The road to financial freedom can be lonely, bleak, taxing, and extremely frustrating. You will fail more than you succeed, sometimes by a lot. I personally have failed a lot more than I’ve succeeded thus far. Not having a major success for some time to motivate you and give you the stamina to keep pushing on can and will become very difficult. Eventually, burnout can begin to develop like a fog over your day-to-day life that can feel impossible to shake out of. Burnout is more than just being tired. It is being completely drained of the ability to continue. Things that were once exciting are no longer exciting to you. It’s a phenomena that needs to be recognized, understood, and listened to by the body and mind.
More than tired
When you’re feeling burnout, you’ll know. It’s more than just a feeling of being tired from a hard day of work, it’s an inability to get excited or motivated to do the things that were once exciting and motivating for you. This can happen for a few reasons. One of the most common reasons is being overworked and having more on your plate than you can handle. The other is exhausting option after option and more and more effort to try and find some success, but running into failure after failure. Both of these scenarios can feel like running into a brick wall. So, how do we break out from burnout and continue to make progress in the right direction?
Getting past burnout
The most important thing you can do for burnout is recognize what it is you’re feeling. If what I’ve described in previous paragraphs is you, understand this is the reality you’re facing and you’ll need to deal with it if you want to continue on. After it’s recognized, what is the next step?
Listen to your body:
What is your body telling you that you need to do? Working through a burnout probably is counterproductive and will lead to lackluster work quality ultimately requiring you to play clean up for yourself after your sloppy malaise. Take a day, sit in nature, put technology away, read a book, journal, do something to get in touch with yourself again and reflect. There are countless things you can do that will stimulate positive brain activity that you can use to start momentum towards progress. Find what works for you and take a day or two to do it.
Understand what got you to where you are:
Reflecting on what got you into the predicament you currently find yourself in will help you refine your process so you don’t end up in the same spot down the line. Analyze every step of the way that got you to this point and think about what you could have done differently. Oftentimes, it’s the lack of good systems that burns people out, myself included. Once you find your issue(s), your next step becomes clear.
Define your solution in practical real-life steps:
The next thing to do is lay out what exactly the solution is to what got you to where you currently are and how to implement it. For me, the lack of solid systems has led me to take on real estate deals that I probably never should have. Setting up a system where I can filter leads down a conveyor belt so to speak and my partners and I all have our own unique roles has been big for us. Instead of everyone doing everything and taking bigger bites than we can chew, we’ve been able to stay much more systematized and efficient. It’s not always about the hours you put in working, it’s about the quality of work you put in for those hours you choose to work. Systems allow you to work smarter not harder because working harder isn’t always the smart thing to do!
Find your mojo again and realign yourself with your mission towards success:
Once the solution has been implemented and the problem(s) has been addressed, you’ll be well on your way to making progress and crushing your goals. If you ever feel something similar to burnout down the road, start this process over again before it becomes a real issue. This will allow you to be proactive with your evolution and problem-solving before you burn yourself out again. Proactive maintenance is necessary for any individual or business so this process should be a continuous one of growth and evolution!