How do you deal with burn out?

You'll feel a bit better once you stop looking at your negatives and focus on the positives, small as they may be.

You failed? No, you learned something, and so that's one more mistake that you won't repeat again. You're 1 step closer to success!

You only got 2 sales on a big launch? Well, that's 2 more than you had before!

You don't understand something that you need to learn? Ask for help. It's a great way to network!

There's a positive side to everything, and if you actively start to focus on it, you'll start feeling better bit by bit. ^_^

Rather than overly focus on "symptoms" of burnout (like fatigue, confusion, etc) I find that I have to get to the source: it's usually my bodymind communicating that I'm doing something (or many things) the wrong way... trying to put the "square peg in the round whole" or going the wrong direction down the football field, to put it symbolically.

This is generally very holistic (but it might be only one or two simple or specific things you need to change in your particular case), meaning that I am probably neglecting many different aspects of a balanced life, like:

Putting the proper food into my body that it needs to replace the various cells, tissues and chemicals I need to be a Warrior day to day...I may be surrounding myself with the wrong people....or maybe the opposite: that I'm isolating myself too much (as an introvert it can be challenging to find this balance). I may also simply be pushing towards the wrong goal and really need to step back to gain altitude on the situation. I cultivate meditative awareness to see what arises in my subconscious motivations/intentions....... for example am I working towards "goal X" because subconsciously I believe it will bring me "Ultimate Validation"...that I will "be enough" of a person or be "good enough" if only I acheive "goal X". Maybe an insight that would arise is you're burned out because you're giving too much away to other people and not giving enough self-love and energy to your own well being. There limitless amounts of underlying assumptions or beliefs that could be causing subterfuge in your life. Support from an outsider helps us "see our edge" or our "blind spots" but ultimately we will have to walk in our own shoes to dig deep.

Burnout can be very scary because subconsciously we may realize we have to take DRASTIC CHANGES in order to course correct. This could mean leaving friends, family, home and jobs behind to start over somewhere else! For such a socially-defined and cultured creature, this isn't very easy at all and may trigger unconscious fears of self-annihilation (without the support of our familial group, our primitive minds know we face certain doom on the ancient savannahs and forests of this earth).

For me, Burnout typically has me reacting in a way that scales down and reduces my responsibilities so that I have much more free time for "personal retreat". If you can't step back at all it can be very difficult to have the perspective or space for insight to see where you need to make changes. Your daily energy is sapped by basic routine. I'm grateful I'm a young man without family and householder obligations, otherwise it would be far more challenging to temporarily "scale back/down" in this way. When I have gained the free time, I cultivate a lot of conscious presence, meditative silence, and rest, I play in any way I feel (sports, running, hikes, surf, whatever I spontaneously desire...I find that structuring your exercise too much is demotivating for most people and inhibits them from building the positive physical momentum and reward the body needs to cultivate true healthy lifestyle). It's also utterly essential I eat a deeply nourishing diet loaded with dark green leafy plants, a rainbow assortment of colorful fruits and veggies, healthy fats and oils derived from nuts, seeds, nut/seed butters, coconut oil/butter, avocadoes, etc. I also consume a lot of cultured "living" foods like kombucha, traditional sauer kraut, or coconut kefir. If I eat animal products its usually certain organ meats, fish, or eggs; and its free of antibiotics, hormones, torture, and was raised with a nutritious natural diet of its own (eating a chicken breast from a chicken that ate greens, insects and seeds and breathed fresh air and saw sunlight is farrrr different from the factory chicken that subsists purely on corn and growth hormones).

You can be lazy, stupid and busy and still incorporate massive amounts of truly healthy food (I personally make plant smoothies which allows me to compact loads of bulky plant foods into a drink to be sipped while I'm reading or doing whatever). I drink lots of herbal tea and pure water. I avoid stimulating/unbalancing substances like coffee, alcohol, marijuana, refined/processed junk food etc. (diets not the subject here and is endlessly explorable but I felt it important for those brainwashed by the american diet(tm) to see the basics of what a whole-foods diet looks like). If you focus on the big picture it will be very simple and you won't get overwhelmed on the endless garbage and fad information out there.

Don't eat like most americans, otherwise you virtually guarantee you will be dying like most americans (heart disease, diabetes, cancers, etc). The common western diet is pushed on consumers by food conglomerates but we're complicit in eating their processed junk because we like the spike of pleasure refined sugar, greasy fried foods, and the like give to our brains. Trust me when I say the baseline happiness and energy you feel on a whole foods diet is one of the most fundamental pieces of having resilience and adaptability when coping with long term life variables. You will feel great. When you feel great, people look at you and feel good. They don't know why but they just like seeing you. Doesn't matter if you think you're an ugly brute. You radiate vitality and it will show in your skin, your eyes, your smile, everything. This is great for all things.


Best of luck to anyone experiencing burnout or feels the onset of one coming... I'm brand new to the warrior forum and am on my own personal "upswing" from a "down place" and am just learning how to work the various features of the website. Super pumped to be part of this community!

I don't think you should ever let yourself get to that point.

Try taking a FULL day off to do other things that interest you in life and take stock of your past successes, however small. (Surely you have some of those).

It also helps to know that there is a clear distinction between failure and temporary defeat.