my solution to cyclical burnout - work in seasons

There’s always a reason behind your lack of motivation.

Before I sat down to write this post I faced a lot of “resistance". Procrastination, questioning the newsletter as a whole, comparing my work to others… the list goes on.

I eventually had to just sit down and write, but it made me think more about this meta-problem.

This “uncomfortable feeling” - be it “procrastination”, “false productivity”, “lack of motivation” - this form of resistance is something everyone faces.

And it usually comes from some sort of lack. Lack of preparation, lack of idea, lack of organization, lack of energy, etc.

But I’ve also realized, like feelings, it eventually goes away.

It can literally just come down to taking a quick break, giving your brain a moment to relax for a second, and having a moment to rethink about things.

And boom, that amazing feeling of progress, achievement, and mastery comes back and you’re on fire for that area of life again.

Two world views are wrestling for real estate in my lifestyle right now:

a. Life is about holistic mastery. Pick up multiple hobbies and thrive in them all. Balance them, and reap the mass accomplishment.

b. Life is about focus. Pick one thing and give it 110% of your attention and energy. Trying to balance it all is like running 13 races at once.

And it’s tough. I’ve got good arguments for both.

On the one hand, life sort of has to be about balancing multiple interests. We all incorporate multiple aspects of our lives in order to form what we call our “self”.

Picking one thing does sound smart on the surface, but what about being realistic? Shouldn’t we have ideas that serve as backups if things go south?

What would life be like without hobbies? Making your whole life about your work isn’t necessarily bad, but then it begs the question: what is the point of working for money? What will it be spent on?

Now turn to the side that haunts me:

Ideally, I would want to balance interests. But will it work out?

A lot of that “resistance” feeling I was talking about earlier comes up multiple times because of my attempts to “balance” and have multiple ongoing projects.

My focus, effort, time, attention, and creativity are all being rationed between all these sectors that make up my life.

That’s what I’m facing now. I’m doing my best to balance:

• Football

• School

• Scouts

• Business

• Writing

• College prep

• Reading

I mean man it’s hectic.

And the result of “sharing my resources”?

Like I said, that uncomfortable feeling comes back to haunt me every time I hit “Resume” on a project.

I come back to writing after my mind has already been drained from homework, practice, outreach - eventually I start to hate writing. And it’s a cycle. The same thing happens with all the other areas.

The answer isn’t nihilistically dreading about having to choose one option or the other.

The solution is working in time increments.

A great analogy is time-blocking:

An amazing way to manage your time throughout your day/week is by opening a calendar, be it physical or digital, and mapping out what you’re gonna do and when you’re gonna do it. That way, you know what you’re doing at all times of the day and it removes a lot of the reason for procrastination.

Think about life the same way.

Trying to balance multiple projects at once is like trying to do more than one task at once in your “time-block.”

So block out “life-blocks.”

What does this mean? Set aside time periods of your life where you hyper-focus on one aspect—project, goal, area—of your life.

That doesn’t necessarily mean turning everything else “off,” it just means being intentional about what your main target or focus is. In that area of your life, that should be always on top of your mind and awareness.

These blocks can be anywhere from 21 days to a year.

Again, just a solution to avoid the cyclical burnout in multiple areas of your life that make you feel like giving up as a whole.

This approach has been my solution and my approach to my X account dilemma. I’ve off-an-on been able to make progress in X.

And I kept feeling the same annoying burnout feeling over and over again so I decided to really think about all of it deeply for a second.

My solution was to just take my X account out of the focus for this block of life. I don’t know when it will come back. I just know that for now, I need to focus elsewhere.

But when I come back, I’m coming back with intentionality and precision.

And the same goes for everything else.

The Gym: I don’t bulk forever. I also don’t cut forever. It comes in seasons and should stay that way. Heck, there’s even times I don’t work out heavy.

School: School doesn’t last 365 days a year for 15 years. It’s spaced out with breaks in between.

Sports: You’ve got in-season and off-season. Simple as that.

I hope this idea makes sense and maybe related to your life in some shape or form.

The comforting idea I want to leave you off with is this:

Don’t worry. The reason you might lack progress in an area of life is because you’re trying to balance too much crap at once. Block out time in your life to focus on that one goal and the progress will come back.

That’s all for this week,

Peace

Nathan K.

P.S. This was my first post in 2 weeks, yes. I explained why at the beginning of this post.