This past summer, burnout started trending as the lastest thing to come out about. It was happening in epidemic. Young youtubers everywhere were coming on their channels to talk about their burnout. A classic conundrum: “This is all I’ve ever wanted. Why am I so unhappy?”
It made it to the youtube channel of Philip DeFranco, which is a channel that my husband loves watching, which is, in turn, what brought it to my attention. In his video, Philip DeFranco talks about how it’s everywhere but he wasn’t experiencing it himself, which was good to know. He talked instead about how to avoid it. I appreciate his advice, and have some of my own to share, which I’ll jump in with shortly here. I’m going to half admit to burnout myself. I will say that I suffer from burnout in some areas, but have hit a resurge in other areas. Here’s my story and my two cents on the subject. I feel it’s an important topic to address for any artist, young or old.
I wouldn’t be surprised if burnout was inevitable for any artist of any type anywhere. According to this article here, there are three main types of burnout. I see them as (1) burnout due to overload, (2) burnout feeling lack of purpose/relevancy — lack of moving forward with what used to be your dream, and (3) burnout caused by lack of motivation to do what you know you need to do. I’m going to clump all three of these together.
For my own burnout example, I started this blog about 9 years ago. I started this blog in order to share topics I was passionate about in the aerial arts. I have written on many subjects over the years and have been so rewarded by the results and the community who has supported my writings. (Here’s the story of one woman who’s life course was influened because of one of my blogs! )
I’ve given a lot through these blogs and I feel like there’s just fumes left now. I feel complete burnout and exhaustion just even thinking of writing one more blog! I get a bit fuzzy when I sit down to try to write. I feel the fear questions rising: Will I still be relevant? Can I put coherent words together and match the standards of my previous blogs? Do I have the same energy? Is anyone even reading these anymore? Am I still fresh or am I really just old news?
THE NUMBERS LIE I TELL YOU
Social media puts the pressure on every artist to compare. It’s a numbers game. Who has the most likes? The most followers? Well, THEY must be the best. And I am not the best because my comments, my followers and numbers are low. That means I am not as valued. And the silly thing is that you feel the effects of this no matter how big your numbers get. Big and small Instagramers, etc, all suffer from the social media life-sucking powers. In fact, the larger the numbers, the more pressure you get!
HIDING FROM SOCIAL MEDIA WITH SOCIAL MEDIA
I recently started a private Instagram channel where I am letting only a few aerial friends follow me where I get out all my ranting and life-processing that needs to happen but I don’t want to go full social media with. The fact that it’s just for friends and family makes me feel really ok when there’s isn’t over 1,000 views! I feel like I can more appropriately share my balanced life which includes the ups and the downs, while just sharing the ups on my more public pages. This is something I’ve enjoyed doing to find balance within my social media sharing.
LOSING MOTIVATION
Here’s what one friend recently wrote to me, “Lately I’ve been feeling super bla about circus. Like, uninspired. I see all these videos with super strong, super flexible people, and it’s like ‘I just don’t fit that mold…..& I don’t know that I want to.’ It’s not a self-deprecating thing….it’s a lack of care. I’m just not sure what my goals would be in an Instagram industry. I don’t have any desire to try to be status quo, and I just don’t feel any excitement around circus anymore. No one here seems inspired to create weirdness; so it’s just me making art happen for other people. It’s just…..bla.”
Man, how I can relate to that! It’s ironic that one of the major suggestions to avoid burnout is to have creative outlets. Us artists doubly suffer when our burnout is coming from our creative outlet and we don’t have back-ups handy. Who has time to pick up another hobby when I’m overworked as it is? Arh!
Often times, we love aerial so much, we make it our job. We start performing or teaching or start a studio. That means that we are doing aerial all the time. And while we love it, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, where it becomes a bad thing. Even if we love doing aerial 24/7, it’s just not sustainable. Everyone needs breaks. Everyone also needs refreshment from other sources.
