Discussion Topic: Burn Out

Hey everyone, thank you for participating in the topic selection poll earlier this week! I wasn’t surprised when burnout was the most popular pick, considering it is a common but serious problem that I feel people don’t talk enough about, so let’s get to it. A disclaimer that everything I share here is an opinion based on my personal experience, yours may differ though I believe there will also be similarities we can all relate to.

What’s Burnout and How do we Overcome it?

Burnout is an emotional, mental or physical exhaustion triggered by excessive and/or prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands or expectations. These expectations can come from peers, the public or even yourself. There are many factors, but for today I’d like to focus on self-inflicted burnout which I believe is what most creatives struggle with.

I will be using myself as an example. For the whole of last year, I experienced burnout at least once a month, and I think that’s a lot. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why I felt that way, all I knew was I felt pressured, exhausted, and I couldn’t curb the need to keep producing something good. I became really restless and stressed whenever an idea I have falls short, and when I did have a good idea, I don’t stop to celebrate it for very long. I was just constantly dissatisfied. But I didn’t always feel this way, art used to be so fun for me. What happened?

The thing with burnout is it doesn’t happen overnight, in fact, you never notice it when it’s happening. It creeps onto you gradually until this constant feeling of demotivation becomes your new norm. The main reason why I was burnt out was because I was obsessed with creating, and I placed too much importance in my work (yes, there is such a thing as too much importance). If you think about it, burn out never happens at the start of doing anything. At the beginning, you’re usually always having fun. Everything is exciting, and you’re learning a lot, and you’re happy sharing your work with those around you… and that’s when it all happens, when your work becomes public, or when you start to get better. We all hate to admit it, but at least 90% of the time, we feel pressured due to those around us. No, it’s not as if people are telling us we suck and we should work harder, it’s when people tell you how much they love your work. “We want more”, “I can’t wait to see what’s next”, “You’re getting better!” and a myriad of other similar comments that were shared with the intention to encourage somehow manifests into pressure overtime. This is not anyone’s fault, it is just human nature for us to care about what others think. This does not make you weak, it just means you have feelings. You’d have to be a real hard ass to say you are 100% not swayed by what others say or think. We see the positive responses people get when they see our work, and as the creator, we want to do more of that. We don’t want to disappoint our supporters, so we keep going, churning out more content as fast as we can because for many reasons, it feels good to share what we do. But the reality is it will eventually get too much.

Now you don’t need a big audience to feel this way. Most of the time, all this stress can be manifested internally. Our inner perfectionist or desire for improvement is a very loud and harsh critic, and if we listen to it too much, we are bound to get burned. Even for the casual hobbyist, this can be detrimental to our progress.

The next biggest issue that comes with burnout is when we equate our work with our own self-worth. After some time reflecting, I realised I had done exactly that and overstated the value behind my creations. It wasn’t just the fear of disappointing others, in some twisted way, I had also unconsciously believed that I was nothing without my art, because I valued myself based on my performance as an artist, and not who I am as a person. I’ll be honest, I used to live a very contented life. I get by with my day job just fine, hang out with friends every now and then, Netflix a lot and go to sleep. That was my life for a good 1.5 years after university, but I haven’t had that since I picked up the tablet. When my IG grew, I had a taste of how it is like to have influence. To be clear, it is not exactly ME who has influence, it was my characters, the stories and my content. I went from a very self-contained lifestyle to one that suddenly involved thousands of people, and gradually, I started to value myself based on what I was most known for even among my peers, which is my art. Whenever I wasn’t creating, instead of resting, I felt empty. I almost didn’t know how to exist as a person without doing art anymore, and the scary thing is I had no clue this was happening until months later, I had an epiphany, and now I’ve learned the importance of separating my work and my identity.

As a creator, it is almost impossible not to take our craft personally. A lot of what we create is often closely related to who we are. But at the end of the day, we have to remind ourselves that we are much more than what we do. Ever since the invention of social media, we have created a society that values achievements above all else. People are almost exclusively known for their accomplishments in life, because these are the things that make headlines and it is promoting this mindset that we MUST never stop working. God forbid if we take a break, we are left behind or we’re “missing out”.

But if we put things into perspective, no one is really going to talk about how much money you’ve earned or how many likes or shares you’ve gotten in your last post. Even if you’re a billionaire who built an empire, people would still be more interested in who you are as a person. Are you honest? Are you kind? How did you make others feel? These are far more important than the frequency and quality of work you can produce. You are not what you do, though it’s not to say your work is insignificant, it’s simply not the most valuable thing about you.

So how did I overcome burn out? I learned to focus on the bigger picture. No good ideas today? That’s fine, I’ll just grab coffee and watch a movie. Not happy with my most recent work? It’s not my best, but someone still liked it and I can always try again next time. Messed up today? I learned something new, now I can apply that to my next piece. I also take time off every now and then to do something just for me e.g. draw what I like, and not for the likes, simply because it makes me feel good! Because really, does it matter if I don’t produce something fantastic this week? What’s the worst that could happen? Nothing. The world isn’t gonna explode if my art isn’t top quality, I’m not going to undo my progress if I take a break, I’m just hitting the pause button and I can resume whenever I’m ready. Rest is a VERY IMPORTANT PART of progress, it is not a waste of time. Productivity isn’t measured by the number of hours you spend working, but the amount of work you can get done within the given time period. To achieve max productivity, we need to be in our best state, so don’t forget to take care of yourself (can’t stress this enough).

And there we go, a far longer piece of writing that I expected but I hope this makes sense to you and you’ll find it helpful in some way! Feel free to share your experience with burn out, it doesn’t have to be art-related, I’m sure it will be encouraging and helpful to someone else too. Hope everyone is doing great, see ya soon :D

P.S. was practicing how to ink the past couple of days, it was a lot of fun! Here’s a little WIP of ma bois! :)