Just like with causes of burnout, not everyone should be seen the same way. There namely are different types of burnout. The burnout shows itself different in different people. You can eventually check for yourself which type of burnout-er you are at the hand of the descriptions which will follow.
Types of burnout: the dedicated worker
One of the most common types of burnout is the type which is also called the dedicated worker (Iacovides, Fountoulakis, Kaprinis & Kaprinis, 2003). In this type of burnout we notice that you start to work too much in order to be able to keep up. Oftentimes you then deal with being behind in work, which the dedicated worker solves by working even harder.
If you suffer from this one of the types of burnout, it means that you have difficulties with your coping style and with setting boundaries. It namely is so that you can no longer perform optimally if you are suffering from a burnout. If you then decide to work even harder, this will have little to no use, because you will notice that you hardly get ahead. Furthermore, these people cannot ay 'no'. So even though they have too much work already, they take on extra work, because they do not want to disappoint anyone. In the past, you say to yourself, you were able to do this, so you should still be able to.
If you suffer from this category of types of burnout you will slowly notice that you are starting to get exhausted. Bit by bit, your fatigue and exhaustion increases. Even though you eventually will notice that something is going on, you will continue to push and try to move forward. If you then do not change your habits after your burnout, chances are in this one of the types of burnout that you relapse.
Types of burnout: the 'too involved' worker
The second category of types of burnout is the 'too involved' worker (Iacovides, Fountoulakis, Kaprinis & Kaprinis, 2003). If you suffer from this one of the types of burnout, you are likely to fully focus on your work, because you derive most contentment from this. This type of burnout has the tendency to put all of themselves into their work, because they get little pleasure from their life outside of work.
If you experience this type of burnout, chances are that you want to make everyone happy. Often, this is something which the sufferers base on values from previous generations where it was expected that one would always say yes to anything which people asked. It was impolite to decline anything or to say that there is something which you do not want to do for another person.
Because you take on more and more work, you will notice that it becomes too much after a while and that you no longer can perform all the tasks anymore. This one of the types of burnout find it awful when they cannot keep their promises. But because they keep getting further behind with work, it can be so that they end up having to break a promise after a while. You then often feel very guilty and are often disappointed in yourself.
Types of burnout: the authoritarian worker
The authoritarian worker forms the final category of types of burnout (Iacovides, Fountoulakis, Kaprinis & Kaprinis, 2003). If you fit in this type of burnout-ers, you feel like nobody can do your work as well as you can yourself. (Iacovides, Fountoulakis, Kaprinis & Kaprinis, 2003). Therefore they do not want to let other people do their work and rather do everything by themselves. That makes it so that they are sure that everything is done correctly.
Except for the fact that this category of types of burnout wants to do everything themselves, they are also generally perfectionists. This means that they do not only want to do everything themselves, but they will also make sure that everything is done perfectly. They check everything 3 times and are unhappy with a mediocre result. Every aspect of the work which they deliver must be top-notch.
This can have a large value in certain situations, but not in all situations. If you suffer from this type of burnout, it is useful to learn when perfectionism actually has use and when you are working yourself into a bad situation due to the perfectionism. Often your perfectionism namely stops you from getting a lot of work done, causing you to experience a lot of stress and possibly even depression.
