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If you’re a regular listener to the podcast, it’s probably not a surprise to you that I’ve been fighting burnout for a while. One of the unfortunate downsides of working as an independent contractor is that it fails to provide natural incentives for taking breaks. After a few months-long periods failing to find new clients, the inclination is to keep the pipeline as full as possible. Sometimes this means taking on more work than intended, sometimes this means accepting a client you might not otherwise. No matter what it means a strong subconscious aversion to “vacation”. So this happened to me in 2023. After a long period of two simultaneous clients, both of which somehow conspired to have overlapping crunch times, I was feeling the very overt effects of burnout. Lack of interest in current work, failure to get motivated to start, making obvious and stupid mistakes, etc. I managed to set myself up for a long break by closing out one client at the same time another project (we’ll call them Client A) naturally ended. Client A would be starting a new project in six weeks and I’d pick back up then. This seemed like a good plan. After a six-week break turned into a two-month break into a three-month break, I started to worry a bit. My burnout wasn’t substantially improving (but I didn’t know it really), but I was definitely started to hear the call of the evil clowns who live in the empty pipeline. That metaphor is terrible and I promise I’ll have Elecia edit it out. At the end of six months I’d reached my limit of waiting for Client A and went looking for something, anything to start earning my keep and shut up the clowns. Long story short, the obvious happened. I took a high-intensity startup client which soon consumed me utterly, and also Client A emerged from hibernation ready to go. Which leads me to today, right back where I was in April 2023, pretty much to the day. Reader, I’m mismanaged my spoons, my reservoirs, my mana, my chi, my whatever and I’m in full burnout mode again. Last week, while trying to compose this very newsletter, my eyes glazed over the transcript over and over again for forty-five minutes without being able parse anything. I sat in a chair from 9am-2pm two days in a row trying to will myself to get up and check even the smallest work task off my list until overwhelming guilt finally forced the issue. In the midst of all this, even in the depths of burnout, I’ve managed to keep up with music. I’ve alluded to my drum study program on the show and it’s something I can do even while feeling pretty bad. Different part of the brain, quasi-exercise, meditation, something like that. However, burnout still has effects on my ability to engage with music. The interest level is lower, but also crucially, my inner critic is silenced. You might think that’s a good thing but it’s not. A silenced inner critic won’t complain about mistakes, it’s true, but it also won’t speak up about accomplishments. It won’t be able to tell you to move on from some skill development because you’ve perfected it. It won’t be able to tell you to adjust something because you’re doing it wrong. I think this is part of what makes up imposter syndrome: a distorted or attenuated ability to assess one’s own work. That is itself a skill worth developing, but in the throes of burnout even skilled self-assessors struggle. Last week I submitted my weekly drum homework (exercises and songs I’m working on) to our group chat. Everyone can see everyone else’s homework and the instructor’s comments which is a really novel idea for individualized online instruction. I made very few self-assessing comments on my videos because my inner critic was out for the day. I got my comments from the instructor, which were fine, but I didn’t think I’d done great. This went along with my general full-bore burnout week. That night, completely unprompted, another student DM’d me for the first time. He’s at about my level and I watch his videos with a bit of light competitiveness. Here’s what he said: “Hey, you’re killing it. Keep Going” I don’t think he meant much by it except some encouragement after seeing my videos. It hit me like a truck. In the midst of the worst week I’ve had in a while, someone I really didn’t know reached out to tell me something I’m doing was good and not to quit. Inner critic be damned. External validation and sidelines-cheering wins every time. This didn’t fix my burnout, but it’s changed my perspective a lot. There are still things I can do and do well. I am not wasting away. I need to have the courage to make some changes, certainly, and be more assertive with myself about my approach to work. One sentence from a stranger was enough to give me hope that maybe I could turn things around and make things of value. Things of value to myself. So if you’re in a similar place to me, or struggling with anything (waves hands at the entire world), I’d like to tell you that the struggle itself is worthwhile. I’d like to tell you that even if you can’t see it, others do. Hey, you’re killing it. Keep going.
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