Reigniting Your Spark After Burnout

Everyone goes through burnout at some point in life. We’re always striving to be better, but sometimes you get stuck in your head.

Most of the time it happens when you’re resisting something. Or you’re doing something that quietly makes you unhappy, and you keep pushing anyway.

I recently went through it and I found a few techniques that worked for me. Maybe they’ll help you too. Think of these as a few tools to keep in your mental health toolkit so next time you’re prepared.

Understanding Burnout

Underneath burnout, anxiety and depression tend to fuel the mental resistance, the fire.

There’s usually something you’re doing that’s causing it. You might not even be aware of it. But once you can get to the source of what’s creating the burnout, that’s the path forward.

The tricky part is you have to let yourself go through the process. Instead of avoiding the negative feelings, you lean into them. Once you can do that, you come out of it with new focus and energy. 

Here are the techniques that helped me move through it:

1. Recognize the Feelings

The first step to tackling burnout is acknowledging that it’s happening. Accept what’s happening, but don’t judge yourself for what you’re feeling. That gives you the space to work through the emotions instead of fighting them.

For me it showed up as depression and anxiety. For someone else it might look different. It could be irritability, brain fog, numbness, restlessness, or just feeling off.

There’s a reason you feel this way. You just haven’t figured it out yet. That’s what eventually needs to be unpacked.

Key concepts to note:

• Accept what you’re feeling
• Let the feelings happen without any judgement
• Give yourself the space to feel uneasy, sad, or vulnerable
• Remember there’s nothing wrong with you

2. Prioritize Self-Care: Rest and Relaxation

When you’re going through burnout, you may feel mentally and physically exhausted. Your body and mind are telling you something is off, and it needs to be the priority. It’s break time and it’s you time.

This is part of the healing process, and it’s important to take the time to re center yourself.

Here’s what you can do:

• Slow down and rest
• Catch up on sleep, lay in bed, read, watch shows
• Do what makes you happy
• Listen to what your gut instincts are telling you

3. Reflect and Reset

Now it’s time to tap into one of your human superpowers. Reflection. It’s a very useful tool to unpack things in your mind and find your focus in life again.

Start by creating a quiet reflection space. Go outside and go for a walk. Find a place where you can be alone with your thoughts and be calm.

Grab a pen, notebook, or piece of paper and start writing about those feelings. Get what’s in your head out onto paper. You can also record a voice memo. Or talk it out with someone you trust.

Try these reflection prompts:

• Write down how you’re feeling
• Try to find what’s bothering you inside
• Name what you’re avoiding
• Notice what’s making you feel stuck or bothered
• List the mental clutter or overwhelm you’ve been carrying

4. Take Action & Get Uncomfortable

When burnout sets in, it’s easy to stop doing the things that originally gave you that fire in life. We’re creatures of comfort. That can also be a recipe for being stagnant and not growing.

Once you’ve invested the time to reflect and reset, it’s time to step out of your comfort zone and take action. Try reintroducing the activities you’ve put on hold.

Here are a few ideas:

• Step out of your routine and do something different
• Go outside and explore a new place
• Learn something new or try a different activity
• Reconnect with activities you stopped doing

From Burnout to Momentum

The way I pushed through my own burnout was realizing that I had gotten too comfortable. I had everything I needed around me where I was living.

A big part of my burnout was the constant pressure of posting on social media for my business, so I quit both temporarily.

I learned the bus and train routes. By doing that, it opened up a lot of possibilities for traveling, and that’s one of my favorite things to do.

Once I quit what wasn’t serving me, got uncomfortable, and started learning again, the fire from growing came back.

The key to tackling burnout, anxiety, or depression is that you’ve got to be the one to pull yourself out.

You have to rekindle that spark of curiosity in life and step out of what’s making you comfortable through action. That’s how you’ll find your own path out of burnout and back into growth mode again.