The thing that was first on my list to avoid burnout is identify what was causing me burnout and stop that immediately for the safety of my mental health. For me, that was blogging. I like blogging, and I feel that it was a necessary part of my job in order to get the word out about my books, my video library, and to get people to understand me, but I had to dramatically cut back. I felt — and still feel — that blogs are necessary to drive traffic and awareness to my resources. But, if I writing a blog than I am not writing a book. And for me, books are what I really want to do. There, I have surprisingly not felt any burnout. I feel driven like you wouldn’t believe. I feel the clock ticking and all I want to do is finish my books before I die — there are a lot of them!
BURNOUT CAUSES US TO LOSE SIGHT OF THE NARROW –I MEAN, BIG PICTURE — NO, I MEANT NARROW
Blogging helps to keep me connected to the general aerial community. It helps me to have a voice, and by stopping the blogs, I feel like I’ve pulled some sort of plug. And in fact, I have. But it needed to be done. I am doing my best to find contributing writers and others who can blog here instead (know anyone? how would you like to blog here?!), but it has been hard, so the number of blogs released has decreased dramatically. Our growth has been slow. I haven’t gotten as much attention or shares on social media, and I’ve had to let all that go. I have identified what I want to do, and I must keep my eye on the prize. It’s when you start looking at the runner next to you that lose sight of the finish line. Don’t look around you. Just keep your eyes focused on your next step. What do you want to do? Where does your energy most thrive? You must do that. Nothing else. You cannot do it all. Eventually, there will be parts that need to fall away. If you can, hire people to pick up those parts. If you cannot, just let those parts go. Focus on where you feel driven. That is your calling.
TOTALLY DRYING OUT — OR IS IT DRYING UP?
There are going to be times when you don’t feel driven at all. In terms of creating new aerial works, I’ve dried up. I used to love creating new work, but I’m done. It’s not a hunger I have to feed anymore.
I bet you can relate to that point of not feeling motivated anymore. The truth is, when the dry spell comes upon you, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. You can read all the cliches and inspirational quotes on the internet, but it’s not going to change. At least not today. So, you might as well own it. Trying to summon enthusiasm is like trying to get my 3 year old to stop crying. Sometimes, you just have to let the tantrum out. Only it’s even harder when your tantrum is that you feel— nothing!
When I start feeling burnout (or it’s sibling, de-motivation) I go with it. I do nothing. For me, that’s the best thing I can do. Here’s three reasons why:
(1) Burnout is exhaustion of the mind. My mind needs to rest. Doing another thing on the to-do list will only make matters worst. Rest is the best thing I can do to help recuperation take place.
(2) I get perspective by doing something else. Rest is really just a change of activity from one thing to another. And when we do something different, we get a new perspective on everything. For example, “resting” can be going for a walk or coloring or reading a book, etc. All these time-wasters are really going to allow me to circle back to the things that matter in life. Not the number of likes on my facebook page or how many subscribers I have to my website (which feel like they drive my annual salary which is terrifying when it’s not enough).
(3) After a while, I typically get bored with doing these other activities, so then I ask myself, “I’m bored, can I go do something for my business now?”
My brain: “Sure Rebekah. What would you like to do?”
And then I think about what I really want to do — not what I feel I need to do to make anyone else happy. I go then to do the thing that would bring me the most fulfillment. In fact, that’s exactly how this blog came to be. Ta-da!!
I have been working on writing for my latest manual for three straight weeks now — 10 hours everyday. But, today, I was feeling a little burned from it and couldn’t get the motivation to get productive work done. So, I lay myself down on the floor after cleaning it a little (which always helps me think), and I thought about what I really want to do. That’s what drives me to do things. If I’m not driven, it won’t be quality. So, I have to wait for drive to come, and then I let it steer me. I have often joked that I wrote my first 6 books out of boredom. The rest I wrote because I needed to feed my family.
“I love these hours when I really can’t work..
love it when i have the real excuse,
because the rest of the time I just don’t stop…without any decisions, I just slow down!!!!
connect to the way i feel,
and do anything that comes to my mind and makes me feel like doing it.
