I wish I had $1 for every time someone warned me about the signs of burnout. As an entrepreneur, I have seen, time after time, what happens when you don’t prioritize your self-care or your mental health while trying to run a business. For many like me, who also have day jobs, there is a constant battle of burning the candle at both ends, in the day focusing on building someone else’s dream, while spending your afternoons, your nights, and your weekends building on yours. There is no blueprint on how to deal with burnout.
This doesn’t even take into account everything else that goes on in your life, whether it’s balancing family, friends, social life, hobbies, sleep, and whatever else may come your way. Surprisingly enough, I was able to get through 2020, without a lot of burnout. Maybe it was the intentional decision every day to force myself to do something to get out of a rut. Or perhaps it’s the hypersensitivity of knowing that you have to push yourself so that you don’t necessarily get sick. All of that came to a halt in 2021, a year that I undeniably thought would be better than the year prior.
But turned out to be a year that tested me in all ways possible. I won’t get into the semantics of it. But 2021 has done a lot for me. Whether it’s been job insecurity, as the variants continue to morph, it’s the shaping of a business and trying to figure out where exactly you fall in this new space. It’s not being valued, perhaps by colleagues, co-workers, or even companies who want your voice as a Black influencer or a Black content creator, but don’t want to pay you your worth. It’s also moments where you don’t get to be with your family, because you live in another state.
Or you’re getting calls and every single time you talk to your parents, someone has died or gotten sick, or there has been an accident. The people closest to me have had surgeries, suffered horrific casualties, lost loved ones, and, unfortunately, have struggled to preserve physical health. All of that takes an effect on an empath, like me.
And most recently, I’ve had to learn how to step back, as I have been able to identify the sure signs of intense burnout in my life.
So you might be asking, how does one cure burnout? Or is it something that you just wait around and hope well, eventually, burn out. While I am no expert, I can only share a few tips that I have learned along the way as to how I am tackling the burnout I am currently experiencing.
The first thing on how to deal with burnout is you have to get organized.
This is coming from someone who wants to live in a world where there is just creativity. And I never have to worry about numbers or figures or quantifiable data. However, that’s not the world we live in. When I experienced burnout, one of the first things I noticed was my inability, inability to think and process, and remember everything. Although I am someone who has always written things down, it is essential to have one isolated place where you can keep all of your tasks to complete or something to do.
For me, that involved creating an editorial calendar for my website, and podcast, making sure that I know every step of the pipeline, whether it was coming ideation, whether a story had gone live, or it had been posted on social media. Of course, there is a bit of a learning curve, especially if you’re not used to working in system apps or even on an Excel sheet.
But what I will say is that there is no technical right or wrong answer to this. It’s simply about figuring out what works for you. For me, my content calendar is pretty simple. But it is color-coded.
I have noticed that simply doing that allows me to get everything out of my head and onto paper. It allows me to rest a little more, knowing that I won’t forget something because it is written down.
Number two, it’s imperative just to know when to walk away.
This is by far the hardest thing for me to do. I constantly want to hop in and help out and assign and edit and take on more. I always have this idea that just one more moment won’t hurt anyone. But in reality, it’s pulling me a lot. By never shutting down, never powering off, never instituting boundaries, I find myself constantly accessible to my team, family, friends, and loved ones.
I’ve even had to learn how to put up boundaries between my significant other and my dogs.
When you are experiencing burnout, you might feel the desire to keep pushing, hoping that the little things will actually bring you joy, and therefore won’t tire you out. But it’s essential to put the phone down and cut the laptop off. And designate time to just rest and relax, whatever that may mean for you. For me, that has included shutting off by a particular time every night and honing in on my prayer and meditation throughout the day. But, of course, it doesn’t necessarily mean I will never break my own rules.
But it means that I know that I have established those rules for my safety.
Last and certainly not least, you need to have quiet time.
As I mentioned in the last note, I have taken my prayer and meditation much more seriously. I designate a specific time every day to just sit and meditate for 10 to 20 minutes. Sometimes I’m able to do up to 30 minutes. But even if I can’t, I know that at least 10 minutes of my day will be dedicated to me, quieting my mind and focusing on what’s going on internally. You would be so surprised as to what your body will tell you if you just listen to it.
But so often, we are constantly running and going that we never have time just to sit and listen. Download an app, or pull up videos on YouTube if you need help with starting your meditation practice. Even though I have meditated on and off for quite a few years, I still find guided meditations to work best because I can focus on what the person is saying and less on me trying to talk to myself. I also find that it is sometimes tough to encourage yourself or excite yourself up in moments of burnout.
So instead of trying to pull something out of thin air, you can easily depend on someone else who will guide you through and give you a solid start, middle, and end. I have loved meditation. And I have honestly found that it has changed and adjusted how I even think about myself and how I show up in my business. It’s not a trick, and it’s not magic. It’s simply about rewiring your brain to focus on the positive, to give yourself time to rest, to thank yourself for the process. And most importantly, to remember that tomorrow has the potential to be better than today.
I will be taking a break very soon as I rest and regroup and figure out what is next for me in my chapter with my work as a content creator. So these are the things that I am putting into practice to empower and better myself. But these are also things that I want to introduce to other Black and brown content creators out there who might be feeling a bit of burnout as we continue to go through this year and prepare for the remaining quarters. So what are some of your best tips for how to deal with burnout?
I would love to hear them.
