4 Reasons Why We Burnout As Content Creators

How to get over burnout as fast as possible

A common thing that can happen when we overwork ourselves is burnout. It happens to everyone and it’s completely normal so don’t be stressing or freaking out once you’re aware of it.

Recently, burnout hit me hard completely destroying my motivation to write, and quite frankly, uninterested in brainstorming and coming up with new creative ideas. Whether it’s from work, school, or your own tasks it’s crucial to have something to do every day. It’s depressing thinking about waking up in the morning with absolutely nothing to do or no actual life purpose.

As creators, burnout is more common than usual. Our brains get flat-out exhausted from using it too much especially if we have a lot of stuff going on. It’s almost impossible to balance everything out for a full 24 hours. While I was taking my hiatus I was thinking, what are the main reasons for burnout to happen? And how do you get over it quickly? All of this and more will be explained in this article.

In this story we will go over:

The Cause And Effect of Burnout

The 4 Reasons Why Burnout Happens

How To Avoid Burnout

How Long Burnout Can Take

Without further ado, let’s dive right into the definition of burnout…

WHAT IS BURNOUT?

To explain it properly, burnout can happen when you tend to overwork yourself and end up feeling extremely overwhelmed and emotionally drained.

More people burn out easily compared to others. For some, they can go months into constant work with no breaks whatsoever and then completely lose the energy, or it can take just 2 weeks and you will feel completely drained. It really depends on the person’s work ethic and mental mindset. Burnout is all about how strong your mentality is until it finally needs a break.

The negative thing about burnout is that it will hit you like a brick. It can also come unexpectedly which is even worse. You’ll begin to feel a sense of negativity towards whatever it is you are working on. It’s almost like a sickness if you think about it. Just like common colds or the flu, when a person is going through burnout they feel a constant lack of energy, tiredness, laziness, and reduced performance in activities.

In order to heal from burnout, take a break from everything and just watch Netflix all day. Spend the day with yourself so you can recover your mental health first and foremost. Your body will give you signs that you have to recognize.

How would you handle burnout? Seek support from your friends and family. Spend time with them so that it can give your mind a full reset, burnout can sometimes be a blessing in disguise if you use that time to spend it with the people who care about you most. Also, don’t forget to get at least 7–8 hours of sleep so you can slowly regain that energy back.

Now then, now that we know what burnout is and how can we stop it. Let’s go over the four main reasons why creators go through burnout.

REASON 4- Money On The Mind

Money affects motivation. Once someone brings money to the table, your thoughts and mindset completely change into wanting to make as much money as possible when it comes to creating. We are blessed to have so many different platforms to create and share our thoughts and ideas on but once you make your first dollar creating content, there’s no going back.

A Harvard study shows that money affects motivation as there is a reward for the work that you put in. Sometimes, we can get too caught up with money that we don’t think about ourselves. We’d have to be robots if we wanted to constantly create, once our bodies think we have done too much, that’s when burnout happens.

Sometimes it’s more powerful to say no to money.

When we know that there’s a reward for our actions, we get motivated. When it comes to content creation all creators have an extrinsic type of motivation where our behavior can result in money, praise, support, and fame.

REASON 3 — Relentless Stress

You’ll go through many emotions during burnout. From not thinking you’re good enough, to having no care whatsoever it’s truly a rollercoaster of emotions. The biggest cause of that lack of control over emotions is the stress that always sitting on your mind rent-free.

Creators go through so much stress especially if those creators also have jobs or are in school during their creative process. This gives you less time to do what you actually want and thus, the tasks keep building up and getting bigger until you don’t even want to think about them anymore. Time is money and without time, stress builds up slowly but surely until you’ve reached your breaking point.

Under a lot of stress, you will tend to overthink just about everything. The best thing you can do is try to control it as much as possible by giving yourself deadlines and not procrastinating.

REASON 2 — The Pressure

There is a lot of pressure you put on yourself. Whether it’s pressuring yourself to write the perfect story or even dealing with the pressure of taking a risk to be a content creator.

You will constantly look at followers and use that as a way to leverage yourself but your social status doesn’t matter as much as you think it is. The more you think about the pressure you have on yourself, the quicker you’ll fold. Writers pressure themselves by trying to have their stories be as perfect as possible so that they don’t get any negative comments from other writers. There’s no need to put all that pressure on yourself.

REASON 1 — Lack of Social Support

Chances are, you’re alone in this game of being a content creator/writer. Although you believe in yourself and are confident in your abilities, it’s still difficult to have that full sense of motivation that you will get millions of views and followers off your work.

When you’re burnt out, you feel a sense of hopelessness and disengagement with your emotions and the environment around you. It’s a mental battle with yourself always because it’s your work and your feelings.

A lack of social support will quickly lead to burnout and it can happen more often than you think. As long as you have the right people around you that help and check up with you, you’re set.

HOW TO AVOID BURNOUT

Believe it or not, if you play it smart you can avoid going through burnout entirely. It takes a lot of time-management skills because you still have to maintain your schedule. By taking breaks consistently and keeping yourself organized throughout the entire day, burnout can be avoided. It’s also important to get some exercise in so you feel good and healthy still.

Don’t work every day, 24/7. It’s a recipe for disaster even though it’s a common thing for hustlers to do. Relaxing activities or hobbies like skateboarding, reading, or exercising can be therapeutic and a great way to take a break from the work you do.

Eating nutritious and healthy meals can go a long way. Not only is it good for your health, but it’s amazing for your energy and how long you regenerate. The healthier you eat, the faster you regenerate from creating content. The key thing is yoga and meditation. Having done both of these at least four times a week has given me a positive impact and pretty much changed my life.

TAKEAWAY

Creating content is already difficult enough. Not only do you have to focus and spend time on your craft, but it’s also even harder to get recognized for your work and will take years of consistency if you want to start ranking as a creator.

My burnout looks like it’s finally over, it was the longest one yet as it’s been almost 2 weeks since I’ve had my creativity back and motivation to produce more content.

Have you ever experienced burnout from writing?

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