Burnout and the Indie Author
Signs You're Burning Out
Lack of energy. You feel exhausted most of the time, even though you haven’t done anything particularly physically taxing.
Lack of sleep. You can’t sleep even though you felt exhausted all day.
Foggy Brain. You find yourself easily distracted and forgetful. It’s hard to focus on anything for more than a few minutes.
Morning Lethargy. Instead of waking up eager to start your day, you wake up dreading it.
Thick, Heavy Headaches. The kind that feel like you’re wearing a fifty pound helmet of pain.
These are my signs. You probably could add to the list with your own.
Burnout for Entrepreneurs
Burnout tends to hit us when we are at our busiest, when we’re under tight deadlines with mountains of work to be done. Obviously burnout isn’t going to hit us during easy times. It’s the overwork, high pressure and stress that cause it.
But here’s the thing; when we’re burning out, we’re not doing our best work, and our businesses are going to suffer as a result. During periods of burnout, our productivity decreases even as our hours nose-to-grindstoning increase.
More importantly, our health can suffer too. Burnout weakens our immune systems, making us more susceptible to everything from colds and flu to far more serious matters. Insomnia can rapidly become depression or anxiety.
In my experience, you either take care of your body or it forces you to. Keep pushing yourself beyond your limits, and something is going to break down. [bctt tweet=”The Universe is always conspiring in your favor, even when it gives you the flu. www.BlissBlog.org” username=”@maggieshayne”]
What to Do About it
No matter how tight the deadline or how big the workload, when burnout looms, we have to stop. It really is the only cure. We need to shut down and walk away. I know, I know you think it’s impossible, but it’s not, and I’m going to tell you why so you won’t stop reading right here.
Your success and abundance has no correlation to the number of hours you put in. Want