I burned out. Here's how I recovered.

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So just to let you know up front,

this is gonna be a bit more of a strip down video,

especially in comparison to the last video.

But I think we're gonna talk about today

doesn't need a super bombastic approach

and it certainly doesn't need

a thousand different camera angles.

So, what I wanna talk about today is burnout.

And the reason I wanna talk about it is that,

in 2019, I went through a period of true burnout.

I was creatively exhausted,

I started to take a very cynical approach

to how I looked at my work,

and how I looked at my life in some cases.

And it was different than any year before that.

I've definitely gone through stressful periods before

but this year, around May, maybe April,

I got to a point where things just were not good.

I was looking very negatively towards my work,

and part of the reason was that I sort of felt

trapped by the work that I had built for myself.

And it was kind of funny because nobody was telling me

to do what I was doing.

Everything that I do on a daily basis

is something that I decided to do

since I run my own business,

and yet, I felt like there wasn't a way out.

But, with the help of some other people

and with some better decisions

that I've made since those months,

I've actually been able to come out of that burnout

and get back a to of that creative energy

and just that fire for life and for my work

that I used to have.

So what I wanna talk about in this video is,

number one, how I burned out,

but number two and more importantly,

how I got passed that burnout.

Because I think a lot of people go through this.

Especially as we constantly put more and more

expectations on ourselves.

And I think this is partly due

to the influences we all have,

the internet and social media.

We often feel a lot of pressure

and that can lead to burnout.

But I think it's something that we can definitely get over.

So in my case, I felt burned out because of my schedule.

I was putting out so much content and,

as you probably know if you've watched a lot of my content,

I'm really not content to do

the same kind of video over and over again.

I like to find something new and innovative that I can do

with every piece of content that I create.

But I also have a schedule to stick to.

And to pull back the curtain a little bit

on how my business works,

as you probably know,

I have sponsors on most videos that I do.

And things have gotten to the point

over the past couple of years

where sponsors would book out several months in advance,

meaning that I had deadlines

and I had kind of a schedule that I would stick to.

And I am a person who tends to bite off

more than I can chew.

I get overly ambitious especially when it comes to

what future Tom can do,

because in my head, future Tom is not burdened

by all of the myriad to-do items

that present Tom has to do.

So I will happily saddle future Tom

with many many many commitments.

And it got to the point where I had

four videos a month, sometimes five,

scheduled out months and months and months in advance.

And as a lot of entrepreneurs do,

I had started to build a team.

So now, not only was my livelihood on the line,

but other people's livelihoods were on the line as well.

I felt that if I were to scale back

the amount of content I was producing,

I will be letting down my team

in a very real tangible way.

So as a result, I kind of felt trapped.

And months and months and months went by

where I would, you know, push up against deadlines,

I would feel creatively exhausted,

and I would always tell myself,

next month, I will just work harder,

next month, I'll just be more efficient.

And this is always my go-to solution for everything.

I just think, you know, if I'm having

a tough time right now, if things are stressful,

it is my fault because I have been inefficient

and I just need to work harder

the next time around the next month.

And there's some truth to that. (chuckling)

I think a lot of these mental prisons

we put ourselves in are built on a foundation

of at least a kernel of truth.

Like I could actually be more efficient.

But that's not always the crux of the problem.

There's often something more fundamental

that needs to be addressed.

And in my case, it was the number of commitments that I had.

Because I have a desire to make everything that I create

high quality and often have different innovative elements

or, you know, because I often learn something new

and want to incorporate it

into everything I make afterwards,

I just can't put out the same amount of content

that certain other YouTubers can.

So here's how I got out of my burnout.

And I know this is not a very highly structured video

but I'm just kind of speaking from the heart here.

So number one, and this may not be as actionable

for some people but I did take a break.

I went on vacation with my girlfriend.

And unlike most of the vacations

I have taken in my life since becoming an adult,

I made this one an actual vacation.

I did as much as I could to cut work out of my life.

I have a great team,

and they were able to take care of some things.

We were able to work ahead

to get things done in advance.

And I was able to actually relax.

But much more importantly,

I cut back on my commitments.

I had a conversation with the guy who runs my agency,

and I asked him if he would help me

move things around so I would get down

to a bit of a sparser schedule.

And when I did that, something really surprising happened.

I immediately started to get ideas again.

I immediately started to become interested in things

that I would normally get agitated about.

Like when a new project came across my plate

or something that I would maybe wanna get interested in,

as part of my burnout, I would just get agitated

because it would feel like that thing

would take too much of my time

and I already had so much going on

I couldn't even pay it any attention.

The moment I committed to cutting back my schedule,

I started to have a more open outlook towards new things.

I had a lot of that interest

for life in general coming back.

