January 7, 2022

January is such an interesting time of year for me. Between the return-to-work post-holidays and the new year’s resolutions beginning, everything feels go-go-go, but I’m feeling no-no-no. I’m tired! There’s a lot to get done at the end of a year, and holidays are not as restful as the commercials and TV specials make you think. Come January 1st, I am usually totally, completely burnt out.

Burnout is a very real danger that can happen to anyone at any time. Life experiences, sudden changes, even good things can cause us to get burnt out on our passions. I encounter burnout every year in January, and I have had it before due to other, less fun circumstances. My personal experience going through burnout and its subsequent recovery taught me how to approach and move through burnout so it doesn’t become a debilitating time in life. Instead, I learned we can actually use burnout to our advantage.

Expect to Burn Out

Most of us don’t keep a weather eye on the horizons of life looking for the pitfalls, so burnout takes us by surprise. The less attractive fact of life is that it is not perfect. Life has ups and downs, and there is nothing we can do to stop the downs from coming.

I learned this lesson the hard way. As a writer, I am part of the “Publish or Perish” group of professionals, and I spend the vast majority of my time seeking after publication with everything I’ve got. It took me three years of hard work and rejection before I earned my first publication, and I was ecstatic. But when the next project came, I suddenly felt unmotivated, depressed, and unable to be creative despite having just received long-awaited success. I was shocked by how empty I felt. I thought I had lost my passion for writing and wasted years of work.

There was a lot going on in my life alongside my work toward publication, not the least of which being a massive medical emergency, and I now know I hadn’t lost my passion for writing, and I certainly didn’t need to throw away all my dreams. I was burnt out, and the surprise of it sent me spiraling into uncertainty and listlessness. I had to scramble to take charge of my response if I ever hoped to recover.

Don’t Stop Working

The greatest temptation when facing burnout is to make a full-stop and cut out what hurt you. Sometimes, this is a good idea. Breaks, vacations, pauses, cleanses—all are good, but all should be temporary. Burnout leaves us feeling so empty, tired, hurt, and scared that it can feel good, almost necessary, to extend the break and make the pause permanent.

I do not recommend this. Full-stops, the longer they go on, make it really difficult to go back. And the longer you stay away from your work, the more your skills deteriorate. That medical emergency and subsequent burnout led me to take a one-month break from a novel project. One month turned to two, then four, then an entire year. When I finally returned to my project, I had to re-acquaint myself with the story, my characters, ideas, how to even write a novel, and much of the work had to begin from scratch because I just didn’t have the same connection to my story I had before.

I consider myself lucky in that experience. My full-stop didn’t lead to a total loss. But there are projects I abandoned from burnout that I know I will never pick up again because too much time has gone by without working and practicing my skills with them.

Make a Lateral Move

It’s really hard to keep working when you are burned out. The work that burned you out is an unattractive, sometimes even unhealthy, option to go back to. However, even though you are burned out from your work, you usually aren’t burned out from your skills and passion. So, instead of dropping all work completely in an unfettered break, make a lateral move within your skillset.

This is how I made it through my burnout. After my medical emergency brought me low and made writing novels very difficult, I began to explore flash fiction. I used my already present skills to teach myself the structure, and I kept my love for fiction nurtured by writing flash stories of all genres. I didn’t move away from who I was as a person or what I loved to do. I just expanded so I could move away from the burnout while still exercising my passion.

In the end, a lateral move gave me the space and time to recover and return to my work in a healthy manner. I also gained new interests and skills that I could take with me into future success. My second publication credit, earned in the midst of my burnout, was a flash fiction piece.

No one wants to burn out. It isn’t healthy, and it isn’t fun. But it also isn’t the end. Nothing in life is 100% perfect 100% of the time. Even your passions will burn you out eventually. But instead of wallowing in our burnout or using it as an excuse to give up on something we love, let’s use the time as an opportunity to grow as professionals and people. We’ve all been through a lot these past two years. So, if you’re feeling unmotivated this January and wondering why, check in with yourself, see if you need a break, and then schedule one. And while on break, discover something new to keep yourself occupied and ready to return to your other projects and passions when the time is right.