Bypassing Burnout

Today I finally read the entire BuzzFeed article about millennial burnout. At first, I scoffed a little - I exercise daily, I eat well, I get 7-8 hours of sleep per night, I'm involved in my church and pray every morning, I cut off work emails after 6 pm... on and on. Then, I reached for my phone and realized that I didn't have it. 

I walked to the parking lot and found it on the pavement, a few feet away from the car. While juggling my protein smoothie and grande Starbucks Misto, and rushing to get into the office early this morning, I had left my phone behind.  

Everything flooded back.

The deep disappointment I felt yesterday because I didn't wake up early enough to do a proper workout. The checklists I keep for work and pageants, and the way I write down an already completed task just to experience the satisfaction of crossing it off. The guilt I feel when I catch up on an episode of the Bachelor, how I skip through boring scenes to get to the juice and how I have to be cleaning my kitchen/bedroom/closet at the same time in order to avoid feeling lazy. All day, at all hours, I'm thinking about what I could be doing to be more productive. 

Yes, while I've always known that I'm a worker bee, I've also always believed I have balance. This "balance" has come from many experiences of near burnout - realizing that social media was sucking my time and energy led me to limit myself to 30 minutes per day. Feeling drained after watching TV caused me to delete my Netflix subscription and read more. Answering emails at 9 pm set unrealistic expectations of how I work best. I catch myself, again and again, balancing precariously on the brink of burnout, pulling myself back just before I fall. "Good one, Jane," I congratulate myself. "You're still thriving, keep it up!" Inevitably, something else knocks me off balance and the cycle starts all over again. 

While oftentimes I'm at the peak of the mountain - healthy, strong, happy, engaged - the times I get knocked off have been rough. I get nasty colds, experience fatigue, and lose interest in the things I love the most. Of course, this creates even more pressure because then I need to do all of those things even harder to make up for the lost time. The cycle repeats itself. 

What stressed me out about the BuzzFeed Article was that the author didn't offer up a cure. I completely refuse to believe that problems don't have solutions. So this got me thinking about the ways I've addressed the threat of burnout in my own life - considering that this year my overarching goal is to embrace my healthy, happy, joyful personality and share that with others.

So, I did it in the most millennial way possible - I made a checklist. I decided to commit to doing things that would allow me to laugh more, to take myself less seriously, to fail, and to meet new people. I started taking weekly Hip Hop and Improv classes - I'm not great at either, but getting up in front of people and taking risks has increased my happiness many times over. I also committed to catching up with good friends each week - it takes an effort to plan dinners or hikes, but I know that it makes me happy to see people who I love, and I don't want to let months go by without reconnecting. I've jumped into taking true power-down days weekly- turning off electronics and allowing myself to do nothing. These days are marked by hours and hours of reading books, baking my favorite foods, going for walks, praying. It's hard to embrace an activity that doesn't have a measurable outcome, but working on this is something I know is important and therefore commit to doing more of this year.

I'm sharing this because I want to be transparent. No one is immune from burnout, no matter how disciplined or organized you strive to be. We all experience pressure from the outside world to perform at a high level in absolutely everything we do - which of course, is impossible. The most important lesson I have learned through digging into my own burnout is that God's strength is made perfect in my weakness. The best things that have happened in my life happened in seasons when I just couldn't do any more when I was tired and worn out, when God picked me up and carried me through. It's a beautiful thing to realize that He has us and he will never leave us on our own.

Do your best and God will do the rest.

How have you faced the threat of burnout? What have you done to combat it? I'd love to know - leave a comment below or send me a message!