stephattyy
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Discussion Topic: Burn Out
🕑 Added 2021-02-03 08:11:59 +0000 UTCHey everyone, thank you for participating in the topic selection poll earlier this week! I wasn’t surprised when burnout was the most popular pick, considering it is a common but serious problem that I feel people don’t talk enough about, so let’s get to it. A disclaimer that everything I share here is an opinion based on my personal experience, yours may differ though I believe there will also be similarities we can all relate to.
What’s Burnout and How do we Overcome it?
Burnout is an emotional, mental or physical exhaustion triggered by excessive and/or prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands or expectations. These expectations can come from peers, the public or even yourself. There are many factors, but for today I’d like to focus on self-inflicted burnout which I believe is what most creatives struggle with.
I will be using myself as an example. For the whole of last year, I experienced burnout at least once a month, and I think that’s a lot. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why I felt that way, all I knew was I felt pressured, exhausted, and I couldn’t curb the need to keep producing something good. I became really restless and stressed whenever an idea I have falls short, and when I did have a good idea, I don’t stop to celebrate it for very long. I was just constantly dissatisfied. But I didn’t always feel this way, art used to be so fun for me. What happened?
The thing with burnout is it doesn’t happen overnight, in fact, you never notice it when it’s happening. It creeps onto you gradually until this constant feeling of demotivation becomes your new norm. The main reason why I was burnt out was because I was obsessed with creating, and I placed too much importance in my work (yes, there is such a thing as too much importance). If you think about it, burn out never happens at the start of doing anything. At the beginning, you’re usually always having fun. Everything is exciting, and you’re learning a lot, and you’re happy sharing your work with those around you… and that’s when it all happens, when your work becomes public, or when you start to get better. We all hate to admit it, but at least 90% of the time, we feel pressured due to those around us. No, it’s not as if people are telling us we suck and we should work harder, it’s when people tell you how much they love your work. “We want more”, “I can’t wait to see what’s next”, “You’re getting better!” and a myriad of other similar comments that were shared with the intention to encourage somehow manifests into pressure overtime. This is not anyone’s fault, it is just human nature for us to care about what others think. This does not make you weak, it just means you have feelings. You’d have to be a real hard ass to say you are 100% not swayed by what others say or think. We see the positive responses people get when they see our work, and as the creator, we want to do more of that. We don’t want to disappoint our supporters, so we keep going, churning out more content as fast as we can because for many reasons, it feels good to share what we do. But the reality is it will eventually get too much.
Now you don’t need a big audience to feel this way. Most of the time, all this stress can be manifested internally. Our inner perfectionist or desire for improvement is a very loud and harsh critic, and if we listen to it too much, we are bound to get burned. Even for the casual hobbyist, this can be detrimental to our progress.
The next biggest issue that comes with burnout is when we equate our work with our own self-worth. After some time reflecting, I realised I had done exactly that and overstated the value behind my creations. It wasn’t just the fear of disappointing others, in some twisted way, I had also unconsciously believed that I was nothing without my art, because I valued myself based on my performance as an artist, and not who I am as a person. I’ll be honest, I used to live a very contented life. I get by with my day job just fine, hang out with friends every now and then, Netflix a lot and go to sleep. That was my life for a good 1.5 years after university, but I haven’t had that since I picked up the tablet. When my IG grew, I had a taste of how it is like to have influence. To be clear, it is not exactly ME who has influence, it was my characters, the stories and my content. I went from a very self-contained lifestyle to one that suddenly involved thousands of people, and gradually, I started to value myself based on what I was most known for even among my peers, which is my art. Whenever I wasn’t creating, instead of resting, I felt empty. I almost didn’t know how to exist as a person without doing art anymore, and the scary thing is I had no clue this was happening until months later, I had an epiphany, and now I’ve learned the importance of separating my work and my identity.
As a creator, it is almost impossible not to take our craft personally. A lot of what we create is often closely related to who we are. But at the end of the day, we have to remind ourselves that we are much more than what we do. Ever since the invention of social media, we have created a society that values achievements above all else. People are almost exclusively known for their accomplishments in life, because these are the things that make headlines and it is promoting this mindset that we MUST never stop working. God forbid if we take a break, we are left behind or we’re “missing out”.
But if we put things into perspective, no one is really going to talk about how much money you’ve earned or how many likes or shares you’ve gotten in your last post. Even if you’re a billionaire who built an empire, people would still be more interested in who you are as a person. Are you honest? Are you kind? How did you make others feel? These are far more important than the frequency and quality of work you can produce. You are not what you do, though it’s not to say your work is insignificant, it’s simply not the most valuable thing about you.
