of yourself that used to tolerate dysfunction. You start questioning what you used to settle for. And now what was once a dream job just feels like a heavy costume and you're tired of wearing it. This is especially true for [00:14:00] people like us, high achievers, big feelers, people pleasers in recovery.

We are masters of the, but it used to be so good narrative, we guilt ourselves into staying loyal to a role or a company or even a mission. Way after it's no longer a fit, because we don't want to admit that the thing that we worked so hard for might no longer serve us. And here's where the grief kicks in, and I wanna name it because grief is a natural part of growth.

You are not just grieving the job, you are grieving the version of yourself who used to want this. You're grieving the identity that you built around being good at this thing. You are grieving the dream that you had when you said yes to this path, and that grief is valid, but it's also not a reason to stay.

We don't always talk enough about the fact that you can [00:15:00] love what a job meant to you and still decide it's no longer right. You can be proud of everything you built, everything you accomplished, everything you survived, and you can still outgrow it. There's this lie that if you leave a role, it means you're ungrateful.

That if you're no longer aligned, it means you failed. But here's what's actually true. Staying in misalignment out of guilt or fear is a slow emotional death, and you deserve better than that. So I'm gonna give you a little coaching moment here. If you weren't already in this job and someone offered it to you today, knowing everything you know now.

Would you say yes? If your gut says no, even before your brain starts justifying all the reasons you should say yes, listen to that because that's your clarity, that's your truth, talking to you [00:16:00] sometimes alignment isn't about the job being bad. It's about the job not matching who you've become. So I wanna say that again.

Sometimes the job didn't change. You did. And that is not a failure. That's evolution. So if you're feeling numb, disengaged, resentful, or like you're going through the motions every day, just to keep the peace, don't dismiss that. Don't try to gratitude yourself into silence. Don't just call it a phase. Call it what it is.

It's a sign that something has shifted, a sign that your work and your why are no longer in sync. Okay. And alignment matters more than most people want to admit, because misalignment over time leads to detachment and detachment if ignored turns into burnout. So when I ask, are you still aligned with this work?

I don't just mean the job description, [00:17:00] I mean the culture, I mean the leadership, I mean the emotional labor, I mean the expectations about who you have to be in order to succeed there. I mean the version of yourself, this role demands, and whether she feels real anymore. And if your answer is no, that's okay.

That doesn't mean you have to leave tomorrow, but it does mean something inside you is ready to change, and your only job now is to stop pretending that it's not

okay. You've made it through the first two questions. You've asked yourself if recovery is possible in your current role, and you've checked in on whether your work still reflects your values, your identity, and who the hell you're even trying to be anymore. So now we get to the clarity maker. This third question doesn't mess around.

It cuts through the hope, the fantasy, the mental gymnastics that you've been doing to try and justify staying just a little longer if nothing changed. [00:18:00] Like absolutely nothing. Would you still want to be here in six months? No unicorn boss suddenly appearing. No magical staffing fix that gives you back your evenings.

No. Last minute pivot where leadership suddenly starts respecting your boundaries. Just six more months of this exact same reality. Take a breath. How does that feel in your body? Do you tense up? Do you feel sick to your stomach? Do you feel a sinking in your chest like your heart just dropped through the floor?

Because that physical reaction is your answer. Your nervous system already knows it's been trying to tell you for months, maybe even years. You've just been trained to override it with logic and guilt and the need to prove that you're strong enough to keep going. And look, I get it. This question is hard because we're taught to be hopeful and hope is a good [00:19:00] thing.

We're taught to be patient, which also is a good quality. we genuinely want to believe that things will improve, that the next reorg will make things smoother. that the new manager will be different, that the next quarter will finally be less chaotic. But hope without evidence is just self gaslighting.

If you've been waiting for things to get better and they haven't, and you have no actual reason to believe that they will, it's not cynical to prepare your exit. It's actually pretty smart and strategic, and it's a part of self preservation, and yet this is the moment where most people freeze.

Because once you admit the truth to yourself, it feels like you have to act on it immediately. And that's scary as hell, especially if your whole identity is wrapped up in this job. And especially if you're someone who's used to being the rock, the fixer, the one who holds it all together, Admitting [00:20:00] that you don't want to be here anymore isn't just a career decision, it's an identity fracture. It brings up fear, shame, and probably about a million what ifs. what if I leave and it's worth somewhere else? What if I disappoint people? What if I can't find something that pays this well?

What if I regret it?

And those are valid fears. They're normal. You're not weak for having them, but they're not a reason to stay stuck in a cycle that's slowly draining the life out of you. Here's what I want you to hear loud and clear. You do not have to leave tomorrow, but you do have to stop pretending that this is sustainable.

You do have to stop waiting for a miracle. You have to stop outsourcing your wellbeing to a system that hasn't shown any signs of change, and you have to start making a plan, one that's rooted in your reality, not your wishful thinking. [00:21:00] This is where strategy comes in. This is where I sit with my clients and I say, okay, what do you want your life to feel like in six months?

What has to be true for that to happen, and then how do we get there? One little step at a time, because that's what this is really. It's taking small, brave steps one at a time, and it's not the kind of bravery that looks flashy or dramatic. It's more the quiet kind, the kind that says, I deserve more than survival, and I'm finally ready to do something about it.

Sometimes that something is having a hard conversation with your boss. Sometimes it's calling a coach or a therapist. Sometimes it's dusting off your resume or exploring a different path, or yes, sometimes it's even quitting with no plan B, but whatever it is, it's starts here with this [00:22:00] question with the truth, if nothing changes, do you still want to be here in six months?

And if that answer is no, then you've got your clarity. And clarity is gold. That's the thing burnout tries to take from you. And once you have it back, then you can move from powerlessness into action. All right, we've been through it today, huh? Three simple questions, but some big truth bombs here.

Probably a few deep size, maybe even some tears. And if that's where you're at right now, I want to acknowledge that that's okay. That means you're actually paying attention to your own life again, and that is not a weakness, that is an awakening. So here's your invitation. Don't just let this be a podcast episode that you nod along with and forget by tomorrow.

I want you to take these three questions to your journal, take 'em to your therapist, to your [00:23:00] coach. Hell take 'em to your best friend who knows when you're bullshitting yourself, let them help you get honest and I mean really honest about what's next. and listen if you're ready to stop guessing and actually get some support, that's what the career reboot strategy session that I created is for.

It is built for this exact moment for when you know things aren't working, but you don't know where to start. We we'll dig into what's really driving your burnout. Clarify what matters most to you now, and map out a short-term plan that makes sense for your real life, not just your idealistic Pinterest board version of someday, because you don't need to burn it all down to start fresh.

But you do need to stop gaslighting yourself into staying where you are not okay. You're not crazy, you're not broken. You're just out of alignment, and you're allowed to choose something better. Now, before I sign off, just a reminder that this is officially [00:24:00] the end of season two of the Balanced Badass Podcast.

also just a reminder that I'll be taking a few weeks off for some much needed recovery from my knee surgery. And let's be honest also to just rest my body, brain, and soul a little bit. You know, I'm all about practicing what I preach and this little pause is me doing exactly that. But don't worry, I'll be back soon with even more.

No BS High impact episodes to help you navigate burnout. Work life balance and just being a whole damn human in the midst of all of this mess. In the meantime, keep listening to old episodes. Keep reflecting and keep giving yourself permission to want more, more alignment, more peace, more energy, and more life.

I'll still be around on. So be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok. Otherwise, stay balanced. Stay badass. And please for the love of your future self, stop waiting for things to magically [00:25:00] fix themselves. You're allowed to act now. We'll talk soon, friend.