Navigate the Creative Wilderness: Tips to Prevent the Bog of Burnout

1. Welcome to the Bog of Burnout: [MUSIC] Hey, creative. Are you feeling tired, exhausted? Do you feel like you have no energy to keep trekking on your creative wilderness journey? We have come so far, and it's normal at this point to have little to no passion for your creative work and feel like your energy is just totally drained. If this sounds like you right now, then you've likely hit the bog of burnout in the creative wilderness. Let me tell you, this spot is all too common for creatives out here. But what if it didn't have to be? What if there was a way to not only heal from burnout, but to also prevent it before it starts so that you can move forward with more energy, joy, and well-being on your creative journey? That's what I'm sharing in today's class in the creative wilderness tip series. Hey, I'm Liz. I'm an illustrator, educator, and creative business coach based in New Mexico. I own a creative company and have spent many years navigating the highs, the lows, and the unknowns of the creative wilderness. That's why now I am so stoked to share my field notes and tips with you in this series so that you can gain more confidence on your creative journey and know that you're not alone out there. As a creative business owner, I have encountered the bog of burnout numerous times on my path. Like a lot of society, I used to see this as a badge of honor, an outward symbol of success. But over time, I've started to transform that belief to now see that burnout isn't a sign of success. It's actually a sign that I'm not caring for myself or my creativity. Through this mindset shift over the years, I've learned how to recognize burnout before it starts, take action to keep it at bay, and heal burnout when it does arrive. Because now I know that in order to share my services, my creativity, and business to the best of my ability, I can't be burned out. In today's stop on the creative wilderness journey, I am sharing the tips I've learned over the years with you to prevent and heal from the bog of burnout so that you can take care of yourself, take care of your creativity, and move forward on your journey with more joy, health, and ease. Are you ready to dive in? Let's get started. By the way, if you've taken one of the classes in this creative wilderness tip series before and you're already well acquainted with how it works and with what you need, then you can jump right ahead to Lesson number 4. [MUSIC] 2. Your Class Project: In this lesson, we're chatting about your creative wilderness class project. Your class project for this portion of the creative wilderness series is to print off the creative wilderness field guide PDF, and fill out the bag of burnout section. In this section you'll find the following prompts. One, prevent the bog, two, create intentional alone time, three, ask for support, four, recognize the bog and five, create spaciousness. You'll learn about these prompts throughout this class so that you can fill them out in your field guide. You can find the creative wilderness field guide linked in the projects and resources section of this class. You can find that by navigating to the projects and resources tab, and going to the right-hand side of the page where you'll see resources and you'll see the creative wilderness field guide linked and ready to download. Once you've finished filling out this class portion of the field guide, go ahead and upload it to the class projects section. You can do this by navigating to the projects and resources tab and clicking "Create Project". Once you're here, you'll see a few options to share your project. Go ahead and fill in the project title with the name of this series. In the project description, you can add images from your completed field guide by clicking image. This will bring you straight to your files where you can select the images you'd like to upload. You can also type additional observations from your experience in this portion of the creative wilderness into this space. Once you've included all of your images and observations, go ahead and go to the cover image section to upload an image for your project. Again, you'll be brought to your files where you can select your image, click "Open", and then place it just how you want it in the crop space. Press "Submit". Make sure that when you're finished uploading everything, you hit "Publish". That way it'll go to the class project gallery. In the next lesson, we'll go over the materials you'll need for this class. I'll see you there. 3. Gather Your Materials: In this lesson, we're going over the materials you'll need for this class. For this class, you'll need your creative wilderness field guide, a pen, pencil, or writing utensil of choice, and a phone to take a photo of your completed field guide to upload for your class project. That's it. In the next lesson we'll go over how to recognize when you're approaching the Bog of Burnout on your creative wilderness track, so you can take action to prevent it before it starts. I'll see you there. 