Based perspective: How I got out of my 4-month slump and beat burnout
I haven’t been in a good place for the last few months, which is why I haven’t updated the blog in a while. The bottom line is that I burned myself out. Thankfully and luckily, I’m now mostly out of it. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t supposed to be, but I learnt a lot from it and I want to share my experience with others.
Burnout (aka zombie mode): My experience
So…what is it like to be burnt out? Burnout is the feeling of being physically and mentally exhausted. You no longer enjoy the things that once gave you pleasure, your mind fills with doubt and it paralyses you from getting stuff done. At least, that’s how it felt like for me. In my case, it was like there was no colour in my life and that I was seeing everything in grey. I would just be going through the motions of going to work, coming home, eating and sleeping. I felt like a zombie; functioning on the bare minimum just to get by. Just surviving. There would be a lot of days where I would spend up to 14 hours in bed on my days off. After about four months of convincing myself that I was okay, I begrudgingly came to the following conclusion:
I’m. Not. Okay. I’m burnt out.
It was hard for me to accept that I was burnt out and that it led me to being depressed. I kept telling myself that I was mentally strong and that mentally strong people don’t let themselves get burnt out. But as my constant denial made me feel worse about myself, I began to get frustrated and angry at myself for feeling this way, for letting myself slip. I started to blame myself for being too weak and I started to regret not being tougher. I became depressed, where I couldn’t get anything done and felt like nothing was worth it anymore. After those long four months, I accepted my situation for what it was; that I was burnt out, and that I started to take the steps to address it and get out of this slump. Slowly, the colours started to return to my grey world and things started to return to normal. I went back from “surviving mode“ to “living mode“. As I’m writing this post, I just now realize that I was going through the 5 stages of grief [denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance], without even realizing it.
Here are some of things that I learnt from my (difficult but beneficial) experience with burnout.
Not resetting at the start of each day
One of the main problems I had was not resetting at the start of each day. I would carry my mistakes and failures into the next day, which would haunt me and paralyse me for the rest of the day. I would focus too much on trying not to repeat my previous mistakes which would paradoxically make me anxious and end up making unnecessary mistakes. It’s easy for things to snowball into something bigger. We should look to and build upon our previous triumphs and accomplishments but at the same time learn to reset at the start of a new day when we have a bad day.
Lesson learnt: Don’t let your past mistakes prevent you from doing your best today. Every day is a day to reset and a chance to try again; a chance to succeed. You start each day with a blank slate and it’s up to you with how you fill the slate and how you want to remember this day in your life.
Fear of failure; not letting your mistakes define you
Mistakes are an inevitable part of life. Because of trying to live up to other people’s expectations, I was afraid of making mistakes. While I was burnt out, there would be times when I would give up before even trying because I was scared to fail and disappoint others. But over time, I learnt two very important things:
Nobody cares as much as you think they do.
Making a mistake is not the sign of failure. Giving up after a making a mistake is a sign of failure.
There is a misconception that successful people don’t make mistakes. After all, that’s why they’re successful, right? Well, they do. However, successful people make a lot of mistakes but the difference between them and regular people is that they view their mistakes as opportunities to improve themselves while regular people fail to own their mistakes and blame others for them. People who continuously pick themselves up and learn from their mistakes develop resilience, which is what makes them successful. They don’t let their mistakes define them.
Lesson learnt: Mistakes are not a sign of weakness. Don’t be afraid to try something just because you might fail. Own your mistakes; if you fail, see where you went wrong, use your mistakes to improve and grow to be a better person. Just don’t give up.
Putting too much pressure on yourself and biting off more than you can chew
It’s normal to have personal expectations. But the problem is when your expectations are unrealistic. I have a bad habit of making long to-do lists and end up not doing everything on the list and then feeling bad about it in the end. I also realized that I tend to put too much pressure on myself and have high expectations for myself, which I realized contributed to me being miserable and falling into a slump. Setting high expectations or living up to the expectations of others usually stem from one’s childhood or a significant life experience. In my case, after my father passed away in 2016, I felt like I had failed as son, and a medical student, in that I could have better taken care of my father to prevent his death. I felt that I had more responsibility to take care of my family, especially my mother, and to live up to people’s expectations of me. Add on financially supporting my mother and family, battling issues with visas and fulfilling my roles as a medical professional, I started to spend more time grinding out every minute of each day trying to be more productive rather than enjoying each day and taking time out for myself, leading to my burnout.
After taking some time to myself, it allowed me to regain composure and to start setting realistic goals for myself and not to focus too much energy on other people’s expectations of me, which I am not in control of. Once I stopped worrying about what other people thought of me, I became more calm and I could live my life more intentionally and with more satisfaction.
Lesson learnt: Set yourself realistic goals and don’t get caught up trying to live up to the expectations of others. You are not superhuman and you need to take care proper care of yourself. This may be obvious but it’s easy to lose sight of this when you are in the rut of things.
Reflecting on yourself and talking to someone
This was particularly difficult for me to do, since I was already in a very dark place and it’s not fun to see yourself in that sort of light (no pun intended). But on the days that “weren’t as bad”, I would write in my journaling app my thoughts for the day, what I did and how I felt. It didn’t feel like much at the time but after all these months, it’s fun to get reminders on my phone saying, “three months ago; here’s what you were thinking and what you did,” and now thinking “wow, it’s cool to see how I overcame that tough period in my life and how I’ve grown since then”.
In hindsight, the right thing to do would have been to talk to someone to get things off my chest (I did not). However, journaling happened to work for me.
Lesson learnt: Talk to someone you can confide in if you are feeling burnt out or depressed. If for any reason you can’t do this, write down your thoughts so your mind isn’t bogged down with doubts and worries so you can have mental clarity.
Final thoughts
Well, that’s a summary of the last four or so tumultuous months of my life. I’m glad I made it through relatively intact. I hope this was helpful and resonated with at least one other person out there. My final piece of advice is that while it’s okay to make mistakes, don’t make the mistakes I made and get help in some way if you feel that you are in over your head. More posts to come soon and regularly.
Until then, tutaonana baadaye (see you later)!
