So It’s been a while. I know, I know. But taking the fact that I don’t have that many readers I’m sure you guys can forgive me. Burnout really started to creep in a little more than a month ago and I found myself fighting against myself to get work done.
And it pissed me off.
So much so that I rebelled entirely against myself, which is weird because my body wouldn’t do anything but my mind kept screaming, “GET TO WORK DAMMIT!”
Now I know that’s just a character flaw of mine, but like anything, I learn from it and adapt. I know I’m going to run into it again, (me, my own worst enemy) but I can be sure that the next time it happens I’ll know how to handle it better and my intervals in that state will shorten.
Not to say that I didn’t learn anything from my little tirade. That internal voice of mine finally stopped screaming at about the 20th day, thank goodness I took a week vacation or I would have been acting very postal at work.
Part of the cause for my self-insubordination is likely due to that little psychological devil that psych majors learned at the university called cognitive dissonance. (Yes Aesop, we believe you… those grapes are yummy.)
It starts with an overwhelming motivation that’s triggered when something traumatic or near-traumatic (and by that I mean something that overloads your emotional circuits) occurs suddenly in your life and things are clear. So clear you can practically see the path you need to take in order to gain that thing, whatever it is, that you seek is pleasurable. Everything makes sense in this state; congratulations you are now Thomas Anderson. (Morpheus would call you “The One”.)
And it’s in this state that your drive becomes conviction and you vow to one day make them all pay for laughing at you when you forgot to bring your signed permission slip to class on the day of your sixth grade trip to Great America. So sad. (Feel free to replace that with whatever you promised yourself.)
That conviction establishes your destination and you know how to get there, so you move and set out on this journey to reach that destination. Time passes. That place you sought after still seems so far away, you wonder if you even moved at all. Jaded, you begin questioning it. Is it even worth it? Maybe it wasn’t even real to begin with. It’s too much trouble. People like me never get there. Blah, blah, woof-woof.
Yes, dissonance.
My destination was freedom. Freedom from obligation, from finances, from a job. Free to pursue all the creative endeavors I could think of. Burnout was making its way inside my personal bubble. And it was also inevitable.
And let’s not forget my anti-establishment nature, my greatest weapon, especially against myself.
But for the time being, I’m back on track to what I was moving towards. I just needed a little momentum. Who knew that momentum would come from going nowhere? ‘Tis a paradox indeed, my dear Watson.
Let’s get on to the lesson.
1. It’s okay to do absolutely nothing.
In this fast-paced society where everything leans towards “instant” and “fast results” and checking off lists and running on tight schedules, we forget about living or having a life. Goal-oriented folks, like myself, get caught up in the doing. Big picture people, big picture. Draw one if you don’t have one right now. I did.
I used to be a little more extreme with every hour of my day scheduled for productivity— multiple and simultaneous projects, errands, bills, etc. I found that my lists always seemed to grow bigger every day. It becomes overwhelming.
What did I do? Being the extremist I am, I just stopped everything and did nothing. It was kind of like in Office Space when Ron Livingston’s character stopped giving a shit after being hypnotized. I was nervous at first, but it ended up feeling great. If any problems were to happen, I’d deal with it later, because I knew I could handle it even if I didn’t know what it was.
Doing nothing tends to make you think though. But that’s a good thing. Reflect. And when you go to absolute nothing from unending shit-storm, you tend to re-evaluate. And that’s good too.
I rewrote ALL my goals. I had 32 in October (my birthday, I don’t do that whole New Year’s Resolution crap. Hey look, a list of shit I’m never gonna do once the new year glow wears off and I wake up from this drunken stupor.) and now I have 7, and a new way to go about it… one at a time, instead of all-at-fucking-once.
2. Over-ambition can become a brick wall.
When you’re just ready to go and do-do-do, sometimes you take on far more than you can handle. I slap people like that (back to reality that is). Being overly ambitious can lead to having too many options open and not enough experience to deal with it, or to what we talked about earlier with cognitive dissonance. In this instance, I’m calling it delusion.
Although when you do nothing and let ambition simmer, it grows to become a great motivator. It’s the bug. It’s that little bastard that keeps coming around saying, “You know you want to do it.” Mine sounds like a chipmunk, actually, more like Gir from Invader Zim. It compels you to take action, creating plans in its little Moleskine™ just waiting for you to finally decide, and know for a fact, what you want to do. It’s scheming… let it scheme.
3. Achieving something shouldn’t feel like work.
The “work” that I do is mostly things that need attention and action aligned with my visions. (Visions are just my cryptic way of saying long-term goals.) So they’re things I WANT to do. I’m choosing to create the life I want. I’m deciding what’s important enough to focus my time on. I desire it. I don’t have to do it. I don’t have to do anything. It’s something that satisfies me.
Just switching my mentality from HAVING TO to WANTING TO makes a huge difference. It’s not work for work’s sake, it has a purpose. Maybe having to remember what that purpose is and why it’s important to you makes it real again.
When it does feel like work. Step back. Do nothing for a while.
4. Being mindful.
This is just slowing down and taking note of every action you take and everything around you. From your breathing to your losing yourself in the outdoors, it’s amazing how relaxing life becomes when you take the time to appreciate it. When you’ve stopped yourself from productivity suicide and slow down, stress disperses. I really don’t know what else to say to that, it just does. Logically, I’d say it’s because you’re no longer moving rapidly. Your heart rate slows down and you’ve subconsciously told your mind to STFU. It works. I’m a fan.
That’s about as Zen as I’ll go, still not sure about the meditating part yet.
Doing nothing serves a purpose in achievement. It gets you out of your own way.