4. Recognize the Bog of Burnout: In this lesson, I'm sharing the five main signs for how to recognize the Bog of Burnout before you reach it on your creative wilderness journey. The Bog of Burnout can sneak up out of nowhere in the creative wilderness if we aren't aware of the science that it's approaching. But when we can recognize that the Bog of Burnout is coming before we see it, we can take preventative action to avoid it rather than having to pull ourselves out of it. Let's go over the five main signs you are on the path towards the Bog of Burnout. Number 1, you've recently made a visit to the field of failure. If you've recently been in the field of failure, you might be feeling pretty worn out. You might feel like you're trying and trying and creating and creating and failing and failing. Even though you learned in the field of failure that failure is a totally normal part of this journey and a key step towards your success, you're still feeling really exhausted by it. So rather than take a break amidst the failure, you just try to push through the exhaustion without stopping to care for yourself. By the way, if you haven't yet visited the field of failure yet or you need a refresher, you can visit that stop in the creative wilderness by going to my profile page and navigating to the creative wilderness section. Two, you're overworking. This is a classic sign that the Bog of Burnout is fast approaching. Your schedule is too full. You're saying yes, when you don't have the bandwidth and you're taking on too much, you just don't have any breathing room in your schedule to relax or rest or get enough sleep. You're just working all the time. While there can be seasons and times and places to work more, if it becomes your norm, then that is a huge sign that you're headed to the Bog of Burnout. Three, unalignment. Working and living in unalignment for too long can lead to the Bog of Burnout. Unalignment might look like; the work you're doing on a daily basis doesn't match your values. You don't enjoy your job or find fulfillment in your current position. You're not enjoying your day-to-day experiences. Something just feels off. And you feel like you're not receiving the same amount of energy that you're giving. Being out of alignment with your values, your work, and your desires can be incredibly, incredibly draining, and when we're out of alignment for extended periods of time on the creative journey, it can lead straight to the Bog of Burnout. Start to get curious about and recognize what does feel aligned to you and what you feel called to so that you can start taking small steps out of the unalignment and into what lights you up. Four, feeling stuck. Feeling stuck is a key indicator that you're heading towards burnout. One big way to recognize you're stuck is that the energy you're putting into an activity or job is not the energy that you're getting back. For example, you might be pouring all of your time, energy and creativity into people, work or a project and you don't feel any of it coming back to you. Rather than participating in a give and receive cycle of energy, you feel like your energy is only going one direction, away from you. Not having a return on the energy you're giving can be a big indicator that the Bog of Burnout is fast approaching. Five, lack of recognition or positive feedback. If you're creating work and offering services in your creative business or your creative journey, but you aren't receiving any positive feedback or really any feedback at all for that matter that can be a sure sign that you're headed towards the Bog of Burnout. When you're creating and sharing and creating and sharing and nobody seems to be responding or buying and you're continuously being your own cheerleader all of the time, you're likely headed towards burnout. Or perhaps you're getting feedback, but it's negative. People might say your work is no good or what can be even more common is that you're telling yourself your work is no good simply because you're not getting feedback. So you really put yourself into your own kind of self-enclosed negative feedback loop that is often just a bunch of lies circling around themselves. When you're not getting feedback, not encouraging yourself, and not hearing encouragement from others, you can easily become emotionally drained and being led straight into the Bog of Burnout. To recap, these are the five main signs that you're approaching the Bog of Burnout. One, you've recently visited the field of failure. Two, you're overworking. Three, you're out of alignment. Four, you're feeling stuck. Five, you have a lack of recognition or positive feedback. Take a moment now in your field guide to reflect on if you currently feel any of these signs that the Bog of Burnout is approaching on your creative wilderness journey. If and when you notice any of these signs on your creative wilderness trek, be hyper-aware that the bog of burnout might be just around the corner. Take a moment to pause, be present, and recognize the bog before it arrives so you can take preventative action to avoid entering into burnout. How do you know what action to take? Join me in the next lesson where I'm going to share the clear action steps to avoid the Bog of Burnout when you see it approaching on your creative wilderness journey. I'll see you there. 