Burning Yourself Out

[Malevolent]

My mom always says that I try to take on too many projects at once. When I was younger, not that I'm much older now, I was able to lead a successfully structured life. I guess my OCD was stronger back then. I'd set myself a schedule every day, such as: study for an hour,work out,write for an hour,study for an hour, work out, ect. ect. I was super happy back then and I was able to stick to that formula consistantly day after day.

I try to do that now and it never seems to work for very long . . . maybe just a quarter of the day. I tend to burn out and get bored quickly and want to do less productive things <_ . like play video games or watch tv>_>

I know that I pushed myself really hard back then. Perhaps I shoud just chalk it up to lack of willpower.

When I do the same things over and over again I tend to burn out on them quickly and have to put that activity down for a few weeks or months before I can pick it back up again. I read somewhere that you have to do something consistently about 300 times to make it a habit. I wonder if I'm not trying hard enough. Or maybe before I was just like a machine, and now my mind and body are reacting normally and rejecting the idea of being productive all of the time. Even when I try to be structured now, I throw in fun activities in attempt to not get burnt out so quickly, but usually by the end of the day I'm doing nothing but the fun activities.

 

Any advice, opinions, suggestions. I know it's not unnormal to get lazy. But I always feel like I could be doing something better with my time than wasting it.

[Crazyaboutdogs]

Maybe you are just having a temporary rebellion against responsibility and just need to chill out for a bit. I think many people go through periods where they just don't want to think about what they have to do. If it is getting to be a problem where you are slacking off too much, you will have to start looking at the big picture...your goals in life...so that you can put in the effort to still realize those goals. It is easy to slack off too much so that the goals you had don't get realized..then you will kick yourself. So if you want to get yourself back on track focus on what your future goals are and that might give you the incentive to limit the slack off time.

[catfeeder]

Wow, it's as though you found my diary during several cycles in my life. I think they were productive--just not in the way you might think. I call them regrouping, resetting my priorities, lying low, or about a hundred other names that give me a constructive, temporary message. Sure enough, there comes a point in my future when I can look back and see clearly exActly what I was doing.

 

The only thing I would change is time I spent beating myself up for these cycles. That kind of defeats their purpose.

 

How did I know I was ready to change the lazy cycle? In my case, several things helped me usher it out. First, I put a window of time between my "have-to-dos" and my "want-to-dos", and I used that time for a short meditation. Nothing fancy, no rituals or chants, just a few minutes or more dedicated to clearing my tension, letting go of circular thinking that kept me looping around insignificant things from my day--opting to let things go.

 

Next, I started adding ONE unique thing to my "have-to-dos" each day, which wasn't a big deal since that list had dwindled to almost nothing. Adding just a single 'must' gave me a reasonable goal, and I started to remember what a sense of accomplishment felt like. On one hand it was nice to glimpse a tiny fragment of my old motivation, on the other hand it was a bit disturbing that my world had become so small.

 

Anyway, that's the point. I learned that 'control' meant I could determine the size of my world and the weight of my responsibilities at any given time. I didn't need to work it like I was running from something anymore. I discovered there was nothing to run from--I had met the enemy, and it was me.

 

In your corner.

[MissIndigo]

Do you have one core activity or job that you know is important? Make that a priority and do the best you can to stay the course with it while you ride out this phase and regroup so that you can feel more productive.

 

That's what I'm doing right now--I am very mentally tired after finishing my education and some difficult professional experiences--but I knew what my strengths were and went back to studying and working in those fields. I'm much happier now, and not feeling so drained all the time. I still fight fatigue, but I'm careful not to take up too much outside my main priority and whatever I do I can engage in it and put it down as I please if my main work is requiring most of my effort.