Beware of Burnout
Burnout is an insidious beast. It stalks through the grass, undetectable except for that prickle down your spine that means you better keep moving, keep moving, keep moving, past the point where you know you ought to lie down and rest but you know you can’t, until suddenly you collapse. The monster eats you up and spits you out, and you vow never to let this happen again, thinking you understand its hunting patterns. Then the damn thing shape-shifts.
I’ve been grappling with burnout recently, and I’ve seen a decent amount of short-form content about it, but some things are worth delving into with more words. This extended feeling of fatigue and disengagement isn’t a phenomenon exclusive to writing, or creative work, or even work in general. Tell me if any of these scenarios sound familiar:
You’re pushing yourself hard. Deadlines are coming up; you feel some external or internal pressure to perform; there’s a goal you want to achieve. You tell yourself that if you just make it past the finish line, everything will be fine. You do the dang thing (congrats!) and then you’re exhausted. If you’re lucky, you have some recovery time. But usually, there’s an endless list of next things, and the process repeats until you JUST CAN’T anymore.
You’ve identified a problem (or a few problems) in your life, and hurray, you also have solutions! They require making some changes—to your routine, to the way you interface with the world, to your internal landscape—and you try to make as many adjustments as you can to get the fastest results. But those changes are either too large or too numerous to keep up with, and you end up sliding back into old habits.
You’ve been working on something for a long time and it should be done by now but it’s not, and you know if you just keep chipping away at it, it will get done (nothing is going to finish itself, you know) even if it kills you, but another month passes and it’s still not ready.
You give yourself a break, but the whole time you feel guilty about not working on it, so it feels like you didn’t take a break at all, and you come back to it still tired.
This is not an exhaustive list of what burnout looks like, but these are the ones that have most keenly affected me.
That first scenario was my entire college career. I feel it now, at times, when trying to keep up with the seemingly endless tasks of being a functioning adult (and there’s no end of semester to look forward to and crash after). The realization that it’s Sunday night and I’ve finally done all the things I had to do only to need to start again tomorrow has often been more demoralizing than the tasks themselves.
The second one most often relates to my physical health. Because I know all the things I’m supposed to do—stretch, workout, get 10k steps a day, drink more water, eat healthier—it sounds simple to accomplish. And if I really set my mind to it I can incorporate all of those things, all at once. But holy moly, it’s hard work. And inevitably, some disruption to my routine sends all the Jenga blocks clattering to the floor, until I feel guilty enough to pick them up again.
I’ve done this with my social life too. Moving away from my friends and family, plus residual COVID social anxiety, kept me pretty isolated for a couple years. When I decided enough was enough, I went looking for writing groups, book clubs, local hiking and hangout groups, and volunteer opportunities, trying out everything to see what would stick. None of them did, because it was way too much to keep up with.
I’ve also seen lots of people get burnt out with writing or reading goals, because they set the bar so high. Wanting to write two thousand words a day or read eight books a month is amazing, but if you’re starting from zero, that’s a big mountain to climb.
The last scenario applies most recently to my revisions. I’ve been grinding away at my latest book for forever (I think hyperbole may be a sign of burnout). As of this post’s publication, I’m a little over halfway through the fifth draft, and I’ve got a line editing pass to do after. This is more drafts written over a longer time period than I’ve ever done before. I usually tap out at four drafts, or about a year spent on a project. I can feel the itch to unearth a new story, to toss shovelfuls of dirt with wild abandon instead of being down on my hands and knees with my teeny archaeological tools, and I have been ignoring that itch because I need to finish this, lest I put it aside and never pick it up again (which is what happened with all the others).
But, if we’re not careful, that need to push forward, change, do, can be precisely the obstacle that makes things impossible.
So, how do we avoid the stalking beast in the grass?
As I come home from a wonderful (and sorely needed) visit with some friends, I’m writing these reminders as much for myself as for anyone else who needs them. This is what works for me; I invite you to try things and add to your own list.
Preventative Measures:
Don’t overfill your plate. It’s better to focus on 2-3 things at a time than try to do everything everywhere all at once.
This especially applies for coming back from a break of any kind. I have to ease myself into my workflow. If I haven’t exercised in months, I’m not going to start by running a marathon. If I’ve been in a writing slump, I aim for a single sentence in a day. If I want to keep going, great. If not, leave it be for the day, and tomorrow, I will try to write two sentences.
