Link to full podcast: https://soundcloud.com/heelhang/the-artists-circle-burnout
“The No. 1 cause of burnout is doing the same thing over and over again and not seeing results.” - Steve Kaczmarski
Prompt:
Everyone in every discipline encounters burnout. There are many strategies for coping with burnout, but I’m more interested in preventing it. So, for this week, I’d like to think of a time that we were truly burned out with our chosen craft, if we could feel it coming, what we did to work through it, and of course, what we learned from that experience.
My Answer:
I find my self approaching burnout all of the time. Over been doing what I am doing now for a long time in one way or another and if I’m not evolving I can feel burned out. So I make sure that I have plenty of space and time to think through why I feel the way that I do. I make small changes that don’t feel overwhelming and I make sure to take breaks when I need to.
Creative burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion around creative work. The symptoms can be hard to pinpoint, and the potential causes are many.
It’s normal for creativity to fluctuate depending on factors such as sleep and stress levels, creative burnout can easily fly under the radar, often masked by procrastination or other coping mechanisms.
Creative burnout can have a devastating impact on your mental health when it’s either your outlet, your therapy, or your career.
Signs of creative burnout:
Procrastination. Like with most things, a little is ok, a lot is something else.
Constant exhaustion. If physical exhaustion is sustained over a long period of time despite adequate sleep and rest, you may be burning out.
Inexplicable stress. Creative work can be stressful. But creative burnout can make you feel consistently stressed without any real cause.
Unhealthy comparisons. We are more connected than ever, and many creators follow the work of fellow creators online. Some creators are more productive than others, and this productivity generally ebbs and flows whether we see it or not.
Unbalanced content consumption. As a creator, it’s vital to balance your levels of creative input and creative output. When we burn out, we often find ourselves scrolling endlessly without creating much of our own work.
Irritability. You may be feeling frustrated with your colleagues, your peers or yourself. Being more temperamental than usual can be a symptom of creative burnout.
Self-doubt. Finally, you may also think that you will never be good enough, that your work is pointless. Even-though that is far from true.
Overcoming creative burnout, some suggestions:
Get support. Oftentimes, the first step in resolving an issue is to talk about it
Take a break. A real one.
Look at your past work.
Do something simple.
Prevention is always better than a cure. The best way to deal with burnout is to avoid burning out in the first place.
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