And the interesting thing was

the way that my agent had moved things around,

made it so that I still had to do four videos in June,

and the cut down schedule wasn't gonna start until July,

so I still had a full month of the same workload,

but just knowing that my schedule

was going to open up

and I was gonna have more breathing room

in the near future,

it took a lot of pressure off of me,

it took a weight off my shoulders.

So if you're in a place where you are feeling burned out,

I think the number one thing you have to do is

figure out how you can cut down

on the number of commitments in your life.

And this is really really tough.

I put off doing this for so long

because, again, I felt like I literally couldn't.

I felt like I had to keep up my content schedule

because otherwise I wouldn't be able

to pay my team what they deserved.

And the reason I felt this way is

I did not have an accurate concrete picture

of everything that was going on.

I just had this sort of ethereal feeling

that if I stopped working as hard as I was working,

then everything was going to crash and burn.

And I think a lot of people have this fear.

So here's what's probably gonna be the most practical

piece of advice in this video.

When you realize that you need to reduce

the number of commitments in your life,

sit down, write them all out,

and see exactly what you're going to sacrifice.

So in my case, my big fear was that

I was not gonna make enough money to pay my team,

but I hadn't really sat down and done the math.

So I broke out my big spreadsheet that I use

to track my entire business and my finances.

I don't do crazy in-depth budgeting

on a month to month basis on this,

but I do put in average income numbers,

average expense numbers,

and this gets me a pretty accurate estimate

of how much is gonna be left over at the end of the month,

after everything is said and done.

So, I broke that spreadsheet out

and I changed the number of videos

that I was doing per month,

from four to one, to see what it would do.

And I think putting it to a one

would have put me in the red every month,

so I brought it up to two,

and interestingly enough,

at two videos a month,

my business would have started breaking even.

So I wouldn't have been saving any money,

but I would have been able to continue paying my salary

and I wouldn't have had to give anyone a pay cut.

And I would have cut my salary before

giving anyone else a pay cut.

But I wouldn't even have had to do that.

And that was such a different picture

than what I had in my head before.

I thought, if I stopped working

as hard as I'm working right now,

everything is gonna crash and burn.

Not, if I stopped working as hard as I'm working,

then everything is just going to slow down.

Which is a much more palatable future.

And once I had that data,

I realized that I could actually slow down.

The role wasn't gonna end.

I would just grow a little bit more slowly.

So get straight on your priorities.

Be willing to make some sacrifices,

and get as much data as you can on those sacrifices.

A couple more things that I did.

Number one, I had to come to the realization

that not every single piece of content that I create

can be at the exact same level.

And I think a lot of artists struggle with this,

but there are also a lot of artists out there

who completely understand it.

There are bands that do, you know,

crazy albums with entire orchestras,

and then on the next album,

they'll strip it back,

they'll go back to just four people on the band,

the guitar, bass, drums, and a singer and that's it.

And that's fine.

There's this ebb and flow to the amount of craziness

they put into each piece of art.

I struggled with that.

When I make a video like the one on our morning routine,

which took me like five full days of work to make,

I start to feel like every single video

I make in the future has to be that good

and that crazy and technical and effortful,

otherwise, I'm not working to my full potential.

But that's just not how it works.

We don't always have to do the exact same thing

at the exact same level.

Finally, and this is a bit more of a philosophical thing,

but I've taken more seriously

the knowledge that there's never going to be

a magical moment where I have attained

enough success that I will just let myself slow down.

That doesn't exist.

But I believe that I am not alone in having that,

as like a thought in the back of my head,

that if, you know, if I just do this and this and this,

then I'll take a break, then I'll slow down.

But that's not how it works.

You know, when I was 25 I thought that,

but I got to 28 and I have accomplished a lot

of what I wanted to accomplish back when I was 25,

and now there's like a thousand more things

I want to accomplish.

So I've just become, again, okay with slower progress

because in exchange, I get a better work life balance.

I have less chronic stress

and I also have time to pursue things

that are really interesting.

Things that I probably would have found aggravating

because I was so overwhelmed just six months ago.

Now, those things truly are interesting again.

And one of those things is actually music,

which is why I have taken the time

to build this new studio

and set it up for music production.

I've been doing a lot more

guitar practice, piano practice, lately.

And I've also been going through

a really excellent book called,

"How Music Works" by David Byrne,

who was one of the founding members

of the Talking Heads band.

It is a fantastic book, I'm really enjoying it.

And you can listen to it on Audible,

if you go over to Audible.com/thomas,

or by texting Thomas to 500-500 on your phone,

and signing up.

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Thanks as always for watching.

Hopefully, this kind of rambling video

is helpful for you.

I've honestly had a lot of trouble

getting over this burnout myself

and I had to have a lot of conversations

with friends and people

that I trust and that love me to get over it.

So hopefully some of my experience

is helpful for you to hear about.

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Thanks again for watching

and I will see you in my next video.