overwhelmed can turn into burnout.

making has always been my game. whether it’s films, friends, or forward momentum on any particular venture. i find i feel most myself in the act & production of creation. there’s a sense of pride that comes with stamping my name on something. but mostly it’s where i’ve always found value, validation and a bit deeper still, it’s where i’ve found my identity. “i made that.” “i did that thing.” “you can get a good sense of me from this piece i did”. i have little cause for concern for this lifestyle, other than how it feels like if you’re not going full force, it feels you’re not making progress at all. when you’re young “& trying to make it” it’s easy to compare yourself to an infinite number of people and feel like you’re never working hard enough. everybody is better than you. doing more than you. they’ve got better gear. they’ve got better ideas. yet sometimes you feel like you need a break, which can feel really counterintuitive. that dualism can feel exhausting and can manifest in many ways, but most often it’s that overwhelmed feeling that is a precursor to burnout.

so to dilute the possibility/the fear of falling behind, i gave into the hustle. i worked and worked and worked. spent a long time spending no time doing anything other than what i was after. it was all or nothing, all hustle, all the time. in principle, pursue  and not surprisingly, i burntout. hard. i began to lose interest in it all. particularly the making. i hated what i made. i hated what i did. i hated the piece that gave you good sense of me. 

that burnout was 3 or 4 years ago and if i'm being entirely honest, i'm not sure it's healed to this day.

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all of this to say, that moonbeam and i both have been quite overwhelmed recently. the realities of life compounded quite quickly and we found ourselves on the eve of burning out. we felt we couldn’t find time to give everything what it deserves. having experienced this before i thought it would be beneficial for us to talk about ways in which we could stop that transition from overwhelmed to burnt-out from happening.  

sometimes being a person in the world making things is a lot. its hard to know when to give time to the business versus finding your time to be nothing & unwind - the balance is complex and constantly shifting. we wanted to find a way to dampen that feeling of unease, so we wrote down a few ways in which we’ve settled the dust & come back to zero (before burning out):

• remind yourself that you’re a human first.

• not an artist, not a machine, nor a mother or a father or friend.

• there will be times when you fail and there will be times when you succeed. 

• take some time to do nothing. 

• put the internet away. overstimulation is the silent killer

• be a little bored for a bit. it's good for you.

• prioritize.

• take it one piece at time. you can’t eat an elephant whole.

• make a list of those things that have to get done.

• sometimes you have to give something up to make room for the stuff you want more. often that happens before you're ready to give it up.

• excerise.

• moonbeams will tell this is the answer. normally, i'd argue against it. but goddamn it, she's right. 

hustle itself can be a dirty word but it in itself it is not the issue. hustling is good. a solid pace, and a back down for no one attitude is often times is a great place to start. ultimately, we need figure out works best for us in this moment. and take more time recalibrate our abilities & our expectations, find some balance.