5. Prevent the Bog of Burnout: In this lesson, I'm sharing five action steps you can take to avoid the bog of burnout when you feel yourself approaching it on your creative wilderness journey. It's ideal to take these actions before reaching the bog of burnout rather than try to take them once you're in it. Because burnout is often much easier to prevent than to heal. When you're officially in burnout, it can literally feel like you're trying to pull yourself out of a bog, which takes way more energy and effort than not getting into the bog in the first place. The more steps you can take to recognize and prevent burnout, the more energy you'll have for your creative wilderness journey. Let's dig into the five action steps you can take to prevent burnout. Step 1, schedule in more downtime for yourself ahead of time. How often do you say, I'll rest when I need it or after I'm done with that project or after I finish that class, and then you finish those things and you still think, but I have that client project coming up so I'll just rest after that's done, I promise. Sound familiar. It's easy to get into this cycle on the creative wilderness journey of pushing off rest until the next thing is complete. But there is always more to do, so if we're waiting to be done to rest, then we're never going to rest. I don't mean rest just in terms of sleep. I also mean rest in terms of spending time with community and family, taking a weekend road trip, sitting with a cup of coffee without your computer [LAUGHTER]. Just free, spacious time to rest and relax. Rather than pushing rest to the end of your never-ending to-do list, intentionally schedule it ahead of time, physically put it into your calendar so you can see it, and treat it as gold. Treat it as equally important as a meeting with your boss or a client, schedule downtime in your calendar, and honor it when it arrives. Step 2, schedule alone time. Burnout is usually a result of people pleasing, saying yes to too many things, and over-committing. Intentionally carving out a long time before you reach burnout can help to prevent this from happening. This could look like designating Wednesday evenings as your self-care night where you watch a movie and just draw for fun, or maybe Saturday mornings is when you go to your favorite coffee shop and read. Find a consistent weekly time that you can designate for intentional solitude. When you have this as a non-negotiable incorporated into your schedule, it can really balance out the time you spend with your community on client work, creating for other people, and therefore help to prevent the bug of burnout. Take a moment now in your field guide to designate a weekly time and activity that you'll schedule your intentional alone time. Step number 3, outsource and ask for help. One key factor of being stuck in the bug of burnout is trying to do everything alone. Before you even get near that bog, ask for help. Look at your current schedule and life and notice where you feel like your energy is leaking or draining. Is it with a specific task in your business or a specific task at home or with a certain friend? Identify where your energy is feeling drained on the daily and ask if you can get support in that area. You could pay somebody to help with your business task, or you could trade your time with somebody, or even ask a family member or a friend to help you out. When you do reach out for support in the areas that are draining, allow yourself to receive it. You are not meant to go this journey alone. Asking for a hand and receiving help is a huge action step to prevent burnout. Take a moment now in your field guide to identify where you can outsource or ask for support on your creative wilderness journey. Step 4, step back and celebrate your progress along the way. As I mentioned, a huge sign that you're approaching burnout is that you're really not getting feedback on your creative wilderness journey or you're feeling stuck in this negative feedback loop often with yourself. Rather than getting stuck there and spiraling into the bog of burnout, how can you celebrate your progress all along the way? Press pause and take 20 minutes to step back, honor, and celebrate just how far you've already come. I mean, look at this map, look how far you've already hiked and everything you've overcome, and all that you've already been through and accomplished on your creative wilderness journey. This celebration doesn't have to wait for when you've won a giant award or landed the biggest client. You can celebrate that you showed up to paint, or that you showed up on social media to share your art, or that you have an idea for your creative business. While your celebration and acknowledgment can be for the big milestones, it can and also should be for the smaller steps too. Acknowledge and honor yourself with reverence for how far you've already come on your journey. Incorporating this type of positive