6 Steps to Getting Through Burnout
For when you’re exhausted, drained, and in a rut.
I burnt out hard this week.
It’s the third time it’s happened to me in two years. In this article I want to share:
- why it happens
- what it feels like
- what I do about it
Let’s dive in. 🤿
Why I burn out.
Since launching Grindstone (my free creator community), this is what a typical workweek looks like for me:
It may not look like much to some of you. But anything over 40 hours gases me out.
However, after one good night of sleep, I’m ready to get back on the horse. I love what I do and look forward to opening my laptop.
It’s not the amount of time spent working that destroys me; it’s the number of things I work on.
Here are all the projects I tried to juggle this year:
- launching Grindstone
- 1-on-1 coaching
- the podcast
- the YouTube channel
- this newsletter
- growing on Twitter
- posting on LinkedIn
- writing the rough draft of my book
- building an online course
- moving from country to country
- maintaining relationships
- getting jacked
- learning Spanish
As always…When you have lots of priorities, you have zero priorities.
This list sounds impressive at the macro level. I mentioned these things to fellow entrepreneurs as a badge of honor. They bowed down to me and my busy workload.
But day to day, I pulled my hair out as I moved slowly (if at all) in all 57 projects.
Paul Graham explains the difference between a Maker Schedule and a Manager Schedule.
Maker: someone who needs to learn, build, and edit to make things work.
Manager: someone who needs to communicate with others to make things work.
The Maker needs long, uninterupted hours so they have space to make. The Manager needs frequent meetings with teammates to manage.
I spend most of my days playing Maker and Manager. I need both uninterrupted hours and lots of calls with others.
Context switching, moving between priorities…It’s fine when I’m oozing motivation and inspiration.
But the second I slip, the house of cards comes crashing down.
When you do one thing, you do it well. When you do it for a long time, you do it better.
When you do many things, you do them poorly. When you do them briefly, you feel ashamed for not sticking to them.
One day I tried to wake up early, do deep work on one of my four big projects, start coaching, do Grindstone calls, return emails, record for the podcast, have a business meeting, take a Spanish class, go to the gym, be a human…
I can handle a 10-hour workday where I do one thing that excites me.
But a 5-hour workday where I do five different things fries my brain.
And after repeating that for weeks and weeks, I burn out.
What burning out feels like (to me).
In short, disgust and indifference.
I love Alex Hormozi. His books and content have drastically helped me make more money and help more people.
But right now all of his content repulses me. 🤢
I don’t give a single shit about scaling, grinding, etc. I just want to spend a month in a log cabin with a black lab and no internet…listening to this album next to a fire.
Each time I’ve burnt out, I spent days on the brink of tears with no apparent reason why. I can’t point to a specific cause of my sadness.
I just feel sad.
The scariest part? All the things I love working on, all the stuff I feel captivated to accomplish…
You couldn’t pay me to do it.
Aside from my scheduled calls, I do the bare minimum or push it back a week.
Today feels nice because I get to be a Maker.
I’m sitting in one of my favorite coffee shops writing this email. “Ubrella” by Rihanna is playing. It was my Myspace song in 7th grade.
Life is good. Feels like I’m recovering from being hit by a bus.
I’ve been here before and I know what to do. Which brings me to…
Steps I take to recover from burnout.
In order…
1) Check your health trio.
- sleep: am I getting 7–9 hours consistently?
- diet: what have I been eating and drinking?
- exercise: how active have I been?
Before diagnosing myself with anxiety, depression, or ADHD…I go through the basics of my physical health.
Too much caffeine? Eating garbage food? Staying inside looking at screens all day?
Address these first.
2) Step away screens.
Countless hours on my phone and laptop got me into this mess. It certainly won’t get me out of it.
Ali Abdaal asks two great questions:
- Which activities do you turn to when you feel drained of energy?
- Which activities actually make you feel refreshed and reenergized?
My answers to #1 usually involve being on my phone, watching YouTube, or scrolling of some sort.
But my answers to #2 never involve screens. It’s almost always quality time with good people, fruitful conversation, and time in nature.
Close the laptop. Unplug the TV. Put the phone on airplane mode…And go outside.
(Pro tip — Going for a walk without a phone or headphones will help you reach enlightenment.) 🧘♂️
3) Call a friend.
When we feel low, it’s tempting to shut the world out. To hide and isolate.
I sometimes tell myself this story: “I’m a life coach with his shit together. I can’t let my friends or clients see me in this damaged state.”
Which by definition, is a lie. It’s a performance I feel pressured to put on.
So I avoid it at all costs.
I talk to my close friends and my mom on the phone. I tell my clients about what I’m going through and what I’m doing about it.
No one has ever punished me for doing so—quite the contrary.
I’m lucky to be surrounded by high-quality human beings. They support me, ask me questions, and offer their time and ears.
Step out of the safe cave. Lean into the people who are eager to be there for you.
4) Get out of the house.
Changing your environment is the best way to get out of a routine.
Most American soldiers addicted to opium in Vietnam during the war easily quit cold turkey when back in the USA. Yet most drug addicts relapse after quitting in rehabilitation centers.
Why?
Because they tend to go right back to the same environment after being released—the same home, the same friends, the same triggers.
Shake things up. Go somewhere new. Work at a coworking space or coffee shop. Go to a library and read in the corner. Walk around a nearby town or neighborhood you’ve never been to.
Do something different.
5) Spend quality time with other human beings.
Phone calls from step 3 are lovely.
But you need to be face-to-face with people. ChatGPT can only answer so many of your bids for attention.
Schedule coffee dates. Attend a random meetup. Plan a group hike.
Tonight I’m working out and grabbing dinner with a good buddy. I’m not expecting it to make the sad disappear, but I know it’ll be well worth it.
6) Remove 50% of the workload.
I told my friend on the phone yesterday, “I’m doing way too many things to expect any of them to be going well.”
Every three to six months, I fall into this cycle:
- remove half of my workload
- feel refreshed and productive
- get things done better and faster
- think I can take on more since things are going well
- take on another project
- feel a slight drop in progress
- take on one more thing
- take on more until I’m doing 13 things poorly
- burn out
- repeat
Here we are at step 1 again.
I made a list of all my projects, priorities, and expectations. Then I removed the bottom half.
In short, I’m cutting out (for now):
- a YouTube channel
- posting on LinkedIn
- launching a paid community
- building an online course
The second I let these things go, I felt a surge in motivation for all the work that made the cut.
Less but better.
Final note: 📜
I used to see negative emotions or low points like this as “bad.”
I labeled them as problems to solve, something broken to fix. Which gave them way more power.
But the bad feeling doesn’t do any damage. It’s how we feel about the bad feeling that makes us suffer.
It’s believing this bad feeling is who we are and all we’ll ever be. But it’s just a feeling that exists right now.
It’s not good or bad. It just is.
Like the weather.
It’s not “good” when it’s sunny. It’s not “bad” when it rains. We don’t need to hit the panic button and figure out how to make it always sunny.
We can just observe it. We can feel how we feel. We can eat soup when it’s cold and sunbathe when it’s hot.
We can change our actions and environment. Then we can move on.
Because nothing very very good or very very bad ever lasts for very very long.
If you want to follow my journey to in growing Grindstone, get lessons from top 1% creators, and join me as I travel the world with my laptop…
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