The Trouble With Burnout

“Burnout is a psychological syndrome emerging as a prolonged response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job. The three key dimensions of this response are an overwhelming exhaustion, feelings of cynicism and detachment from the job, and a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4911781/#:~:text=DEFINING%20BURNOUT,ineffectiveness%20and%20lack%20of%20accomplishment.)

This past month or so I’ve had trouble with burnout. It is something I’m still struggling with so I know I haven’t been giving my all in any area of my life. My tank feels empty and I’m slowly trying to remedy that. Between trying to get a lot read, doing two blog posts a week, reading ARCs for authors, keeping the house clean, and working, I’m just exhausted. Normally I’m good at keeping up with everything but like a newbie juggler, I’m dropping all the balls on everything.

I love blogging, but lately I’ve been struggling to come up with post ideas. For the most part I have a schedule, but there’s always two weeks there that are empty that I have to fill with ideas. I am working on something for my post for Friday, but I have yet to finish it. I didn’t plan on anything else for Friday and trying to come up with something now just isn’t working. Hopefully I’ll have something figured out, but if not, I didn’t just forget to email you. I just didn’t have any content.

I need to be less hard on myself and accept that I can fail at things. I can read three books in a month and still be accomplished. I can miss a blog post upload and still be accomplished. I am my hardest critic and it’s something I need to let go of. This past weekend, for the first time ever, I missed uploading my review for an ARC on time. I felt so bad and made sure to reach out to the author, who was totally cool about it. The world didn’t stop turning because I made a mistake, but I was convinced that it would. I felt like I needed to work harder at juggling everything. But sitting here writing this today, I know I can’t. I know there are times I need to take a break at times. I’m allowed to not be on all the time, I just need to allow myself to do it.

My mental health hasn’t been the best lately, and I know feeling burnt-out is a big part of it. I’ve been working on myself more and it has certainly been helping. I’m the only one really putting pressure on myself and I’ve realized that. There may be weeks that I only get a few things done off my to-do list and there may be weeks that I smash it. Both are okay.

This isn’t like my normal posts, but I know a lot of people go through what I’m dealing with right now. If this just helps one person not feel like they’re going through it alone, then I’m glad I wrote it. Thank you so much for reading and sticking in there with me. Things may be rough right now but I know they’ll get better. Hope to have a new post up Friday. Until next time.