feedback for yourself will act as a lift so that rather than sinking into and getting stuck in the bog, your celebration will be the energy to lift you up and prevent you from entering burnout in the first place. Step 5, say no more than you think you need to and before you think you need to. What can often happen is that we land in the bog of burnout and get stuck there. Because we've said yes to too many things. Suddenly there's just too much on our plate and there's too much going on and we're overworked, and it's overwhelming. By saying no more than you think you need to and before you think you need to, you can prevent overwhelm, resentment and burnout. To recap, the five action steps you can take to prevent the bug of burnout are, one, schedule your downtime, two, schedule alone time, three, outsource and ask for help, four, celebrate your progress, and five, say no more than you think you need to and before you think you need to. When we incorporate these action steps consistently into our creative wilderness journey, we can prevent the bug of burnout from overtaking our path. What happens if you miss the preventative actions and find that you're already deep in the bog? How do you get yourself out? Join me in the next lesson where I'm sharing the main tips to recognize when you've already entered into the bog of burnout, so you can know the steps to take to get yourself out of there. I'll see you there. 6. Recognize When You Are in the Bog: In this lesson, I'm sharing the main signs that you've entered into the Bog of Burnout, so you can take action to get out. If you've already entered into the Bog of Burnout, the quicker you can recognize that you're there, the easier it's going to be to pull yourself out. Just like a bog, it's a lot easier to get out if only your feet are in it as opposed to being up to your shoulders in it. Here are the five signs to recognize when you've already entered into the Bog of Burnout. One, feeling leeched. This is the first sign that you're in the Bog of Burnout, and it's what I call feeling leeched. Basically, what I mean is if you are covered in leeches, and they were just like, I know this is gross but wilderness. Sucking on your skin, they are leeching you. When you feel leeched in life, it can feel like your energy, your creativity, and joy is just being totally drained out of you. Leeching can also feel like being so exhausted and burned out, that when people who love you asked for a small thing like, "Hey, you want to go to that movie tomorrow?" Or, "Hey, can you pick up groceries on the way home?" You feel totally exhausted, and you can't even answer the question, or the question itself just feels annoying, draining, or like a burden. Another way to think about this is like that scene in The Little Mermaid. The one where all those little souls are at the bottom of the ocean, and area is drifting away, and they're all trying to reach out and grab at her. That's how feeling leech can feel. It can really suddenly feel like everybody around you is reaching out to you, asking for things from you, vying for your attention, and even if you want to do, you would just have no energy to give. It doesn't mean they're doing anything wrong or asking for too much. It just means that you're feeling leeched because you are so drained. When you notice this, you've definitely already entered into the Bog of Burnout. Two, every little thing feels annoying or makes you irritable. The second sign that you're already in the Bog of Burnout is when every little thing feels really annoying or makes you feel really irritable. Things that normally bring you joy or don't annoy you at all, suddenly start to feel like they're getting on your every nerve, and your patient's threshold gets incredibly low. Three, saying yes will make you implode. The third sign that you're in the Bog of Burnout is if you say yes to one more thing, you feel like you're literally going to implode. Your plate and schedule is so full that if you say yes one more time, you feel like everything's going to fall apart. This is a huge sign that you're already in the Bog of Burnout. Four, everything feels like a total chore. The fourth sign that you're in the Bog of Burnout is when everything, even small little chores or daily tasks you typically do like writing an email or going to the store, feels like it takes monumental effort to complete. It feels like answering an email is going to completely drain your energy. Five, your passion suddenly feels pointless. The fifth sign that you're in the Bog of Burnout already is when what you're usually passionate about, and what you usually love starts to feel pointless. For example, if you're on your creative journey, and you love to paint, and you're painting, and sharing your work with the world, but then suddenly you're just like, "What is the point?" "I don't want to paint today." "Why am I doing this?" "This is meaningless." You get in this self-doubt loop of your work feeling really purposeless. That's a clear sign that you're already deep in the Bog of Burnout. To recap, the five signs that you're already in the