I remind myself that even when I’m working at “max capacity,” I WILL have days where one sentence, one walk up and down the block, is all I can do. That is OKAY.
Don’t underfill your plate. This may be counterintuitive, but I’ve found that pouring all my focus into one thing makes me tired of it faster. It also puts all the pressure for success on that thing. If it then doesn’t work the way I planned or hoped, that’s an express route to letting failure overwhelm me. I am SO guilty of this one that I made a book about it…
For example, while I’m editing my novels, I find it helpful to be generating ideas and creating in other ways, like D&D, crafty projects, etc. to remind myself that I am, in fact, an artist and not a word processor.
Take time to do at least one NON-WORK RELATED thing every day that brings you joy. I cuddle with my dog. Doodle. Read a book (not for a bookclub or because it’s an ARC, but because it’s one I want to read, only for me). Touch some grass. Listen to music. I’ve been listening to the D&D podcast Worlds Beyond Number, which is phenomenal for relaxing and idea generation.
Get enough sleep. Yes, that’s it. I formally give you permission to nap if you need to.
Talk to your cheer squad. Having a person or people who root for you unconditionally is crucial for any kind of art, and life in general. This doesn’t mean they don’t critique you, it means they know you well enough to critique you in the way that’s most helpful for you and your ideas. Whenever those feelings of doubt, overwhelm, etc. start to creep in, they’re the people I can vent to, and who can help me out of all but the worst spirals.
Limit your time on social media. These apps are tailored to soak up time and attention, and in doing so, can very easily eat away at your capacity to do other things. And speaking of insidious beasts—no matter how great the community is, the nature of comparison can be extremely disheartening. Whenever I find myself thinking “look at all these cool people doing the thing I want to do, I should be better at doing it too,” it’s time to put my phone in a different room.
Tangentially burnout related: I hope we can normalize taking breaks from posting, tweeting, whatever, without having to apologize for it. As I’m getting my Instagram going, I see this everywhere (and I feel the guilt/worry too if I’m silent for a while). You’re trying to be a functioning human! That takes a lot of effort, sometimes more than we have. And you don’t need to be sorry for that.
Now that you know how to avoid burnout, here’s what to do when it catches up to you anyway (terribly rude, this beast). Sometimes I use all my normal strategies and come back to my task still feeling overwhelmed, unmotivated, dissatisfied, exhausted, irritable, inadequate…That’s when it’s time for further action.
For the Days When You’ve Tried Everything and It’s Not Enough:
Give yourself permission to do things imperfectly, and ask for grace from your support system if you need to. I used to be so ashamed to admit I was having a hard time, never mind letting it show in my work ethic. Remember what I said about how hard it is to be a human? That applies here too. People understand. They may even be able to help ease the burden.
Recognize your accomplishments (write them down!). Not feeling that you are valued or that your work is important is another major cause of burnout. Especially as a writer, I spend a lot of time alone with my thoughts. Drafting is solitary. I get feedback, and then revisions are solitary. Querying is full of impersonal email rejections. Sometimes marketing and social media feels like yelling into the void. If I don’t tell myself how cool I am, who will? (My cheer squad, but they have to know I’m struggling first)
Take a break. Ideally an actual brain vacation where you’re allowed to not think about THE THING, whatever it may be. This can mean a literal trip to another place, working on a different project, anything to disrupt your usual flow. If this feels absurd and impossible, ask yourself how urgent THE THING really is. In the long run, taking the time to decompress will be more helpful than plowing forward at critical stress levels. Maybe if I do this enough times, I won’t have to try plowing forward first to realize it’s true.
I think everyone’s burnout monster looks a bit different. Mine is one of those things in scary movies that is huge and terrifying (with way too many mouths and eyes) when I’m turned away, but when I check over my shoulder, it shrinks into a cute little kitten. It’s really easy to convince myself that I’m not feeling burnt out, or that it’ll go away on its own. It’s one of those annoying things that doesn’t always make itself known until it’s too late. But I hope some of these strategies, preventative or otherwise, work for you. If you have any you want to add, please share them in the comments so we can all fight monsters together.