Consulting burns people out. Long careers require deliberate management.
Common burnout drivers:
- Project intensity — long hours, tight deadlines.
- Travel — exhausting; family / health impact.
- Multiple concurrent projects — context-switching.
- Difficult stakeholders — emotional drain.
- Always-on culture — Slack/email outside hours.
- Underutilised periods — guilt during low-billable time.
- Feeling stuck — same patterns of work, no growth.
Sustainability practices:
1. Boundaries.
- Explicit hours when you work and don't.
- Out-of-office when on vacation — actually disconnect.
- Decline meetings outside agreed hours.
- Push back when projects creep into evenings/weekends.
2. Variety.
- Mix project types over the year — some heavy delivery, some advisory, some pre-sales.
- Mix industries / clients.
- Take on internal initiatives occasionally.
3. Continuous learning.
- Salesforce certifications / Trailhead.
- Reading, conferences, community engagement.
- Avoid "I don't have time for learning" trap — it's how you avoid stagnation.
4. Network outside the immediate firm.
- Trailblazer Community engagement.
- Cross-firm friendships.
- Recruiter relationships.
- Provides options, perspective.
5. Specialise.
- Deep expertise in 1-2 areas (Sales Cloud + CPQ, Service Cloud + Field Service).
- Specialism = higher leverage = better projects = less grind.
6. Move on from bad projects.
- Toxic engagements drain you. Lobby internally to be reassigned.
- Sometimes the right answer is to leave the firm.
7. Physical and mental health.
- Exercise, sleep, hobbies — not negotiable.
- Therapy / coaching when needed.
- Vacations actually taken.
8. Career planning.
- Annual review of goals: where am I now? Where do I want to be in 3 years?
- Take action toward goals. Don't drift.
9. Mentor and be mentored.
- Mentoring others energises (often).
- Being mentored helps avoid mistakes.
Common warning signs of burnout:
- Dread on Sunday night.
- Cynicism about clients.
- Quality slipping; you don't care.
- Physical symptoms (headaches, sleep issues).
- Disengagement from team.
Senior consultant insight: the highest-performing senior consultants are NOT the ones who work 80-hour weeks. They're the ones who deliver consistently over decades because they've learned to pace themselves.
The math: 50 hours per week × 40 years > 80 hours per week × 5 years. The marathon runner wins.
If you're in burnout, change something. The cost of staying is higher than the cost of changing.