Bog of Burnout are; one, feeling leeched. Two, every little thing feels annoying. Three, saying yes will make you implode. Four, everything feels like a total chore. Five, your passion suddenly feels pointless. Take a moment in your field guide to reflect on if you currently feel any of these signs of being in the Bog of Burnout. If so, be sure to take action as soon as you can to get out. The sooner you can recognize the signs, the sooner you can recognize you're in the Bog of Burnout and take steps to pull yourself out of their, recover, and move forward on your creative journey with more energy, joy, and well-being. What steps can you take to get yourself out of the bog if you're already there? Join me in the next lesson where I'm sharing the main steps to pull yourself out of the Bog of Burnout so you can move forward on your journey with more energy and ease. I'll see you there. 7. Move Out of the Bog: In this lesson, I'm sharing my main tips to pull yourself out of the bog of burnout to move forward on your creative wilderness journey with more ease, energy, and well-being. I want to note that all of the steps I shared for how to prevent burnout also apply to getting out of burnout. In addition to those tips, as soon as you find yourself in the bog, you'll also want to take these steps to get out. Tip 1, keep saying no. The first tip to pull yourself out of the bog of burnout is to say no a lot. As you learned, a huge reason for burnout is saying yes to too much, too often. When you're in burnout, say no a lot to carve out intentional time to rest, simplify, and take care of yourself, and pull yourself out of the bog. Tip 2, create spaciousness. The second tip to pull yourself out of the bog of burnout is to create spaciousness in your work and your life. If you imagine being stuck in a bog, creating spaciousness is like maneuvering and wiggling your arms to make space around you, so you can start to pull yourself out. How can you make this space? Some ideas are to continue saying no, meditate, journal, go for walks in nature, sleep, cancel some meetings, and ask for help with meal prep. Reflect a near field guide to brainstorm a list of ways you can create spaciousness for yourself. Tip 3, set clear boundaries. The third tip to pull yourself out of the bog of burnout is to set clear boundaries. Boundaries are really important to implement before you reach burnout. This includes boundaries around your time, your work, your asleep, your family, and your solitude. But if you're stuck in the bog of burnout, then that's when you need to, as I like to say, make your boundaries into a moat. This is as if you are in a castle getting the rest, solitude, and spaciousness you need. To protect your castle of solitude, you have to make a moat, aka your boundaries, so people can't easily come in and take over your intentional space. The boundary moat is strict and clear. It protects your energy so you can rest, leave the castle of solitude, and get out of the bog. Tip Number 4, prioritize yourself. The fourth tip to pull yourself out of the bog of burnout is to prioritize yourself. This can look like carving out space for alone time, getting enough sleep, cooking and feeding yourself foods that nourish your body, getting into nature, and spending time outside. Essentially, you prioritize taking care of your body, mind, and soul until you start to feel like you again. To recap. The four main tips to pull yourself out of the bog of burnout are, one, keep saying no; two, create spaciousness; three, set clear boundaries; and four, prioritize yourself. Take action on these tips to get yourself out of the bog of burnout to move forward on your creative wilderness journey. Once you do this, make it a consistent practice to implement the preventative tips so you can recognize and stop burnout before it begins. In the next lesson, I'm sharing a personal example of a recent time I found myself in the bog of burnout on my creative wilderness journey and how I implemented these tips to get out. In fact, this example is directly related to making this class series. I'll see you there. 8. Learn from a Personal Example: In this lesson, I'm sharing a personal example of a time I recently found myself in the Bog of Burnout, what led me there, and the actions I took to get out so I can move forward on my creative wilderness journey. The Bog of Burnout is something that I've encountered many times on my creative path. The most recent time I found myself there, was actually when I was creating a portion of this creative wilderness series. When I started this series of classes, I was definitely in the honeymoon phase of the project. I was so stoked to share these classes and tips with more creatives to help them on their journeys. That initial excitement gave me a ton of energy to write, prep and film the first three episodes. I was working 10 hour days, but it felt fine and good, and exciting, and really energizing. That's because all of the energy I was pouring in was coming back to me. Burnout was nowhere to be seen seen the horizon or that's what I thought. Ms. Honeymoon phase, it