What is burnout?

Very few of us are unaware of that state of mind where a situation or an activity that had been giving us so much excitement and pleasure suddenly becomes boring, frustrating and unfulfilling.  Yet it might still be as important as ever within the context of our working life.

Terry Goodwin, who has had one or two personal experiences of loss of enthusiasm for projects that had initially filled him with excitement, here describes the signs that portend the onset of burnout, the steps that might be taken to head it off, and then proposes a variety of solutions.