What Happens When You Lose Motivation and Burn Out?
Stop pushing through drudgery and monotony.
There’s something especially daunting about working while you feel burnt out. No matter how hard you try to focus, you can’t seem to find any motivation. Instead, you cycle through fatigue, self-loathing, and frustration. Anytime you do actually manage to work and stop procrastinating, it makes you feel even worse.
There is an absurdity in the repetitive tasks we need to do over and over again. It reminds me of a tragic figure in Greek mythology named Sisyphus, a mortal who betrayed the gods. Through his misplaced confidence, he believed he could outsmart even Zeus.
Hades, the god of the underworld, devised a frustrating punishment. Sisyphus would need to roll a massive boulder up a hill. Hades enchanted the boulder to roll away just before reaching the top. Sisyphus was doomed to repeat this useless, frustrating task for eternity. I sometimes wonder how Sisyphus could continue despite extreme exhaustion and repetition.
Unlike Sisyphus, our brains aren’t wired for these types of tasks. We burn out. We scream at our laptops and briefly consider defenestrating them. We lie down because we can’t force ourselves to get up and keep working. Cognitive neuroscience now provides us a better understanding of this…