So how did I overcome burn out? I learned to focus on the bigger picture. No good ideas today? That’s fine, I’ll just grab coffee and watch a movie. Not happy with my most recent work? It’s not my best, but someone still liked it and I can always try again next time. Messed up today? I learned something new, now I can apply that to my next piece. I also take time off every now and then to do something just for me e.g. draw what I like, and not for the likes, simply because it makes me feel good! Because really, does it matter if I don’t produce something fantastic this week? What’s the worst that could happen? Nothing. The world isn’t gonna explode if my art isn’t top quality, I’m not going to undo my progress if I take a break, I’m just hitting the pause button and I can resume whenever I’m ready. Rest is a VERY IMPORTANT PART of progress, it is not a waste of time. Productivity isn’t measured by the number of hours you spend working, but the amount of work you can get done within the given time period. To achieve max productivity, we need to be in our best state, so don’t forget to take care of yourself (can’t stress this enough).
And there we go, a far longer piece of writing that I expected but I hope this makes sense to you and you’ll find it helpful in some way! Feel free to share your experience with burn out, it doesn’t have to be art-related, I’m sure it will be encouraging and helpful to someone else too. Hope everyone is doing great, see ya soon :D
P.S. was practicing how to ink the past couple of days, it was a lot of fun! Here’s a little WIP of ma bois! :)
Comments
stephattyy
Hey Sara, yessss creative block usually comes hand in hand with burnout, we shall discuss that next! Everything you say is true, theres a really messed up modern culture in which we value performance/achivements way too much than we should. I cant imagine how it was like before worldwide news or social media was a thing, imagine living a life where you aren’t constantly seeing headlines of the world’s next young genius or something. While I get the intention is to celebrate one’s accomplishments, too much of that starts to brainwash people into thinking thats what success should look like, and anything less than that makes us invaluable. Tho i love that we now can access all sorts of info and connect with others online, it’s definitely a double-edged sword. I spiral sometimes, but i try not to allow myself to stay that way too long cuz we have to keep going! Thanks for sharing your experience 🥰 I’m glad you have the mental clarity as well realizing the importance of our own health over our work!
stephattyy
HAHA co-curricular activities in english (i had to google to confirm, i also cant seem to translate it properly in my head 😂) Thank you so much Jasper 🥺 means a lot coming from you. I’ve been in a terrible rut this week not sure how to move forward but I want to trust the progress so yas we shall see what pops up on Patreon cuz its gon be the place where I update the most I believe HAHAHAHA TALK TO U SOON ❤️
Something that I feel couples a lot with burnout is the wall, especially in the creative sphere. When I burnout during art, I start to feel the block hit as well, or when I hit a kind of block, I put more pressure on myself to get out of it or create literally anything to post, causing burnout. And sometimes the idea of an audience just contributes more to burnout. Breaks are really underrated in modern-day society sometimes because it's been hammered into us to keep producing something in order to move forward. We end up sacrificing ourselves for what... work? LOL no thanks. It was only in college when I overworked myself that I began cherishing breaks and realizing they were essential to my health and mental state and in the end, my ability to create. I believe it's really important to preserve ourselves because we often forget to. At the end of the day, it's important to enjoy what we do more than anything. I think your attitude and the way you overcome burnout is really admirable and inspirational! I hope you are taking care of yourself as well as doing the day job and creating at the same time makes it easy to tire :)
I think this is what most people feel at least at some point in their lives. I had a really similar experience. I was the president for my kokurikulum (Idk why I can't spell this in English HAHAHAH) unit beruniform, I honestly had quite an influence around the people around me, one way or another with both the teachers and the students. I felt pressured to be the very best (I sang that like the pokemon theme song HAHAHAH), so I became really self-concious, until I stopped liking to go outside and meet people again. I hated meeting friends, I hated going to activities which I loved, and I just wanted to disconnect from the world. In the end, we just have to know how and when to feel good about ourselves, take a break, watch something or just disconnect. Everyone's burn out feels different, but everyone's burn out is valid, including yours. More than the story and characters, I'm now more excited to see how you want to grow from here and hopefully join you on the way as long as possible :)) Being able to identify your burn out is a good first step, and knowing when to have a break is another good step! You're doing good, you're doing great, as a creater, an artist and a human being 😊
