Have you ever been burnt out when it comes to your blogging business?

Do you ever just feel like stopping?

In this episode, I talk about blogging burnout. I dive into how to prevent it, cure it, and what happens when you take the right steps.

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Inside This Episode

On Thursday of last week, I found myself in a very interesting situation – I was burnt out.

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Blogger Burnout: Prevention, Cure, and the Results of Stepping Back

I could almost sense it happening. I had been working consistently for the previous few days but hadn’t been getting much done.

It seems as if I was in a constant state of distraction until Thursday came. On that day, I didn’t get anything done.

I just couldn’t convince myself to continue. It was at that point I realized that I needed a break.

Since starting my online business on January 18, 2008, I had hardly taken any breaks.

Even when my wife and I spent over a month in the Caribbean, I found myself working almost every day.

I wanted to talk through the ramification of this “always working” mentality as well as share some tips we all can use to help us to be more balanced.

Preventing Burnout

Burnout is a pretty simple concept. It’s kind of like going bankrupt. If you are constantly spending more than you are putting in, you will eventually go bankrupt.

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Sleepy Blogger

It’s the same as with burnout. If you are constantly spending energy but not recharging enough, you will eventually burn out.

I had to take a step back and ask myself what I’m doing to recharge. This led to the realization that I was hardly doing anything.

I wasn’t working out to keep myself healthy and in shape. I wasn’t spending time with friends or doing anything else that I used to enjoy doing. In fact, I was pretty much all about business – one-dimensional.

When I think about this, I was going against the grain of who I am, and I realized that if I continued in this direction, the results wouldn’t be good.

Curing Burnout

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Curing Burnout

When I came to this realization, I decided that it was time for me to take a break. So that’s what I did. I didn’t touch my computer from Friday evening until Tuesday morning.

Instead, I used that time to reflect on where I want to go in my life and in my business. I spent more time with my family, watched a lot more TV and enjoyed my time off.

By Monday afternoon, I was ready to go back to work, but decided to keep going until Tuesday morning.

This break was essential for me and led to me making some decisions with where I want to go – and how I would be “curing” my burnout.

I realized that I need to revisit my priorities and make sure that my actions were reflecting my priorities. Here’s what I came up with.

My priorities in my life are as follows (in the following order of importance): My relationship with God, my family, my health and fitness, my business, friends, everything else. With that in mind, here’s how my actions are going to follow:

My relationship with God

The reality is that this means more to me than everything. I want God first in my life. So, when I wake up in the morning, I spend time with Him before anything else.

My family

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My family, My priority

These are the most important people in my life. As a result, I need to make sure to have time to spend with them every day. That time shouldn’t be as negotiable as it has been in the past. And when I’m with them, I should be fully present.

My health and fitness

I need to exercise. Since leaving my job, I’ve gained 10 pounds and feel a bit sluggish because I spend each day sitting at my desk. A friend and I have committed to working out at the gym five days a week. We started on Monday and plan on continuing indefinitely.

My business

Because of the previous things being higher on my list of priorities, this naturally means that my time for business will be somewhat reduced. However, this time will be much more focused. I will eliminate the things that distract me regularly and focus more on productivity than ever before.

Friends

Relationships are VERY important to me. However, I’ve found that I’ve neglected my important friendships more than ever before. I will take time to connect with friends on a weekly basis, usually just via a phone call. It’s important for me to have that regular connection with people I care about.

Changes in my business

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Teacher

There’s another significant realization that I’ve come to in regards to my blogging business. Many of you know that I’m a teacher.

As a teacher, I thrive by helping others succeed and seeing them succeed. It’s not about how much I’ve been able to personally accomplish great things, but more about how many people I’ve been able to help accomplish great things.

In other words, I don’t like focusing on myself.

This is something I’ve been struggling with over the last few years as time goes on. I stopped doing interviews a while back. I told people that it’s because of how busy I am, and while that is 100% true, there’s another underlying reason.

I was tired about talking about myself. I started getting annoyed by interviews because I kept having to share my story.

I’ve decided to go in a slightly different direction, because I’m starting to see that my personality needs this.

I want to focus more on you and your stories. There’s wisdom in learning from other people’s experiences, and whenever I do interviews, I get a great response from them.

So in the future, I will be finding more ways to work with you and share your stories. This idea is something that’s still brewing around in my mind and I’ll share more with you as time goes on and the idea becomes better developed.

Your Turn

Have you ever dealt with blogger burnout? If so, what did you do to bring yourself back to sanity? Is it something you’re still dealing with? Let me know in the comments.

Resources Mentioned

  • Self Control App – an app that blocks sites that are causes for distraction when you work on your computer.
  • Rescue Time App –  a time management software that helps you focus on the right things in your work.

Infographic

Blogger Burnout: Prevention, Cure, and the Results of Stepping Back

Transcript

Some people just love being able to read along with interviews, or they might just prefer to skip the audio completely and just read through the transcript. Hey, if that’s what floats your boat, it is all good. Here’s the transcript just for you :)

Click here to download transcript.

 

About the Author Leslie Samuel


Leslie Samuel a business coach for high-performing entrepreneurs. As the host of the Leslie Samuel Show, he teaches how to build an online business. "Changing the world one post at a time” is the mission he strives towards. As a former university professor, he has a passion for education. He's the founder of Interactive Biology, a blog and YouTube channel dedicated to making biology fun for students and teachers. As the head of training for the Social Media Marketing Society, he helps social media marketers get the training they need to stay on the leading edge of social media.

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