Why Burnout is a Privilege for Creators
I’ve lived near Los Angeles for several years now and trends that once evaded me are shining through. In Santa Monica, everybody wears Vans sneakers, as Dave Chappelle pointed out in a Netflix special. On the East side, people take their babies and strollers out for long walks. And in Hollywood, everybody is hungry.
Last Saturday, I witnessed Hollywood ambition first-hand. Football was on the projector, pizza was on the coffee table, and my butt was on the couch. The strange thing is that the guys around me were working. They never put down their phones or laptop computers. They were sliding into DMs, editing social media posts, and negotiating with service provides via instant message.
One photographer told me about a whirlwind return from a business trip to Asia for his day job. He flew into LAX and went straight to the Santa Monica Pier to shoot a model from France, then he went home and edited the photos. Total waking time: 36 hours straight. Total complaints: zero. In fact, he was looking for more action. He’s trying to optimize his life so he can quit his day job and spend more time on photography. This is the ambition in Hollywood, and it’s palpable. I walk into a room and feel the hustle in the air.
Where’s the work-life balance? I thought burnout would take us all down like the plague.
When you have needs, these problems just melt away. Necessity is the mother of invention and the executioner of excuses.
If you’ve been talking about how you feel burned out and nodded along with your favorite social media stars hacking this trending topic, take a look in the mirror. Would you feel this way if you had a burning necessity? Would you complain about the long hours you put into creative work if you knew it was the only path out of a job you hated?
I write this to explore the question for myself too. As a podcast host, I love what I do, but it’s not necessary that I succeed. If an episode doesn’t go out next week, my world will be the same.
So, how do we keep up the pressure to achieve without becoming exhausted? I propose 2 solutions.
1. Invent Necessity
In 2016, a friend of my was, “feeling unmotivated” to write her book. The publisher had already paid her advance and it was time to produce. She told me she had 6 months to go and 6 chapters in her book. She wined that it was too hard and she didn’t “feel like it.” So, we developed a system to keep her accountable that was especially meaningful to her.
My friend wrote 6 checks, each for a large sum of money. I put them in a folder and told her that if she did not produce a chapter each month, I would send a check to the Donald Trump Presidential Campaign. If she did produce a chapter, she could come by my office and have the pleasure of tearing up a check.
She finished the book, ripped up 6 checks, and never complained again.
Get a friend to hold your feet to the fire. It works.
2. Cycle Your Work
As Dr. Cal Newport explains in Deep Work, many of us are performing below our professional potential because we are connected to work 24 hours per day. You don’t need a perfect work-life balance, but you do need to set boundaries on your work day.
Start by setting some time to get around without your phone. Sleeping through the night without interruption is a great place to start. You can progress to turning off all work communications at the end of the day. Counter to your intuition, periods without work-related inputs will allow you to detach from active problem solving. Your subconscious mind will consolidate your progress and come up with solutions that can’t be reached through conscious processes. Let this be your creative superpower.
This is only possible without work-related inputs. If you are spending every free moment on facebook, doing “business development” you will not get the reward of time away from your work.
Remember, it’s cyclical. Think of it like weight lifting. You need time to recover between workouts.
How do you manage work and burnout? Let me know with a comment.