(Apologies on this being a couple of days late. I’ve been running a BookBub promotion and a new release on the Enrichment Activities, and ADD brain lost track of a few of the things it was supposed to keep track of. I had this written and everything–I just forgot to post it!)
One of the hardest parts of learning how to be a writer is acknowledging that you can’t do it all. There are million things that it would be good for you to have done already, and you haven’t done them yet!
So you work harder, burn out, collapse, and wonder why you should bother getting back up again.
Here’s the root of the problem: “I’ll slow down once I [do accomplishment X]. I just need to…”
I’ve said that more times than I can count, and heard it even more times than that. Early on, you wonder if you’ll ever finish a book at all, or be able to work up a decent writing speed, or be able to write things and not spend more time editing them than you did writing in the first place.
Then, once you get those things sorted out, you start to wonder if you’ll ever be able to stop.
Where is the rest of my life?
I don’t know if I want to write anymore. It isn’t fun.
Someone asked me what my hobbies were and now I want to cry.
I thought I’d be a millionaire and could retire by now.
When your favorite writing-advice books talk about “the long game” and “it’s a marathon, not a sprint,” they’re hinting at the misery that comes from being too dedicated, too intense, too good at turning daydreams into reality.
Burnout can hit at any point. The smallest, most insignificant-seeming things can trigger an episode of “I’m a failure so why do I even try?” Life events can drain your ability to put words on the page. You can succeed and still suddenly be unable to cope.
I’m so sorry. It happens to all of us.
Let’s start from the small, immediate fixes and work our way up.
The Human List
At some point, pushing too hard will catch up with you. If you burn out, despair, crash, collapse, break down or otherwise feel one of those things about to happen, it’s time to start taking care of your most basic needs.
I call this list the human list after a conversation my daughter and I had that went something like this:
“You said you’re not feeling okay. Did you do your human things?”
“I don’t even know what human things are anymore, Mom.”
So we put together a list.
The items on this list won’t solve all your problems, but they should help you recover physically and emotionally to the point where you can start thinking about solving them.
0. Get a hug/reassurance that you’re a horrible human being if you can; pets count. If you can’t, move on.
1. Drink something (not alcohol).
2. Eat something.
3. Take any meds you need, including caffeine and other addictions.
4. Get some rest: sleep, take ten deep breaths, meditate, zone out, whatever. Social media doesn’t count as “resting.”
5. Do all your personal hygiene tasks: bathe, brush teeth, clean clothes, do hair/makeup, clip/clean nails, etc.
6. Move your body; exercise if possible.
7. Step away from whatever is making you crazy; if possible, communicate with those you trust about it.
8. Get some sunlight, if possible.
9. Do a quick cleanup of your area (from order of most to least disgusting).
10. Do a mental energy recharge, depending on your personality: read, socialize, play music, listen to music, reconnect with your spiritual practice, do something sexy, etc. Identify some options ahead of time; if you’re in a bad way, nothing will sound good.
It is usually a really bad idea to drink alcohol and skip to #10. In fact, it’s usually a bad idea to skip to #10 regardless. #1-9 patch the holes in your body, mind, and soul; #10 is for refilling your energy. Refilling your energy without patching the holes leads nowhere: everything good in your life just runs right back out.
This list won’t fix anything deep or serious; it won’t save a relationship; it won’t make you categorically less lonely; it won’t do the work that actually needs to be done; it won’t replace a doctor or therapist visit; it won’t make you a better person. It’s just there to give you some space to figure out what to do next.
Learning how to stop
Once you’re at a point where you’re not in the middle of a breakdown, it’s time to stop doing what got you at that point in the first place.
Do not head back into the situation before you have looked at what’s going on. Do not try to push through without thinking about the plusses and minuses. Do not say, “I’ll slow down once I [do accomplishment X]. I just need to…”
It never works.
Learning how to say “no” makes for a huge, immediate jump in career success. Learning how to stop when or even before you’re burnt out will give you a possibly bigger, but not quite so immediate jump in career success.
When you burn out, whatever you were doing to cause that burnout was a failure.
It’s only by admitting that things weren’t working out that you can try something different.
Priorities
After a burnout, your task is to determine what tasks, worries, or responsibilities you can get rid of, and what you can’t.
In order to do this, you have to set some big-picture priorities.
Here are mine:
1. Health
2. Close relationships
3. Success as a writer
What you put on your list and in what order are your own choices. I think having five things or fewer is probably a good idea, and making sure they’re in the right order (whatever that may be) is probably vital.
Only one thing can be number one. On a day to day basis, you do have to juggle. But you must know, when there’s a conflict between two “top priorities,” which one really ought to win.
Of course, finding your priorities and their correct order isn’t simple. The heart of finding your priorities is acknowledging that everything can be changed. You may not like some of the consequences of the changes you discover need to be made. I get that.
But the consequences of changing your situation to fit your priorities are less than maintaining the status quo.*
For example, if your job is killing you, then the consequences of quitting your job are less than being broke. In case you need a reminder, death is a bigger consequence than being unemployed. If someone in your life insists that their priorities should be more important to you than your own, then the consequences of setting boundaries with that person are less than letting them continue telling you what to do. A life of stress, frustration, and unhappiness is bigger consequence than “not getting along” with people.
Whatever you choose, I do recommend putting your health first; like the airlines say, put your own oxygen mask on before you try to help others. You can’t help other people if you’re not functional. If you try, you’ll usually make things worse.
Letting go
You may have heard about the 80/20 rule, also called the Pareto Principle, where 20% of what you do produces 80% of your success.
My opinion is that the 80/20 rule is rarely perfectly accurate, but it’s usually roughly correct. Most of the time, there is one thing that is worth way more than the time you put into it, a bunch of stuff that’s kind of acceptable but not great, and a few things that suck up time without giving you much to show for them.
When you have a reasonably solid guess as to your priorities, it’s time to start figuring out what richly contributes toward your priorities and what uses up a lot of time without contributing much to your results.
Usually what this translates to is identifying the one thing that’s going relatively well and doing more of the same, and getting rid everything else or at least the one thing that’s driving you completely nuts, then repeating the process until you’re not stressed out. Not always. But usually.
Here are some examples, both from my own experience, and what I’ve seen with other writers:
- Assessing volunteer and “exposure” projects and dropping all but one that provides benefits to your priorities, and limiting hours spent to five percent of one’s writing time or less.
- Assessing freelance clients and dropping all but the ones that pay above your base rates, and are pleasant to work with, and who offer you bonuses or other types of appreciative support.
- Assessing all the subgenres that you want to write in, and picking the one that you will like writing and that will produce a livable income.
- Assessing social media for what supports your priorities, and dropping all of them that don’t contribute, and limiting your time on them to five percent of your writing time or less.
- Assessing what promotional activities sell the most books, and dropping all of the rest, and limiting your promotional activities so they don’t constantly keep you from writing new work.
Your career is limited by what you won’t let go of. I’m not saying you should let go of everything. But often it’s obvious, once you know your priorities, what’s working and what isn’t.
At least get rid of the one worst thing. Time is the most precious thing we have.
*I’m not saying this because I do this flawlessly, but because every time I screw it up, I suffer the consequences.
To sum up:
- Almost every single writer you will ever meet is tired, insecure, and not able to do all the things they should be doing.
- There are tricks you can learn to help you write more, and help you decide what to write.
- Learning how set priorities and draw limits is how you build a career.