5 Things Burnout Taught Me
Posted Oct 30, 2023
It was on the back of the most productive work period I had ever had. I was highly motivated to go out into the world and make my mark. In hindsight, I'd describe my approach to work as fanatical. I worked and worked and worked some more. First I cut out meal times. Breakfast? Who needs that? Then it was lunch. Can't humans survive just fine on one meal a day anyway?
I stopped seeing friends. I decided to put all relationships on ice. I was on a mission. I decided that I should just go from dawn until dusk, seven days a week with no distractions.
And like all stories of burnout, it worked sensationally well... until it didn't.
I had been invited to Prague by a client right in the middle of summer and planned out a particularly brutal work schedule -- 11 days of work from dawn to dusk. I was just about to get stuck in, but something felt seriously wrong.
I'm not exactly sure what the final straw was, but my energy levels had vanished overnight. Everything ground to a halt physically and mentally. I could barely make it to the grocery store a few blocks away. At my best, I could think clearly for an hour or so a day. I wasn't able to function properly for a little over three months, but that wasn't all. During this period I kept getting sick. Flu, ear infection, food poisoning, foot issues, hand issues, and on and on it went. As a relatively healthy person, this left me dumbfounded. There were many doctor and hospital visits, but the general conclusion was always the same: I had burned myself out.
I was fortunate that when I was in my frenzy of work, I had put enough aside to live frugally and make ends meet until I was back on my feet.
It seems that these kinds of work spurts are absolutely fine just as long as they're a short sprint with a good amount of recovery time -- think college exams or anything with a fixed, imminent deadline.
But having short sprints as a core foundation of your lifestyle is not a recipe for long-term success. You wouldn't expect to run a sprint in the same way you'd run a marathon. And that was where I went wrong.
I learned that getting the balance right as a remote entrepreneur is the real challenge of the lifestyle. You don't answer to anyone but yourself, and it's up to you to design a bespoke work structure.
Here are five takeaways from my experience.
If you work beyond your limits, remember that good rest isn't going to be an option once you're finished. I learned this one the hard way, by completely ignoring any limits I had. Sheer willpower only takes you so far.
Overworking means you'll get less done in the long term, not more. It's an awful long-term strategy. I'm living proof of this; I thought that I could do more both right now and in the future, but I've learned that I have to choose.
Find people to keep you accountable and keep them close. Reach out to family or find a local group to keep you on track. There are often groups of entrepreneurs, expats, and others to keep you grounded when you're abroad. For me, family and a few close friends are working wonders. This is how I keep a work-life balance that works long-term now.
Stay in one place for a while to recuperate. I've seen countless entrepreneurs succumb to the temptations of travel while building their businesses. They want to see and do it all. But you're not on holiday, so slow down and don't rush yourself. When I was in Prague with burnout, it would, of course, have been great to do all of the fun, tourist activities during the enforced downtime. But the truth is, it was a terrible time to try and tick anything off of a bucket list or to get the most out of my time. That was how I ended up with such severe burnout in the first place.
Delegate as much as possible, as quickly as possible to start removing obligations from your life. I get it -- your business is your baby, with thousands of hours of effort, love, and dedication poured into it -- but it's time to slow down. If you're already on the edge, all you can decide is whether to start using the brakes or crash. I'm now much more wary of how much I'm doing each day. I remind myself -- often verbally -- that treating work as a marathon instead of a sprint means that I'll go much further. I know you believe you'd do the work better, but having it done well enough is all you'll need if you're close to burnout. And who knows? You might find certain members of your workforce standing on the sidelines, eager to help.