WHETHER it be in school or at work, it’s almost inevitable to experience burnout at least once in your life.
As explained by the website Help Guide, ‘burnout’ is a state a person reaches wherein they feel extremely exhausted physically, emotionally, as well as mentally, often caused by stress.
“You feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands,” says Help Guide, and as a result of this, you often feel disinterested and unmotivated to do anything work-related.
As someone who’s been writing almost their entire life, there have been many occasions wherein I’ve felt this phenomenon – like giving up entirely. I hated everything I wrote, and any time I did manage to write something, I’d spent hours reading and re-reading it, picking apart each grammatical error or poorly worded sentence. In the end, I’d just scrap it, then go back to not writing it because I never liked anything I put out anyway.
For a long time, I thought to myself: what was the point?
But I got out of that rut eventually. In time, I started to write more and more, starting with short notes on my phone and then moving on to full-on 1, 000-word articles and 15-page scripts. When you start digging that hole, for a while you’ll feel as if you’ll never be able to get out of it. But eventually, when you look hard enough – when you try hard enough – you’ll manage to find a rope.
If you’re looking for ways to battle your burnout, here are some pieces of advice I’ve gotten over the years that have helped me through even my darkest of times.
- Take some time to refresh.
I know the term ‘self-care’ has been said to death over the years, but it really is a necessity in getting out of a rut. Any kind of neglect – be it physical or mental – is inevitably going to take a toll on you, so even if some people may see it as unnecessary, remember that there are times when you need to do what you know is best for you.
If your work permits it, take a day or two off to focus solely on yourself. Watch a movie, go to an overpriced coffee shop and take photos for your Instagram story, or buy something that you’ve been looking at forever without feeling bad about spending money on yourself for once. No matter what you may think, you deserve it.
And if you can’t afford to lose a day at work, there are tons of small things that you can do to help the days pass quicker. You can order your favorite meal for lunch at the office, or arrange a get-together with your friends when you clock out so you can have something to look forward to later that day.
It may not seem like it, but there is so much to look forward to in the world: food to try, places to be, and people to meet. As corny as it is, it truly is about finding the beauty in things to help you appreciate everything a tiny bit more.
- Force yourself into it, but start small.
Once while I was struggling with burnout, I remember opening up to my friend about my feelings of tiredness, and how I’d stopped writing almost completely because, to me, nothing that came out of my head was ever good anyway.
After opening up to him, he seemed to be in a state of disbelief, especially when I mentioned the fact that I was no longer writing. As a fellow creative, he lectured me on the importance of continuing to hone your craft, even on the days that you don’t feel like doing so; how else are you meant to sharpen your blade otherwise?
A piece of advice that he left with me that helped me out a lot as a writer was to try to write something at least once a day. It didn’t matter if it was a sentence short; as long as I was creating things, he told me that it counted.
If you’re a writer like me or have hobbies similar to it like art or music, I know that one hard thing is figuring out what to create. With this, something you can do is search for prompts online.
There’s Inktober if you’re an artist, for example, and for writers, I’d recommend looking at writer Savannah Brown’s Escapril writing prompts, which I make use of even when said month has long passed. If you do enough research online, there’s sure to be something for everything, regardless of what your craft may be.
- Don’t be too hard on yourself.
During these times of burnout, it’s inevitable to feel the guilt start creeping in when you find yourself wasting your days away doing nothing but binge-watching your favorite series or hanging out with your friends instead of getting to the long list of things you need to do for work.
In these times of self-depreciation, it’s important to remember that it was never your choice to feel this way; no one wants to feel burnt out. But when you do things over and over again without even feeling any bout of happiness whilst doing them, how can you not start to go insane?
No matter how hard it may be to believe, it’s okay to sometimes lose interest in the things you’re doing, even if you once loved those things.
And remember: you’re not alone in what you’re feeling. Trust me when I say that there are probably a handful of people at your office or at your school who feel the same way that you do. After all, in the Philippines, around 70% of Gen Zs experience burnout due to workload demands, which is a great deal higher than the global average.
Remember that this will pass. You’re only human, after all, not a robot. And even robots break down sometimes. Why can’t you?
