I’m in my 30s, single, and have saved about $3M across taxable and retirement accounts. Mostly index funds, some cash, and a chunk in RSUs. I spend around $50K/year living in a HCOL area, and don’t own a home. So I’m in a position where I don’t have to work right away, but that hasn’t really made things clearer.
Friends have brought up FIRE, but I’m not sure early retirement would feel fulfilling. Honestly, having more options has made things feel more paralyzing, not less.
The burnout wasn’t really about long hours. It came more from feeling ineffective and having no clear direction. My role felt fuzzy, leadership was inconsistent, and I started feeling like I was falling behind while other people kept progressing. That wore me down over time and chipped away at my confidence.
Now I’m considering a few paths:
Return to my old job — I left on good terms and could probably go back. I’ve been wondering if this was more of a me problem than a company problem, and going back might help clarify that. Extend the sabbatical — travel or focus on non-career interests for a few more months, then reassess. Start job searching now — not super motivated, but with the current job market, it might take a while anyway. Career change — no clear direction or passion, just vague curiosity about doing something different.
If you’ve taken a break, pivoted careers, or dealt with burnout like this — how did you figure out your next step? Especially curious how people figured out whether the problem was the job… or themselves.
I am in a similar financial situation and age ($6M liquid, $60k spend, 38, not single), and have been in burnout for a while and haven’t found the courage to quit yet.
Similar burnout reasons as yours: nothing is horrible about the work but I feel deeply inadequate, I feel in my 20s I was a high performer with incredible mastery of my domain, and as the industry “progressed” complexity-wise and everyone became more advanced in their craft, I got left behind. There are many (most?) younger (and older) folks at my current company who are producing 100X what I do (this is not some kind of impostor syndrome btw, I literally had a trusted colleague say to me: “you really should be more ambitious and build more, much more”), and are hired on the same ladder, for the same comp. As you stated, that chips away at your confidence every day and it plants the seed for burnout.
Similar worries as yours: I am quite honestly afraid of what I will do with my time. I would just be running away from work and not running towards something else, and having grown up with some money trauma I did not want to regret willingly stepping away from the high pay, but I think a forced layoff would probably be the best gift someone could give me right now.
I hope for many more insightful replies to this thread.
Something to consider is fractional work, which is take to mean part time high value work. Like a CTO for 10-20 hours a week. Choose if you prefer advising or writing code or a mix.
But "burned out" is serious so no rush just to feel meaningful. Health first.