I predicted my burnout, and you can too.

I’ve been wanting to write this and it’s necessary for it to be written because it relates to the majority of the human race. It relates to the hard workers. The passionate. The go-getters.

A few months ago, I went through a phase where despite my uttermost efforts, I had no energy to move. Not a single element in my body was being able to adjust against the state of my mind, over what my body was used to, or at least what I made my body used to.

At first when this sensation arose, I labeled it lethargy. As it escalated to copy and paste itself to each bone in my body, enveloping the mind, did I realise this is what we call a burnout. Like a cigarette butt, towards its fag end, I burned out.

Before I could take a stand and prevent myself, I was sprawled on the bed, with my face staring at the ceiling. The walls were dull or maybe it mirrored what my mind felt, as it wasn’t put to use.

I soon realized a burnout is a self-destruction due to expectations that are mythical in nature. My behavior to work hard was being mixed by my impression that being idle meant a backtrack in progress. I got fixated by the idea of constant progress that I forgot progress is a consistent slow-moving train. Only if you take time out to stop and observe from the outside, will you acknowledge the miles covered.

However, I became a parched man trying to quench his thirst in the desert. Mirages lured me to walk faster but internally these made up illusions of goals we fixate on, depleted the very same energy that would be needed to participate in my own race. Foolishly I took the lack of fuel in my system as a sign I was working hard. Working hard however does not equal working smart. I started to learn this through the difficult route. So, I walked on the desert as my body began to transform internally and externally, with dark circles replicating battle scars of progress to a deluded mind. They were screams from my body to watch out, like street signs, they did give me a warning, even though I ignored it.

This first occurred when I was writing what was supposed to be my second book. I stayed up, typing words, in a tiresome state where the movement of the keypad was mere sound, and words didn’t make sense. However, it was this inhumane exhaustion that made me believe what I was doing would lead to a successful book. If only I learned earlier that those words would never find themselves in a book, simply because they were the work of a tired mind, not one with fuel but on that needed to be refueled.

Still, I continued to work hours on a stretch, adding tasks to post-it notes that became a page long. I did find water in the form of gratification and rewards, and on multiple occasions my thirst was quenched. But now mirages of rewards further away seemed more appetizing and it was no longer progress but the idea of a fantasized image of progress I vigored to conquer. I became a thirsty man on a desert prioritizing the taste of the water, over water itself. A recipe of disaster, I concocted for one.

If this happens to you, then I’m here to help.

But before this happens, I want you to be able to predict it and the signs above help you to protect yourself from burning out. It is through the burnout that I realized the biggest asset to your work, is you. The improvement in work comes from time, experience and conserved energy. A sprint makes you cover the shortest distance the faster you go, but a marathon makes you cover the distance more times than once. Make your decision wisely.

There are days when things don’t go your way but there is no reason to think that is the end or that you need to work 10X in that moment to overcome it.

Things won’t go as planned; they won’t go how you imagined. 182,000 words in comparison to 172,000 words I wrote never made it to any of the books (those that made it first to get published turned out to be those typed on my blackberry!), business plans failed to find life (new businesses emerged from their ashes), and certain startups that showed progress and growth never fulfilled their potential (their experiences have built a portfolio that grows strongly), leaving learnings in return to the time I spent in the hope of a result that emerged when you’re ready for it.

This sounds daunting, it sounds scary but a lot of what I type right now, doesn’t scare me as much as I type it because the only certainty is that we are taking steps towards these ‘finishing lines’. But these aren’t finishing lines my fellow hard workers, passion seekers and go-getters, they aren’t finishing lines. They are paths to progress, or a doorway to another level, that enables us to go ahead and figure out another way to yet another doorway.

If you’re listening to motivational music like I did to prepare yourself, you’re forcing preparation, and you’ll pull a muscle in your mind that will cause the pain of exhaustion. When all you’re trying to achieve is the pain built by development and strength.

Waking up early and sleeping late is a short-term remedy. I agree you will go through this on several days, but when someone says sleep is for the weak, all I say is, no sleep will ultimately make you weak. I have found myself bed-ridden for close to a week, with pain making my bones seem brittle, that made me realise the mind needs to be conditioned but most importantly, it needs to be given its space to breathe.

Last but most importantly, the moment you begin to value what you want over yourself, you forget you are the person going after a continuous goal. This goal isn’t just to succeed. It is to grow, learn and keep going, so don’t just value what you want, value the person going for it.