Creator Burnout

Last year, I was pretty transparent that I was struggling to keep up with social media posts. After my October blog, I got a lot of really encouraging messages that were both reaffirming and a bit of what's next. 

Let's pause here so that if you are hoping this blog post is about beating burnout I don't have any great advice. 

Even though I felt burnt out I was also grappling with the fact that I did not want to disappoint folks. Queue the overthinker 😅 I took the break, and did all the journaling one is encouraged to do when experiencing burnout. I assumed (because of the self-help advice) that after a few weeks, I would come back refreshed, with a new commitment and influx of creativity. Friends, that did not happen! What did happen was my burnout was replaced with a lot of apathy. In my self-imposed break, I watched from the sidelines the same discourse, hot takes, and some trending topics that I had no interest in engaging. The only difference was I just wasn't in the thick of it. The book community was going on whether I was an active participant or not. So, what's the point of this blog if I'm not going to give some earth-shattering getting over burnout advice? Good question. The answer is it's up to you to figure out how you want to shake it.

What made me come back (beyond the guilt) was to really be honest about what was disconnecting me from the creative well that used to exist. I really wanted to get to a place where ideas would just flow. I went back to my idea logs, notebooks, and posts that didn't see the light of day, but I still felt stilted. I started asking myself if I should do a hard pivot and shake things up. Early on I made a commitment that I would avoid posting negative content and/or hot takes, so it was tempting to go down this path. So, trying to stay true to my original idea; encouraging busy people to find ways to read seemed like posting in a void. I became obsessed over every arbitrary thing. My only metric to see what was "working" was likes, comments, and shares. In Filterworld Chayka calls it "algorithmic anxiety" the feeling that you must constantly contend with machine estimations of importance.  It was literally staring me in the face at some point, I made an unconscious decision to chase after the very fickle algorithm.  I didn't have the language to say that the 30+ hours I was spending batch creating while fun at times also stopped nurturing my creative outlet.

Yikes on a bike! Yeah, I was feeling it with churning out content that I didn't love but was doing well, and the frustration of the posts I spent HOURS sometimes days on a post that would flop. It was the constant rat race to keep up. I've never had the desire to go viral but I did want to be included in more bookish spaces. The more I chased the allusive goalpost, the more I became resentful and the churning eventually turned into fumes of burnout. 

Where is the advice? 

Honestly, I'm still wobbly but what I decided was to reorient myself to be a reader first, a reviewer second, and a content creator sometimey, at least until I have better boundaries around being influenced by likes and follows. 

When I look back at the majority of my posts last year the content was reading adjacent and I could never replicate what worked. As of today, I'm posting less and my engagement is lower but the pace feels manageable and sustainable. But the most important part of this new relaxed schedule is that I'm able to actually read for fun, say yes to more buddy reads, and connect with other readers. I think that's the advice, you have to individually decide what's motivating you. Is it about the numbers or the community? It's the community for me. I hate it took a bit of a crisis to get here but I have a sense of clarity that keeps me in check. 

Am I still burnt out? No, but I'm not a ball of creativity either. I'm somewhere in between trying to coax my creative brain to come back, nurturing my sanity, and missing the thrill of engagement. I'm not sure if the latter will ever completely go away. Either way, I want to thank you for sticking it out with me and giving me the grace to get here (wherever this is). 

Book Recommendation [GoodReads review]

Happy reading!