I’ve always been fascinated by this paradox: highly intelligent IT professionals can design complex architectures and solve the hardest technical problems, yet cleverness doesn’t protect us from burnout.

Why? 💡 Because knowing is not the same as being aware.

📚 Knowing is mental. It’s concepts, facts, and logic. We can “know” all about stress management, sleep cycles, and recovery methods. We can take training, read articles, listen to podcasts, talk ABOUT all the learning.

🫀 Awareness is different. It’s embodied and lived. It’s noticing tension in your shoulders after back-to-back meetings. It’s realizing your energy drops every time you join a certain call. It’s catching yourself holding your breath while drafting an end-of-month report.

Awareness connects us to what is happening right now in our body, emotions, and environment.

The tricky part is that burnout often develops quietly, while people are still performing well. Many in the group shared that they only recognized something was wrong when their body forced them to stop. They “knew” they needed balance but didn’t do anything.

Why is awareness so hard?

• In tech, we’re trained to rely on logic, thinking, and analysis. Have you been taught at your university to pay attention to your body? I was not. Till the age of 30 I saw myself as a brain walking on legs. 😅
• Workplace culture often treats emotions as irrelevant or unprofessional.
• Many of us carry traits of independence, high responsibility, or perfectionism that make it easy to ignore bodily and emotional signals.

We think our mind can outsmart our body. But the body always wins. 🤡

The good news is that awareness is a skill that can be developed. For the research group members, small steps made a difference:

• When stuck with starting a task: What emotion do I feel right now?
• Three minutes pause: no phone, just noticing.
• Acknowledging emotions: “This strategy doesn’t make sense, it makes me mad.”

Knowledge gives us tools, awareness gives us choice. Without it, we repeat old patterns, no matter how much we know. With awareness, we can act earlier, set limits, and take care of ourselves before we burn out.

👉 Do you find it easier to know what to do, or to be aware enough to actually do it?