Burnout
It's a dangerous and scary word that has become more and more common in our fast-paced, work-oriented world.
Many of the heroes of western culture are those that
champion hustle and extreme drive.
Steve Jobs
Casey Neistat
Elon Musk
Our idea of success is tied to always being busy.
Doing whatever it takes.
But where's the limit?
Work now follows us everywhere through our laptops and our smartphones.
I can go pretty much anywhere in the world and stay connected
and that's something our parents couldn't do.
This is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
I've always been work oriented.
So I wanted to share with you what I'm doing to stay on track
and how to Avoid Burnout
By the way, I'm creating this piece as part of a collaboration with Chloé Kian
another fantastic content creator here on youtube.
So before I continue with this, let me give a little bit of context.
I'm the first generation of my family to be born in the united states.
Although my parents are immigrants and they came from a much poorer country,
they worked really hard their entire lives to construct what they have and give me a better life
and in many respects, this is the American Dream.
Work hard and you will obtain a better life.
I discovered the power of working really hard on something for the first time when I was in middle school.
I started to really push the boundaries of my school projects
and that's when I realised that the more I put in, the more that I got out of it.
In fact, the more that I put into anything in life, I feel like the more I get out of it.
For better or worse, working hard became a part of my identity,
it was my way of standing out, of beating the kids that were stronger or faster than me on the playground.
The thing is, this is a real grey area, I've pushed things too far before.
Right now I'm in crush mode and I'm putting everything I've got into this project of creating content online
so that I can make a living doing this.
Many of you may feel the same way:
starting a business, or any new venture for that matter, requires a lot in the beginning
This project is giving flavour and colour and meaning to my life.
What this means is that my life is very imbalanced right now.
I'm hardly going out, I'm not really trying to make new friends because I don't have the time.
That's how important this is to me.
But let me ask you: Do I seem unhappy?
I feel like I've just entered one of the most exhilarating and fulfilling periods in my entire life.
The thing is, work/life balance is this really abstract concept that means different things for each and everyone of us.
Some of us were meant to be employed, OK, and there's no shame in that.
The world needs those people.
I'm just not one of those people.
If I had a 9-5 job I know for certain that I would go into a state of burnout in no time.
There's a simple equation that I use to keep tabs on how I'm doing.
Here's how it looks in my head:
Joy minus drain equals current state of wellbeing.
Ok, so let me break this down a little bit.
Joy is the enthusiasm that I feel in my life.
It's what I feel when I tell stories that matter to me and when I connect with people.
This is the fuel that runs my entire life.
Ok, without this I'm nothing.
Seriously, without joy, I would be depressed, aimless and avoid of purpose.
Now, joy is like a flame that you carry within you
and just like a flame: you've got to maintain it, or it'll go out.
The things that reduce the strength of my joy are what I call drain.
These are things that you hate doing,
people that you hate being around
and any time that you neglect to take care of yourself.
We all have to deal with things in life,
but it is when drain starts to outweigh joy that you have to be really carefull.
This can happen silently,
but if you have good habits like meditation or journaling, you can feel it coming.
And that is why these are such important habits to have.
Now, doing what I do fills me with immense amounts of joy.
I don't care about the fact that I'm making less money than I used to.
It's completely worth it.
Practically nothing in life makes happier than to create these pieces and to put my voice out there.
I've gotten really good at removing negative or manipulative people from my life,
I had to learn that kinda the hard way through some rough experiences,
but that's why my social circle is so small.
The missing piece for me has always been taking care of myself.
In the past, I wasn't so careful. I realised that I would treat others better than I would treat myself
and that's not a good habit to have.
Society has romanticized this as if it were a good thing
and it isn't ok, that's a quick way to burn out.
I'll give you an example, ok.
I don't know when this happened but people started deciding it was ok to cut back on sleep for the hustle or the grind.
However, I discovered that sleep, for me, is non-negotiable.
Eight is my magic number.
If I can get 8 hours a night, I'm good.
I can dip below that for a day or two,
but more than that, if I start to push things,
chinks start to appear in my emotional armour.
Doubts and negative thoughts are to pop up.
I used to think sleep was the least productive part of my day,
but after reading the book 'Why we sleep' by Matthew Walker
I realised I could not have been more wrong
sleep is crazy important for our health, our memory, our energy, our positivity, creativity, humour, the list goes on.
Look, that's just me, I learned that this is how I operate.
We all have our differences and the only way to figure out what works for you
is by experimenting intentionally.
That means that sometimes, you might get a little bit offtrack and cross a line,
but that's ok, that's part of the process.
The key, I think, is to remember that life is a marathon, it's not a sprint.
I really want to perform at a high level for decades to come,
so I'm ok with pacing myself.
I'm grinding right now. I'm making sacrifices,
but I'm abusing myself by depriving myself the things that I know I need.
Like I said at the beginning of the video,
this is a piece that I'm doing in collaboration with Chloé Kian.
She's a wonderful person and does amazing work on topics like sustainability and minimalism among other things.
She has a video on this topic on her channel
and I think it's kind of cool to see the female perspective.
So, if you're interested, go check it out
There'll be a link to that down below.
If you'd like to see more videos of mine, hit the subscribe button and the bell for notifications when I upload.
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and a patreon page where you can support this project
and get excess to exclusive content like bonus material or behind the scenes.
I continue to add new content on there every month.
Alright, thanks for watching.
Feel free for adding any tips for avoiding burnout down in the comments below and I'll see you soon.