Three Days of Blogger's Burnout

I was happily re-setting my goals for the next two weeks, when I slowly found myself losing any and all motivation to work on the posts I had set for myself. It got to about 2pm when I realized why: I had burnt myself out. 

Day One: Acceptance

It's not like I had been working around the clock for days on end, but all I could bring myself to do was play episodes of the Big Bang Theory back-to-back and scroll Pinterest for birthday ideas (even though mine was only in December, but I can't deny the idea of a brunch party!) Don't get me wrong, it was great just doing that for a few hours, but anyone who knows me will tell you that I hate feeling unproductive. Being a workaholic serves me well as a blogger and most days I can be self-motivated enough to get my to-do list all crossed off. But this day, I knew I wanted to write, only my mind felt too exhausted to write more than a sentence. Oh brain, why do you betray me so?

Day two of my blogger's burnout started out with 6.30am CrossFit class. We were doing 200m sprints and toes-to-bar gymnastics on every odd/even minutes for twenty. I felt great, my sprints were getting faster and they boys weren't so far out of my sight as we ran down the driveway and back again. My coach was happy with me keeping a 45sec mark on each run too. Come time for the metcon and it was the dreaded wall-balls. There's two movements in CrossFit that slow me down because of my lack of confidence: wall-ball shots are one, and box jumps are the other. But I surprised myself and got a good pace going. On my 20th throw I bent down and felt the side of my knee hurting. After some push-ups my coach came over to see what was wrong, and sure enough I had pulled a muscle. Apparently it's a common injury when you do lots of running then switch to another exercise. Well, at least it meant I didn't have to do any more throws.

So here I am, resting my leg with a snoozing dog beside me and my laptop open to get my itch to write out. I think that may be the lesson from the burnout I'm experiencing this time. Despite giving myself topics to write about, all I want to do is open a blank page and tap away at my keyboard until my heart is content. I think planning has taken some fun out of blogging lately and I need to learn to be more spontaneous. Just sitting down and writing out my thoughts for a few hours might be just what I've been missing.

Day three has come around and I am feeling positive about how things are turning out. I showed up to CrossFit class as per normal and just let my coach give me alternatives that wouldn't strain my knee. I got to do bench press and felt stronger than the last time I did it. And I still got to practice kettlebell snatches with everyone else. I loved working on technique, so with minimal weight class was fun.

As I was sitting down to eat my porridge (with banana and home-grown strawberries I picked myself) I got a call from another workplace that is with the same company I'm with now. I had put my name down for extra shifts since they needed workers and what do ya know? With travel plans on my brain, this was great news for my bank balance. I got to earn some extra cash for a few hours and it's in an environment that I'm used to, so no anxiety. I'm going back tomorrow too!

I left in a good mood, happy about possibly starting a new chapter. But my day was about to get even better, because I was driving straight to a toy store.

Has anyone else ever wanted to have Nerf gun fights with their partner? Or just enjoy seeing how good they are at shooting targets? Because I definitely have and I'm so excited about it. The boyfriend already has one, so I thought it would be fun to buy one for myself. After looking through the whole range, I couldn't deny the bad-ass fairy crossbow that was staring at me from the shelf (although, I will go back for the Star Wars blasters soon!)

My lesson from day three of my burnout is: break routine and make things fun. Sometimes I have the habit of saying no to someone because I'm too comfortable to do something different, or I'm just letting fear stop me. Breaking routine can get you out of a funk by showing you that things aren't as bad as you play them out to be in your head. The same goes for blogging; trying new ways to get inspired or even taking your laptop somewhere new to write a post, might be a breath of fresh air for you. Making things fun has eased my burnout too, and brought a smile to my face. We all know that when we feel good, writing becomes easier and we want to get more things done. I'm telling you, toy stores and Kinder Eggs are the key to true happiness.

Other ways to make blogger burnout better:

Read other blogs and offer support

Find new blogs to follow while you're at it

Get out of the house and have a catch up

Don't be hard on yourself, burnouts happen

Be productive in other areas of your life: wash your makeup brushes, prep some meals, so the washing etc.

I've been burnt out before, and I know I will be again. It's all a part of the blogging experience. Let's face it, running a blog is a lifestyle and it can be hard to switch your brain off from it. It's the best thing in the world to have a passion that I can work on every day and want to succeed at in life. But it can be incredibly useful to take a step back and re-evaluate how you approach it. We can get so stuck in our routine that we miss some important cues that could make a world of difference. We always need to grow with our blogs and burnouts can show us which areas we may need to change.


Have you ever experienced blogger burnout? Let me know how you got through it and your thoughts.
Steph x.