The Time in My Life When I Was the Happiest
The roles of purpose and mission in overcoming burnout
I wish that I could share with you today that I’m feeling great, that things are awesome and that I’m conquering my burnout. That was at least my goal when I started this newsletter: to share with you how I’m growing, how I’m improving and getting closer to fully conquering my burnout. But I guess if things were okay, I wouldn’t have anything to learn about and fix.
In this article I’ll be talking about difficult periods and the role that purpose and mission have in our lives and our ability to overcome our burnout.
My difficult periods
In the last half a year, I had a lot of difficult periods, more than prior to that.
Like I talked in my first introductory post since I burned out in late 2017 I’ve had a lot of those periods of low lows. With time I slowly learned more about myself and my condition and was able to have less of those difficult periods.
But then in the beginning of November of last year I experienced another big episode of burnout and it kind of put me back to the beginning of my burnout journey. Since then I’ve had more of those difficult periods.
My last week was, just though… My mind doesn’t stop searching for answers and causes for why I’ve had so many bad days with malaise and why I’ve been feeling so bad and worse than usual.
It’s a really strange feeling… I’ve been feeling like I’ve lost myself and my direction in life a bit. I’ve been having a lot of doubts about my current life and the path that I’ve made for myself. I’ve been lacking the sense of joy, passion, meaning and purpose for why I do what I do, but also the motivation and drive to keep going and keep pushing forward.
And when I lose the sense of passion, joy, mission and purpose for my life, my burnout, depression and anxiety come crippling back, they haunt me and make my life hell.
In these difficult periods I go back in time and think about the times when I felt the happiest.
The time is my life when I was the happiest
Looking back, my happiest periods were definitely when I was fully engaged in a big project and working towards an important goal.
The months between spring and summer of 2020 when I was writing and finishing my thesis on the history of nutrition. The months of lockdown in late 2020 when I was building my home gym and writing my first blog posts and newsletters. The spring of 2019 when I was working on and leading my first independent project.
The latter remained in my memory the most.
I can still remember the feeling that passion and purpose gave me when I was working on my first individual project back in 2019. Me — as a founder and team leader — and three other friends hosted a series of four workshops about healthy nutrition, sport supplementation, healthy lifestyle and relaxation techniques to optimize sport performance for young athletes in my hometown. Even though it was a voluntary project and we didn’t do it for the money, during and after the project I felt rejuvenated. I felt like I found a new gear in me that I didn’t know existed.
I remember being in my bathtub after one of the workshops and thinking to myself: “I’ve been working a lot more than usual and I haven’t burned out. Quite the opposite, I’m full of energy, I’m motivated and I’m feeling great.” Since I felt so good and full of energy, I also started going back to the gym and working out. I was feeling on top of the world: I really thought that I conquered my burnout and my health conditions that had bothered me for about a year and half at that point.
But it also came as a huge shock and disappointment when problems recurred after the project ended and I returned to my “old life”. I still remember that being one of the most difficult periods of my life until then.
The importance of mission and purpose
During the last year I’ve been lacking the sense of purpose, passion and mission, the motivation, drive and the energy and wellbeing that they consequently bring. I really miss it!
Why is having a strong sense of mission and purpose even important? Because studies have shown that having a strong sense of purpose in mission lowers life stress, anxiety and even depression.
Also, like Nietzsche talks about in the quote I put above, when you have a strong sense of mission and purpose, you have a strong why and reason to live for, it’s much easier to overcome any struggle you face in we feel empowered to overcome anything.
Maybe it’s also because when we’re fully engaged in the pursuit of the goal, we don’t think about other things — ie. problems with our health, well-being or burnout — because our focus is entirely on the goal and project we work on. And as the law of attraction says
“You create more of what you think about.”
That’s certainly the case for me. If my mind is free and has time and space to wander, it goes to my problems and tries to figure them out, but consequently those problems will intensify and get bigger.
So recently I have wondered a lot about how to create more of those feelings of purpose, passion and happiness in my everyday life and use them to my advantage?
I’m planning on doing a more detailed blog post about passion, purpose and mission because I believe this is one of the most important things that we can use to overcome and conquer our burnout, so stay tuned for that.
The next big audacious goal
Rick Alexander talks about this idea that you want a struggle that is worth your time, because that struggle will make you find and pull out of you the best version of yourself and will help you pull you forwards in life. The bigger and meaningful the struggle is, the more you’ll be forced to show up and operate with your best capabilities.
So me right now I really need a big goal: a big challenge and project, something that will scare the sh*t out of me, but also something that I will truly believe in. Something that will make my heart sing. Something that will serve the world and benefit people around me. Something that will get me out of bed in the morning just by thinking about it — these last few days it was so hard to get out of bed in the morning!
I have two project ideas in mind.
The first one is the one that has been with me for almost a year now: to create the best burnout course out there to help people overcome and recover from burnout.
Lately I have been a bit discouraged and thinking to myself “Who would ever buy the course? I don’t have a huge following and I’m really not good at marketing, promotion and audience building. I will never make it.”
And this way of thinking has been holding me back.
From now on, my primary focus will be to work on and build the course and share extracts from it with you. I’ll try not to focus so much on if my articles are getting views, if my social media content is getting engagement and if my audience is growing.
Because in the end, if I’ll be able to help even 10 people who would buy my course to improve their lives and help them overcome their burnout, that will be enough: I will have been of service to others, I will have positively impacted the world and will have helped make it a better place.
My goal is to launch the course by the autumn, so late 2022 — we’ll see how it goes.
So from here on, I’ll be writing and publishing more content on how to overcome burnout and recovery from it: I’ll be focusing on a holistic approach and four pillars of health and burnout. More on that soon, so stay tuned!
If you know anyone who might benefit from the content, please share this newsletter with them. I’ll be grateful from the bottom of my heart!
