Oct 24, 2019
Passion Can Cloud Your Own Judgement. A Story About Burnout.
If you were to pick up my 2019 journal and scroll back to January 3, 2019, the words on the paper would read: Work for a startup brand and establish meaningful relationships along the way.
With my goals in place, the next step was to establish and focus my passion on this thing called… social media.
Exiting your comfort zone is one of many cliche’s we hear on the road to something bigger. During this life-long process, we tend not to look back too much; we avoid taking a step back to let ourselves rest.
I fell into this trap. I avoided the five day work week and pushed seven. The feeling of waking up every day and working towards a future you’re not yet certain of- that’s what excites me. This feeling devours you, dilutes the rest of the world- tunnel vision towards a common goal.
This new version of you may sound thrilling(it is), but pursue carefully.
This is a story about burnout.
9 months of grit… and it took only took two weeks and a series of bad decisions to reach burnout. Everything in this story may not relate to you, but understand when receiving advice, see what pieces you can take from it.
My typical workday went like this: rise by 6 am, drink a bottle of water, snack on a granola bar, and head over to work. My commute consists of a 45-minute train ride to New York City. On the train, as you can imagine, gives me two options, work or sleep.
I chose work, not cause I had to, but because I loved to.
As a social media intern, my job required me to work on my laptop for a long period of time. Picture a hunched over kid staring at every last pixel. During my shift, I was content with eating one meal and a few cups of coffee. After the shift, I had to endure my long commute back home. I had to withstand delays and unpredictable weather. Depending on the time I get out of work, I got home around 930. This process went on for months- I loved every minute of it.
Of course, I didn’t mention my habits in-between. I read about 6 newsletters a day, read whatever was on the NYC bestseller list, listened to an hour of podcasts, all while chasing my side hustle.
Recently, I discovered a new passion- coding. A whole new ball game. With so much clutter and a handful of ideas running through my mind, I had to start journaling on a daily. This allowed me to check myself day in and day out.
The scary thing was, everything written in my journal sounded good, in reality, it was a story about breaking point.
On the eight-month, the pressure of getting things on-time started to pile up. My eating habits were catching up on me, I gained weight. My sleeping habits were starting to fluctuate.
My creativity was deteriorating. As for my eating habits, well, it wasn’t much of a booster either.
Everything seemed bright to me. I loved what I was doing but for some reason, I burned out.
The danger of passions spell is distinguishing between the good and the bad. My confidence clouded my overall judgment. The scary thing is, the whole time I thought I was okay. Everything had to me hit me at once in order for me to realize I was not healthy. To discover what was wrong, I had to take a step back.
Lessons.
- Balance. Everyone preaches hustle, not too many talk self-care. In order for you to keep your momentum going, taking a day off is key. Use this time to sync back into reality. There’s a fine point between reality and radical, its nice to touch reality every now and then.
- Foods contain chemicals and your body reacts to them in a certain way, watch what you put into your body because, over time, it will affect you.
- When chasing passion, don’t bounce from one project to another. Live in the present, and finish what you started.
- Keep a journal. We all have quick doses of inspiration. Your journal is your friend, it follows and remembers your thoughts wherever you go.
As of right now, I’m retracing my steps. Though I feel motivated at some points of the day, the execution is just not there. My first step is to throw away my to-do list. By focusing on three tasks a day, I know for sure that I can sync back into my groove. My hours of reading newsletters and listening to podcasts have been limited. For now, I’ll only listen to media that both educates and inspires me at the same time.
Yes, this is a set-back but remember this, take small steps towards a bigger goal.