lasted through filming the first three episodes of this series. During the second batch of filming, which was the next five episodes, I noticed that I was way more tired. I wasn't as high energy and without realizing it, I was entering into more stress. In between filming the first two batches of classes, I was also writing new scripts, editing the first episodes, and working on other aspects of my creative business. When I got to that next batch of filming, I was way less energized and had left the honeymoon phase. Stress had arrived and I was getting closer and closer to the Bog of Burnout. After I finished filming the second batch of episodes, I dove straight back into editing. I was feeling more overwhelmed by the work and really not sure how I was going to get everything done. I wasn't sleeping as consistently, I was going to bed later and I was working way more. With all of that, I was feeling more and more stressed. I kept working and editing and writing scripts which continued the feelings of stress. Even though I still loved the project as a whole, it was feeling more challenging to balance with my life. This led me straight into the bog. Fortunately, I was able to quickly recognize that I'd entered the bog because of the science I shared earlier in this class. I noticed I was irritable. Everything felt it was draining my energy and I was feeling leached. When I recognized I was in the bog, I called it out, I named the burnout, admitted that I pushed past my limits and, that I needed to pause. Rather than pushing through and getting deeper into the bog where I just get more stuck, I took a day and got out into nature. I went to a river, journaled and spent the whole day in solitude so that I could really reconnect with myself. I asked, how can I incorporate more rest and be better balanced in my schedule? I returned to work the next day but took it really slow all week. I didn't push myself and I was really conscious of my needs. I spent most of that week in solitude, setting my boundary mode, carving out intentional alone time, prioritizing sleep, watching mindless TV, and resting. I came back to a steady pace of not pushing into overwork and overdrive. Fortunately, because I caught this visit to the bog early enough, it was about a week into it that I started to feel better and get back to a baseline of energy that was grounded, consistent, and felt both sustainable and healthy. Again, the sooner you can recognize the Bog of Burnout, the sooner you can take action to prevent it or pull yourself out of it to move forward with more health, energy, and momentum on your creative journey. In the next lesson, you're going to fill out your field guide and publish your class project. I'll see you there. 9. Publish Your Class Project: In this lesson, we're chatting about publishing your class project. Once you've completed this section of the Creative Wilderness, take a photo of your completed bog of burnout portion of the Creative Wilderness Field Guide. Then you can upload that photo to the class project section of this class. Remember that you can upload your class project by going to the projects and resources tab and clicking the Create Project button. Once you've uploaded your photo, be sure to hit "Publish". Also be sure to check out other class projects from your fellow creatives in the project gallery. We're all out here in the creative wilderness together so let's show support for each other's journeys. Also, be sure to let me know in the discussion section what tip you're implementing to prevent burnout on your creative wilderness trek this week. In the next lesson, I am sharing the next stop we'll encounter together in the creative wilderness. I'll see you there. 10. Thank You & Next Steps: [MUSIC] Thank you so much for tuning into this class in the creative wilderness tip series. I hope you're feeling more equipped, confident, and totally stoked to keep trekking through the wilderness together. I know that the bag of burnout can feel exhausting. While the bag of burnout is normal to experience, it should not be the normal state of being in the creative wilderness. Just remember to be aware when it's approaching, don't wear it as a badge of honor, and take preventative steps to make it an infrequent stop on your creative wilderness journey. In the next class in this series, we're visiting the growth of rest, where I'll share my tips for how to intentionally and proactively incorporate rest into your wilderness trek, so you can experience more energy and creativity on your path. In the meantime, if you want continued encouragement for your journey, you can download a free pep talk that I've recorded just for you to listen to anytime you need to get pumped up and confident about your next steps forward. You can download that at printsandplants.com/peptalk. Lastly, be sure to follow me here on Skillshare to stay up-to-date on new classes by hitting that follow button. Check out more of my work at printsandplants.com, and come hang out with me on Instagram @prints_and_plants. Stay wild, stay creative. I'll see you soon. [MUSIC] That's a wrap.