Sometimes you push yourself to the absolute limit, you feel like you can’t do anymore. You’ve pushed past what you thought you were capable even our even taking on your task. People that strive to get everything out also need to know when they’ve stretched themselves too thin. Risking burning out.
Burnout
Burn outs are not fun because when you burn out you will literally be incapable of producing anything. So what you rather a rest day a week or have to take a few weeks to months off.
Once I was working so hard that I was working a full time job from 7:30 am. Which required getting up at 5 am leaving the house at 6:25. The job finished at 6pm. Followed by driving to my university to attend class for 6:30 until 9:30. I would be back at home for about 11pm. I would repeat this for 4 days straight. Then over the weekend I would spend all the days studying for my classes.
Results
I was doing well until there was issues with my family life. Which proceeded to take time away from everything that I was working on. This led to everything that truly mattered to me falling part. Except for the job that I hated. I somehow managed to get promoted 3 times. It’s because they were getting all of my best hours from 7:30 until 6pm. I continued with this effort for 6 months, then I snapped.
Round One
Everything started to fall apart it felt like I was shot in both legs but was still trying to fight. As a younger person this was me trying to push every drop out of my life. The mistake I made was pushing myself into a direction that did not align with my true values. I was trying to brute force my way to the top. I’ve grown because of that experience. Remember that you have to only do what is critical to moving your growth forward. Sometimes doing less is more, because where you put your focus is where you will get results.
I used to have a deeply rooted issue of trying to prove that I could do everything, at the same time. “At the same time”, is the mistake in that sentence. That period of my life I did not give myself a single moment to rest; this resulted in me being burnt out for two months. I recovered but all the habits that mattered had to be rebuilt.
Round Two
You would think that I would learn for that lesson immediately. Nearly reaching a second burnout because I did not learn the lesson of giving yourself breaks; I reduced my responsibilities but still spent every waking moment working. I did not realize this until I actually removed what did not matter in my life. Focusing on what produced the greater return on my time.
The lesson is to rest. Give yourself time to think. Do not focus on what does not matter to you in the place of what does. REST.
This article is part of my goal to write everyday for an hour and post it everyday. It may not be edited to my standards but the goal is create value and get content out everyday.
