Do you have the burnout blues?
There will always be an ebb and flow to your motivation, even when it comes to something you love. It’s natural to have times when your motivation dips, but if it has dipped and you are feeling depleted, it is something you need to address. It’s time to rotate your crops.
Let me explain.
If you plant the same species of plant in the exact same location year after year, eventually the soil gets depleted of certain nutrients. Basically, the plant ends up sucking the life right out of the soil; aka: burnout. However, when you rotate your crops around – say, swap the locations of the tomatoes and the sweet peas – it helps keep the soil fertile and increases your yield.
You want to perk up your tomatoes and sweet peas? It’s time to “rotate your crops” – and here’s how you do it:
Change things up
There’s something about taking yourself out of your usual element that can open up your creativity, productivity, motivation, energy, and feelings about what is possible. Try changing up the location of your workout or finding a new adventurous way to cross train. Sometimes you need to change things up to feel reinvigorated and get excited about things again.
Do other things you enjoy
Even when it’s not your profession, sometimes your sport starts to feel little bit more like a job. Go hang out with a friend you haven’t seen in a while, get back to an old hobby, take up a new hobby; stimulate your brain with something new. Novelty stimulates higher levels of dopamine and when you feel better, you feel less burnout.
Something old and something new
Get proactive about preventing burnout, versus needing to be reactive because you are in the depths of it. If you want things to feel different, you must do something different and the best way to deal with burnout is to catch it early. If you feel tired, bored, depleted, irritated – try finding something old and something new:
- Pick something to change up this week. What is something you have enjoyed doing in the past that you can resurrect? Who is someone you like spending time with that you haven’t talked to in a while?
- Choose something new to do this week: new stories, new ideas, new experiences. Your brain craves them, so if you haven’t experienced anything new in a while, schedule some novelty into this week.