Do you ever feel like you just can't create anymore?
Well that can be one of the signs of burnout.
Hey everybody, my name is Kati Morton and I'm a licensed therapist and fellow creator.
I have a mental health channel here on YouTube where I educate about
all things related to your mental health.
Today, I'm here to talk about burnout. What is it? Where did it come from?
But before we can even consider what to change or how to stop the burnout
we need to know what warning signs to look out for.
And the first is, do you feel constantly tired or fatigued
no matter how much sleep you get?
Or maybe you're unable to get a full night's sleep.
Do you wake up a lot, feel really stressed, struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep?
These are all things that we should start noticing.
The second is, do you ever feel resentful to your audience
or your followers, for them wanting more content from you
or asking where you've been? Is that really frustrating?
Do you find yourself resenting those comments?
And the third is something that you may need to take some time
and journal about or just think about, is do you feel that the rewards you receive
from your job and the hard work you put in, do you feel like they're equal to the amount
of effort that it takes?
And the fourth and final warning sign is, do you ever feel ineffective at your job
or like at this point you should have accomplished more?
Do you find yourself feeling like you're just not doing enough?
The interesting thing about the term burnout is that it didn't exist until 1974
when a psychologist by the name of Herbert Freudenberger noticed that
all of his volunteers at a free clinic in New York City
were experiencing the same symptoms.
And what Herbert realised after interviewing a ton of his volunteers
he learned that the stress of their job was simply more than they were able to manage
and therefore, they were feeling completely burned out.
Burnout occurs most when the rewards or recognition
that we may get from working so hard don't outweigh the pressure that we feel
from the job.
And I truly believe that YouTube creators as a whole, we will struggle the most
with work-life balance.
There are some specific things that as creators, we would struggle with most
and I believe would lead us to burnout more quickly than others
and the first is the pressure to create regardless of how we feel or how we're doing.
I've had many friends in the YouTube space, and myself included, create when we're sick.
I remember making videos a few months ago where I even struggled to have a voice
because I'd been coughing for like three weeks
when I really should have been resting.
The second issue is focusing on the numbers.
A lot of us are controlled by numbers, whether that's subscribers
whether that's views, whether that's likes, whether that's shares.
There's so many things that we're monitoring all the time
and analytics that we're digging through to try to figure out how well we're doing.
And the third reason I believe YouTube creators
are more predisposed to burnout is that the internet never sleeps
therefore we often don't either.
We can try doing live streams or posting videos and posting content
in general at all sorts of different times.
This can be really difficult for us to find a work-life balance
when maybe we're trying to do a live stream at like 2 in the morning.
The fourth reason is we can get criticism for content we put out after spending hours
working on it.
I know that I personally have misspoken in a video
where instead of saying three days, I said a week and people were so angry
and my comments were just filled with people telling me how stupid I was
and how I shouldn't have been creating, that's really difficult.
And the fifth and final reason that I believe creators are more likely to experience burnout
is because we're in an ever-changing land.
The digital space is always shifting.
Adding in new tools, taking things away
adding a whole new platform, taking a platform away
things are always changing, therefore it can be really difficult for us
to find ways to feel rewarded when things are always shifting.
So therefore the pressure of the job continues
while the reward and recognition maybe doesn't.
There are obviously going to be a lot more warning signs out there.
Let me know if there's one that I forgot that you know you've experienced yourself
leave it in the comments and let us know, but just take some time this week to notice
which of these affect you the most.
Is there one that you find coming up over and over and over again?
Start considering it, because the first step to us improving our life
and stopping burnout altogether is just noticing how it's affecting us today.
If after watching this video, you're concerned that maybe you struggle with burnout too
don't worry, you're not alone, so many creators go through this
at different points in their career.
But the good news is that my next video is all about
how to recover from burnout and to prevent it from continuing to happen.
So make sure you're subscribed and have those notifications turned on
and I'll see you then.