For many, it can be a precarious balancing act. A 2025 study by Founders Reports revealed that 87% of entrepreneurs struggle with at least one mental health issue, while 34% of the entrepreneurs surveyed had experienced burnout.

But this should not be accepted as the norm. There’s plenty entrepreneurs and students can do to recognise the warning signs of burnout, counter it and support those going through challenging periods.

The embers to extinguish before burnout

Nobody wants to experience burnout, but it can be challenging to pin down the true causes in the eye of the storm. Chronic workload can overwhelm workers, and this is when you can become your own worst enemy; unrealistic deadlines and an undefined job role can be inflamed by a bad line manager or, quite commonly, set by ourselves. In the long term, trying to meet impossible standards can cause harm more than good.

Away from the office or classroom, remote work can pose its own challenges. Working in the same space that you also relax in means it can be difficult to switch off.

Stress is also brought on through a lack of control. If we feel we are not able to shape results at work or complete tasks to the best of our ability, it can be devastating but also disillusioning, and this, in turn, sends motivation tumbling.

Poor office culture, whether it’s toxicity in the workplace or a refusal to acknowledge emotional labour, also contribute to burnout. It’s often the case that professionals don’t need more money; what they often want is recognition that what they are doing is valued.

Easing the load

The good news is that many strategies exist to ease the load; it’s just about finding the ones that suit you best.

In the workplace, some professions have encouraged reflective practice for a long time, whether it be an examination of how to improve at a specific task or simply to check in on their emotional state. This can reveal some early signs of fatigue and prompt a person to take the necessary steps to protect themselves.

Microboundaries are also effective at stopping a workload from becoming overwhelming. This is a daily boundary, like a short break, that is scheduled every day to stave off stress. From personal experience, teachers are particularly bad at this, where they will sit and eat at their desk while finishing work or catching up on an email. They don't produce good work because they are ultimately trying to do two things at once.

If they simply spent 10 minutes in the staff room, colleagues could have a laugh, share a problem, and enjoy a bit of a release. For office-based workers with a considered, shared space to unwind, this can be similarly beneficial for them.

It’s also important for workers and students to analyse when their energy levels are at their highest. For many people, it’s the morning, and that’s when you want to commit to those more challenging tasks and not attempt them when the tank is dry.

Match empathy with action

As a leader and mentor, clear feedback and clarity are critical. If clear parameters are not set out, students and employees can spend too long on a task and exhaust themselves. It’s also understanding how to be a good mentor; it’s not always about being agreeable, it’s about giving the best advice in a tough situation like burnout, even if it’s not the easiest to hear.

Effective modern leadership begins with empathy, whether that be through active listening and validating people’s emotions. That’s all very well, but if it doesn’t lead to a behavioural change, it doesn’t mean anything. Saying the right things but not actually following through on them can actually create more problems in the long run.

Check-ins with your team or students are obviously important; however, they don’t necessarily need to be formalised. Formalising is just another layer of bureaucracy, and people really get doubtful about it. A good leader sees a colleague and they have a chat. That is what they do. Time must be managed effectively so that they are available for those spontaneous conversations that make all the difference to colleagues.

Just being human with people rather than systemising everything is hard but very worthwhile. A good leader enables people to do their jobs really well or take charge of their own learning, rather than controlling what people do. It's that simple. 

Studying alongside workplace success

It’s important not to fall into the trap of believing you know everything. You're both a professional and a learner for the rest of your life. If you don't see yourself as a learner, you're not being professional.

While studying or training alongside a full-time role, it’s essential to focus on progress over perfection. In other words, it's much more important to be making headway and keeping up on your learning rather than being a perfectionist.

Often, people's tendency towards perfectionism goes all the way back to childhood, but now they must juggle work, studying and a personal life. Therefore, a mindset change is needed; you’re learning and studying to benefit a job, which is hopefully benefiting other people, and it's about being committed enough so that your clients, students and employees are getting a good service, not a perfect service.

It’s worth remembering that, even if you are very confident in a given area, one or two little pointers can make a difference to sharpen your professional pencil. Otherwise, it just gets blunt.