Reflection · 4 minutes
How depleted are you, really?
Burnout in men rarely arrives as collapse. It arrives as a slow flattening, less energy, less feeling, less you.
Answer for an average week, not your best one. The truth lives in the average, not the highlights.
Reflect honestly
My body feels heavy, tight or wired most days.
Your answers stay on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere.
What this reflection looks at
Notice the cost of how you've been running, in your body, your mood, your relationships and your sense of meaning. There are 10 statements, and it takes most men about 4 minutes. Nothing is scored against anyone else, and nothing here is a diagnosis. It's a way of putting language to patterns you've probably been carrying without naming.
- Body load
When it's light: The body still feels like yours.
When it's heavy: The body feels like a battleground.
- Sleep quality
When it's light: Sleep restores you.
When it's heavy: Sleep doesn't dent the tiredness.
- Energy
When it's light: Energy is finite but available.
When it's heavy: Energy is borrowed from tomorrow every day.
- Motivation vs push
When it's light: You're still engaged with what you do.
When it's heavy: You're operating on pure push.
- Emotional flattening
When it's light: The full range is still there.
When it's heavy: The volume has been turned down on everything.
- Short fuse
When it's light: You're mostly steady.
When it's heavy: The fuse is short and the sparks land at home.
- Switching off
When it's light: You can step out of work mode.
When it's heavy: Work mode never fully ends.
- Recovery capacity
When it's light: Rest still rebuilds you.
When it's heavy: Rest barely touches the depletion.
- Meaning
When it's light: The 'why' is still close.
When it's heavy: The 'why' has gone quiet or gone missing.
- Fear of stopping
When it's light: You can pause without panic.
When it's heavy: Stopping feels more dangerous than continuing.
Questions worth sitting with
You'll be offered these again at the end, alongside your results. Some men find it useful to read them first, slowly, before answering anything.
- What are you afraid would happen if you actually stopped for a week?
- Where in your body does this exhaustion live, and what has it been trying to tell you?
- What would 'enough' look like, if you let yourself define it?
How to use what comes back
Burnout isn't weakness. It's the bill for running on survival fuel for too long. The way out isn't more effort. It's a different relationship with rest, meaning and your own limits.
This is a self-reflection tool, not a clinical assessment, and it doesn't replace medical, psychological or legal support. If what surfaces feels heavier than you expected, that's not a failure of the reflection. It's usually the most useful thing it could have done. Take it to someone: a coach, a therapist, your GP, or a man you trust. If you're in crisis in the UK, Samaritans are on 116 123, free, any hour of the night.
Answers are kept on your own device unless you're signed in, in which case they're saved privately to your account so you can see how the picture changes over time. Nothing is shared with anyone without you choosing to share it.