From eating an ice cream to listening to music
or doing my own lovely things
that are stuck in my mind for a while with no time to do them….so these hours become full of living in harmony…
yohoooooo…. LET’S STOP WORKING.”
– anonymous person on the internet
Disclaimer: Everything I say must be taken with a grain of salt. There is something to be said for discipline of the mind as well. If I just wandered around all day everyday until motivation struck me, I’d never get anything done! I often don’t feel like working, but once I’m working, I get right into it. It’s important to not let the large daunting tasks ever stop you from getting started. I have a long list of things to do before I die, and I have no qualms about getting started on that list! I’m more-so addressing the days where it’s gone too far. It enters the realm of burnout.
EMBRACE EVERY PART OF YOUR JOURNEY
In a way, what I am doing is embracing myself wherever I am at. And I think that’s important. I think often times, we get down on ourself for not feeling excited. We feel like we don’t even have the right to complain about it when we are living the dream of getting to do something we love! But, don’t feel guilty. All that is a waste of time and even more distracting you away from the goal. Just let yourself feel. Embrace it. Give it a hug. Say, “Oh, I love you, my de-motivated, tired self. Let’s go have coffee together. Do want to try something you’ll really suck at? Let’s try playing the piano today.” And then, you’ll be ready to go back to aerial cuz that’s something you’re actually talented at. (And if you’re a really talented professional piano player, then how did you come to be reading my blog?)
If you push a toddler, they will fight back and say no. When we are all grown up and no longer have our parents pushing us around, we get an even tougher person pushing us around — ourselves. And we push back. De-motivation and burnout is ourselves pushing back. We are throwing an inner tantrum when we get tired of giving to one thing. We have to let the tantrum ride its course. Take a break. Let it go. When its passed, say, “Are you ready to play now?” Good, because I have some fun ideas.
HEALTHY MENTAL HEALTH
When you let out the emotion, even if its the truth that you have no emotion, you will find release. All these youtubers that were “coming out” about how they were burning out were publically demonstrating healthy mental health behavior. While we don’t need to share everything on social media, it is healthy to express what we are going through. Maybe that’s the inspiration for your next piece, eh? Paint this picture: You start to climb the rope, but don’t because you are not interested. It just doesn’t appeal to you. So you go sit down on the chair. But you keep thinking about that rope. Maybe you’ll go try to climb it again. Well, it’s really hard and just doesn’t appeal to you that much. Or does it? Only you know how the piece will end!
Don’t ever let the fear of the piece not being interesting or cool or relevant stop you from the creative process. If it is relevant to you, it is likely relevant to one other person. Stop playing the numbers game. Be inspired by what Ruth St. Denis had to say:
“I have performed for thousands when they found me exotic, the vogue, daring, but I have danced, at any give time, for about ten people… They were the ones that left the theater forever different from the way they were when they came in. All of my long, long life, I have danced for those ten.”
I’m going to shrink that down even more. I have danced my whole long life for an audience of ONE. I dance to connect with the divine in my own way. I feel the spiritual calling of the dance, the worship of God, the listening to the inner spirit when moving. It’s really for me. I hope that my work can have influence and can help others and can be shared, but even I were on an island alone, my life’s work would not change. I must do what I must do.
“Dance for yourself. If someone understands, good. If not, no matter. Go right on doing what interests you, and do it until it stops interesting you.” –Louis Horst
Rebekah Leach is the creator and founder of Born to Fly Curriculum. She has published 11 manuals (and counting) on the art of how to fly in the air. She lives in Castle Rock, Colorado with her husband and two beautiful children who continually remind her how to really enjoy life! She strongly believes in the philosophy that we are all builders of something, and that something needs to be building you up; otherwise it will turn around and destroy you. Anything built with human hands alone is not worth building. Anything built with the purposes of God at the very center (love) is always worth building.
