At the beginning of the pandemic, Sarah McElroy was working hard, pursuing an MBA and holding

down a full-time marketing job when most of her co-workers got laid off.

And it was only my boss and me who were not furloughed.

So I'm there and I'm really grateful to still have an income, have a little bit of survivors

guilt, I suppose, in that regard. And it was just like, well, we've got to keep the wheels

turning. So it was just kind of insanity where my legs are moving and I can feel myself

resisting, but I just can't stop.

The extra work didn't stop. Sarah switched jobs, but the new role was even more demanding.

The burnout was really hitting toward the end of 2020 as I was trying to push through

and finish up my grad school program. I was working up to 20 hours a day trying to juggle

both of them at the same time. I felt, you know, I had to prove that I could do both school

and job and excel at the job at the same time.

That's a lot, 20 hours a day. It was crazy, not every single day, 20 hours a day, but there

were times where I was just pushing it to the brink and, you know, I had this internal

whisper that I could tell, you know, it was too much. I would have these moments of just

like, I can't do it anymore. And I knew that that was not really a normal response, but

I just felt like I was on the hamster wheel and I had to keep going.

Sarah kept pushing, but eventually it all got too much. She realized that what she was

experiencing was burnout.

And you're sort of like running on adrenaline all the time. Exactly. A hundred percent.

And you know, I thought it just meant I needed to, I needed to cut back on hours, chase that

elusive 40 hour work week. And I'd be fine. But what it's really made me do is raise

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