Millennials Were Raised As The 'Just Push Through It' Generation And Now We're Completely Burnt Out
We grew up hearing “just push through,” and now, we’re exhausted and rethinking everything we know about resilience.
Agustin Farias | Unsplash When I was a kid, maybe eight or nine, I wiped out on my bike. And it wasn’t just a scrape-and-get-back-up moment. It was brutal. I took a chunk of skin out of my knee, blood everywhere, tears, the whole mess.
I remember looking up at my mom, thinking, Okay, I’m done here, let’s call it a day. But nope. She said, “Get back on and ride home.” I did it because I had to, even though I was hurting.
That “pick yourself up and just push through” mentality was a staple of millennial childhood.
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For better or worse, we were taught that no matter how tough things got, we were supposed to push through, brush ourselves off, and keep going.
And while resilience sounds great in theory, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Millennials have become the burnout generation. We’re worn out from picking ourselves up, brushing it off, and pushing on.
And, like a lot of millennials, I carried that lesson of “just keep going” into adulthood — right into my career, my relationships, and, of course, my burnout. The truth is, we were taught to be resilient because we had to be. We grew up with a lot on our plate.
We watched our parents struggle through the recessions of the early ’90s and then got slapped with our own challenges when the 2008 financial crisis hit just as we were finishing college. We entered the workforce already drowning in student debt, with no lifeboat in sight.
“Work hard, don’t complain, just keep going” — these were the survival skills we were supposed to count on. But that resilience lesson came without any support, and let’s be honest, it was only a matter of time before it wore us down.
It wasn’t that we didn’t want to succeed — most of us had been overachievers our whole lives — it was that we had no idea how to pace ourselves.
When you’re working two jobs to pay down student loans or squeezing in a side hustle on top of your day job to make rent, slowing down feels like failure. That “push through” mindset was all we knew, and it got us far, sure, but it also cost us our well-being.
Resilience was supposed to help us survive tough times, right? But somewhere along the way, that survival tool became a weapon we turned on ourselves.
Resilience is supposed to work with support. When you have zero support systems in place — no work-life balance, no mental health breaks, no real financial stability — resilience becomes just another way to drain yourself dry.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say, “Well, I’ll rest after this project,” or “It’s just a little stress, I can handle it.” (By the way, it’s not just a little stress.)
If you’re always “handling it,” never catching a break, that stress adds up, and it shows up in ways you can’t ignore: Anxiety. Physical symptoms. Emotional numbness.
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When we keep pushing through without setting boundaries, we’re not being resilient, we’re self-destructing.
And I get it. I fell into this trap myself. I was convinced that if I just “toughed it out” through yet another stressful job, I’d eventually reach this mythical land of success.
But instead, I reached a breaking point where I had to re-evaluate what resilience meant.
Pushing through wasn’t making me stronger. It was making me sick. Let’s make one thing clear: I’m not saying resilience is bad. Resilience is a powerful thing — it’s why I’m here, writing this.
But true resilience isn’t just about grit or toughness. It’s about knowing when to keep going and, just as importantly, when to stop. Real resilience should come with boundaries, with breaks, with a little grace for yourself.
Balanced resilience means knowing when to put up a fight and when to step back and regroup.
There’s no prize for suffering the most. Want to build resilience that serves you? Start by setting limits. Create non-negotiable downtime each week, even if it’s just half an hour on Sundays. Treat that time like it’s as important as a work meeting because it is.
Then there’s recovery time. If you’re going to keep pushing, you have to make space to recharge.
Think of it like a muscle. Push it too hard without rest, and it’ll tear. But with rest? That’s when you get stronger. Real resilience, the kind that lasts, comes from honoring your limits, not crushing them.
Millennials: we’re at a crossroads. We can keep on this path, burning ourselves out in the name of resilience, or we can redefine what it means to be strong.
So, here’s my challenge: start redefining resilience for yourself. Have you ever asked yourself how much you can let go? What if resilience didn’t mean taking on more, but actually doing less to stay strong?
Check in with your body. Notice when you’re tense, tired, or starting to lose focus. It’s not quitting to slow down; it’s being smart about your energy.
The real lesson we need isn’t how to pick ourselves up — we’ve mastered that already. What we need now is the ability to put ourselves down. Down in the sense of resting, recovering, and respecting our limits.
It’s okay if this feels like unlearning everything you were taught. I had to do it too.
I had to hit burnout hard before I learned that resilience, without any real support or rest, is a dead end. If all you’re doing is pushing through, it’s not resilience; it’s endurance, and there’s a big difference.
We’re allowed to be resilient on our terms. We’re allowed to stop when we need to, to say no, to ask for help, and to put our well-being first. The question isn’t whether you’re tough enough to keep going — it’s whether you’re wise enough to stop when you need to.
So, let’s stop glamorizing burnout, and start valuing a version of resilience that keeps us healthy and thriving. Trust me, you don’t have to keep bleeding on the bike ride home.
Tara Kermiet is a leadership coach specializing in burnout prevention, recovery, and work-life balance.