Even if your job pays you millions of dollars a year in salary, it’s not enough to fight off burnout.

Take the case of Adrian Wojnarowski.

He was an NBA “insider” for ESPN—someone paid handsomely to find and report news stories about the latest league contracts. He became famous for the “Woj Bomb,” when he reported on a particularly spectacular trade or contract signing.

During the NBA season, the work was nonstop. Tweets, text messages and calls to be answered at all hours of the day—and night. And weekends, too.

He not only had to write, but appear on TV regularly as well.

The job, in other words, was all-consuming.

Does this sound familiar to you?

For Wojnarowski, it was all-consuming to the point that he recently decided to walk away from not just ESPN, but journalism altogether.

He said that, “I understand the commitment required in my role and it’s an investment that I’m no longer driven to make.”

He walked away from a multimillion-dollar salary—with millions more left on the table—to go work for his alma mater.

While he should be financially set from his days at ESPN, he is taking a massive pay cut to make the move. To me, that says a lot about the toll the work was taking on him.

No more nights where he only got three hours of sleep. No more going to functions where half of him was there, and the other half was scrolling for texts and tweets, looking to break news.

If you are feeling the same about your job—burned out, always on the hamster wheel, and looking for a way out—what can you do?

Here is what I want you to know:

Burnout is real, not imagined: Wojnarowski has been a journalist since at least college, and probably as far back as high school. The profession has been a deeply ingrained part of his life.

It carried him through a stellar career in print, then onto Yahoo Sports and ultimately to ESPN. Reporting and writing over decades has brought him many accolades, honors, and the respect and admiration of both colleagues and readers.

It can also bring an unrelenting pace, demanding that the appetite for news and information be constantly fed.

Day after day of being on that hamster wheel can add up to years of stress, health issues and losing the fire that took him to the level he attained with his work. No amount of glamour, glitz and money can make up for missed time with family, and being half-present with them.

If you are feeling burnt out, that is a signal for you to step back and see where you are, and whether or not you want to continue on your present path.

You can talk it out: If you’re feeling burnt out, having trusted friends in your corner is crucial. Some of your friends may have experienced the same feelings and thoughts you are about your work. They can be your guideposts and support as you think about the next step in your career.

Reaching out to other people is especially important for men. Men have a tendency to grit through situations, wanting to solve them on their own.  Talking through what you’re feeling and how you’re feeling serves you much more than holding it inside, where it can fester until it becomes a real issue that you have trouble dealing with.

And, talk with your bosses. Yes, that may be a difficult conversation. Can you downshift away from your current high-pressure, high-stress work to something that won’t disrupt family time or vacation time? Propose the change as a win-win: Your boss gets a better version of you, and you get to be more present for all aspects of your life.

You can do a lot with what you have: Wojnarowski’s communication skills and his deep Rolodex of names and sources will undoubtedly help him in his next career. He will be leveraging the skills he’s built and honed over decades to benefit his next employer. And his next employer won’t be asking him to be on TV three times a day.

Even if we are feeling burnt out by our work, we have a tendency to stay where we are because we have difficulty seeing ourselves doing anything other than what we do. For example, we see ourselves as a journalist, like Wojnarowski. And we stay stuck, while knowing what we’re doing isn’t good for us.

Instead, if we can reframe that as, “I do journalism,” that helps us become unstuck, and see more clearly that what we actually do can be applied to many, many different roles. Ones that can actually have us home and relaxing on weeknights. And not have one eye constantly on our phone.

This is a big theme in my ebook, Escaping the Newsroom. It helps re-examine your skills, and helps you see where else you can apply them. Click here to download your copy.

What Adrian Wojnarowski experienced is not uncommon. We dedicate our lives to our work, sometimes to the point of burning ourselves out from it. Recognizing that we are stretching ourselves too thin is the beginning of a process that helps us understand what’s important to us, and what really matters.

From there, we can take stock of what we truly want to do, and want to be. We can step confidently out of the maelstrom and into work that works for us.

(Image Credit: Joe Faraoni / ESPN Images)