Creative burnout creeps up on us and can pose as exhaustion, procrastination, irritability, and self doubt.
When in reality our minds are begging us for a break!
A much needed break to mentally refresh and make us miss our craft.
Because ignoring burnout will only add to your stress, lower your confidence, and make “powering” through it, your best friend.
That’s why it’s time to say “bye!” to creative burnout with these 5 easy steps.
1. Get riding of the hustle culture mentality
Studies tell us that overworking yourself actually makes you less productive and more miserable.
Especially as creative individuals, our ideas tend to reveal themselves in the calmer moments.
For instance:
Do your best ideas come when your in the shower / on a walk / etc.?
That’s because we’re isolated from all the distractions, giving our ideas room to manifest.
2. Take frequent breaks
“Taking breaks helps prevent tunnel vision. You’ll more easily see simple solutions to problems and won’t get caught up in spending excessive time on unimportant things.
Dr Boyes
Have you ever had an important deadline to reach and suddenly find yourself sitting doing nothing for 5 hours straight?
I know I’ve been there, trying to push through that exhaustion.
Yet just by taking a 3-5 minute break every hour, remembering to move, drinking water ( or a quick snack) regains focus, energy, and helps us to see the bigger picture.
3. Get organized
Combat creative burnout by making a plan on your intention for the week, then setting actionable tasks based on that.
By setting intentions we are making a commitment to how we want to show up in our day, no matter what.
4. Set boundaries
We set boundaries for ourselves because we love and respect ourselves.
The boundaries we set for ourselves our unique and personal to our own situations but a few examples could be:
- Sticking to a budget
- Limiting social media usage
- Not working past a certain time
5. Advocate for yourself
“We have this myth that creativity is this explosion of some inner, self-generating new wonderfulness we do all on our own. But, creativity is much more social than that.”
Creativity is collaborating new ideas, discussing our perspective, challenging each other’s different concepts, and most importantly it’s getting support from each other when we need it the most.
When you voice your struggles instead of allowing them to build up, you allow others to listen in to your perspective, and provide you the support you need in order to perform effectively and happily at your craft.
THE TAKEAWAY
To saying bye to creative burnout remember too:
- overworking doesn’t equal hard work
- taking breaks to re-energize throughout our day
- setting tasks for the week with intention
- setting boundaries