When hustling becomes dangerous
As a career-driven, ambitious, entrepreneurial individual, I work a lot. For most of 2021, that has consisted of shifts at Maccas, private math tutoring, participating in the Praxis program, running my side hustle 'Phoebe's Cupcake Treasures', and miscellaneous side projects. I'm a hustler, and I absolutely love working (most of the time). This is generally a positive character trait, as it has resulted in many achievements I'm proud of.
The issue with hustling is that when it's overdone, it can severely lead to burnout.
I recently learnt this the hard way: 3 long months of brutally overworking myself, to the point where my mental and physical welbeing shattered.
The signs of burnout
Not only did burning out compromise my work, it also negatively affected other aspects of my life. While burnout may vary from person to person, here are the major symptoms I experienced:
Loss of motivation and self-discipline with work
Work started becoming less exciting and felt more like a chore. No matter how much I pushed myself to get a task done, I would succumb to procrastination. Entering the flow-state was virtually impossible.
Prolonged mental and physical exhaustion
I wasn’t my typical bright and easygoing self. I became easily agitated and would snap at others more often. I had zero motivation to get out of bed every morning and I was flat for the rest of the day.
Slipping back into poor habits
The loss of self-discipline meant that I picked up poor habits. The most severe ones were binging junk food, emotional eating, excessive screen time, and procrastination.
I completely crumbled. It sucked and I want to prevent it from happening again in the future.
Understanding the root causes of burnout
My first step to recovering is to pinpoint the root causes of burnout.
In my experience, it boiled down to these 3 factors:
Overworking myself
Fueled by excessive ambition, I'd push myself to complete an extra task, even when I was clearly physically exhausted from my 8-hour shift at Maccas and tutoring. I'd work late into the night whilst half-sleep. Whilst a stretch with work is sometimes necessary, consistently doing so ultimately took a toll on my welbeing.
Inadequate time spent to recharge
There was no such thing as work/life balance. I don’t recall taking any proper breaks; breaks when work was completely off my mind and I was purely spending that time for leisure. I turned down almost every opportunity for socialisation, skipped workouts, and neglected hobbies. I was depriving myself of things that would re-energise me.
My personal life got hectic
In addition to the internal pressure I was putting on myself to grind, life decided to throw a few boulders at me. This further exacerbated my mental exhaustion, especially since I wasn’t practising enough self-compassion during those difficult times.
What I’ve been doing to recover
I learnt that the most effective way for me to bounce back from burnout is to focus on:
Healing, and
re-building momentum.
Here are some practices I've implemented:
Prioritising time for hobbies and relaxation
For the first time in a long while, I immersed myself in hobbies and relaxing activities. This helped me get my mind off work and re-charge my mental energy levels.
Seeking professional mental health support
Fortnightly sessions with a psychotherapist helped me develop introspection and navigate difficult issues in my life. She also taught me to approach my burnout with self-compassion, which was exactly what I needed after being too hard on myself.
Gradually re-building my daily system
I had absolutely zero willpower to uphold my daily system of habits, which would otherwise build momentum for my day to be productive and fulfilling. In order to bounce back from burnout, I had to rebuild commitment to my daily system, which consisted of small habits like meditation and reading. I intentionally set the bar low to make having consistency as effortless as possible.
Working out
The first positive habit I aimed to re-introduce was working out daily. This is because this single habit has an awesome domino effect with improving my overall energy levels and mental welbeing. I found that whenever I have a good workout, I feel more energised, so I think clearer, which means I'm less likely to impulsively binge on Oreos, and healthy food means better mood.
Final thoughts
Be patient
It's been over 4 months since I fell into the initial stage of burnout, and I haven't yet bounced back 100% from it. Recovering from burnout has been a slow process for me and I've slipped up a few times, but that's okay.
It's not all bad
The burnout I experienced undeniably sucked. However, it was also a valuable learning lesson for me. It taught me how to balance work with other aspects of life to maintain good welbeing.
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