How your 'burnout' claims are warning you to chase a different passion

Jun 06, 2023

I just had YouTube open and spotted yet another video about how to become a content creator on multiple platforms without “burning out”.

Burnout is also a hot theme on this site too, with countless articles offering advice on how to guard against it, prevent it, recover from it, manage it … on and on it goes.

I find it fascinating, because if you actually do what you love, if you’re actually excited about doing it every day, burnout shouldn’t really be an issue for you.

Sure, we all get tired, and there are lots of factors that contribute to that.

Maybe we aren’t sleeping enough.

Maybe there are unhealthy substances contributing to that.

But those are physical symptoms that contribute to mental fatigue.

Burnout is different from regular fatigue. (Photo by Kinga Howard on Unsplash)

Burnout vs. fatigue

For me, “burnout” suggests more than run-of-the-mill fatigue.

It suggests that someone is mentally fried as a result of the work they’re doing.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it is possible to be burnt out.

I’ve spent a lifetime feeling “burnt out” from various day jobs because I don’t love them.

I don’t hate them, but they don’t make me want to jump out of bed in the morning by any means.

It can definitely get mentally fatiguing in that case.

It’s not because you’re doing too much of something, however.

It’s that you don’t want to do it and you’re being forced to.

That can create burnout.

Real passion

Since starting to write again in a big way and trying to get a YouTube channel off the ground, I don’t suffer from anything approaching burnout.

That’s because I have something to get excited about every day.

I can’t recommend starting a side hustle you’re actually interested in highly enough, and here’s why: you will never struggle to get out of bed again.

I’m incentivized in three ways.

Way 1: I desperately want to control my own financial future.

Way 2: Creating something exciting is important to me mentally and just … as a human.

Way 3: Every morning, I get to wake up and see how much money I made while I was sleeping.

The last one is really important.

When you are compensated for work you actually enjoy, it helps you to build momentum.

Each day, you might make a little more, then a little more, then a little more, until one day you realize “damn, suddenly I have a lot more.”

Why would something like that cause me to “burn out?”

The only stress for me is wishing I had more hours in the day to write!

You see, you feel burnt out when you feel forced to do something.

Commuting. Going to boring meetings. Doing nonsense assignments. Stuff like that.

It can apply to side hustles too. If you feel forced to do it, you’ll resent it as much as your job.

Wasted time, wasted life

I’m uncomfortable not working on my passion.

I can’t think of a more offensive way to piss away my day than sitting in front of the TV like a zombie as the hours slip away.

One of my favorite self improvement authors is Grant Cardone, and one of my favorite lines from one of his books is this: “You don’t need to save more money, you need to make more money.”

When this finally clicked for me, I looked at my own skill set and realized that writing could be a great way to accomplish that.

All it takes is a little success to spur you on and help you reach heights.

So forget all these people constantly talking to you about burnout.

What are you excited to build today?

This post is republished from my Medium publication Create Every Day.

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