Be warned, this is kind of a long rant about life.
About a year and a half ago I was extremely motivated. The fire of desire was burning bright within me. I was part of a startup which I was determined I could make successful, I was keeping my own finances afloat with several freelance gigs, I was teaching myself new skills etc. etc. Hell I even decided, "you know what? I'll get a university degree. It will make my parents happy, and it will just be proof that I can do anything I decide to do."
I put myself into full warrior mode. I cut out pretty much every activity that wasn't related to my work, studying. Oftentimes I didn't go outside for days at a time, and had little contact with friends. I found if I couldn't complete all my goals in a day, I could just cut out sleep, because who needs that anyways, right? My motivation was on overdrive, I felt a sort of perpetual optimism about the future. Also, my mom was starting college to become a nurse, so I moved in with her to help her financially, with homework and raising my sister and such.
Well raging fires need lots of oxygen and when they don't have that, they just die.
I couldn't figure out why it was getting harder and harder to motivate myself. I just started to feel tired and lethargic all the time. I figured maybe I'd take a short break from everything, come back to it later. Nope still the same. Suddenly even simple tasks became a challenge to concentrate on. I knew I could manage my time correctly and be able to study for my classes. Nope. I would be staring at my books for hours on the same page while the universe around me fades into a blur; all the while the background processes in my brain were saying I should be focusing on my business. So I decided screw it, never liked school anyway. Dropped my courses, and figured I'd have more time to work.
Then I realize, I can't concentrate on that either. Okay now this really sucks. It's taking me way longer than it should to complete work for clients, and I'm not taking jobs as often. My bank account no likey (I've always liked to spend money tbh). Next to that, trying to deal with my partners in my startup, as we can't seem to agree on a direction to take. Long story short, I bid them adieu, and realized how much I didn't like the lack of control anyways.
So now that I have more time on my hands I decided I can get back to work, build some steady income, and save some money while I decide what to do with other areas of my life. But I was having the same problems. I went to see a doctor because I have no idea wth was wrong with with me. My thinking was it was my tourettes acting up, but I wanted to get referred to a specialist to find out for sure. The doctor I saw referred me to a psychiatrist who said I have mild depression, but it didn't seem bad enough that I needed medication.
Later on, only thanks to a family friend I got to see a neurologist, who said I seem to have ADHD, and gave me some medication for that. It seemed to help a bit at first, but I still had a lot of trouble motivating myself, and every day just seemed gloomy and miserable. So I'm weaning myself off of them because I never wanted to be reliant on meds anyways.
It may sound like everything is negative, but it's not the case. I've had lots of time for self-reflection and I'm learning to be a more compassionate person. Before I was pretty hot-headed individual and damaged many close relationships because of it. But I've really decided I don't want to be the kind of person that brings others down; I want to uplift them and make their lives better.
No one around seems to have an idea of what's wrong with me. But it kind of dawned on me a while back that I may just burned out. I did some research about burnout and I match pretty much all the criteria: was highly motivated and working myself to death before, now everything just seems pointless and stagnant. I have no energy throughout the day even if I manage to get a decent sleep, and I view everything I was pursuing with a layer of pessimism.
So why did I title this thread "Wiping the slate clean?" Because that's exactly what I'm doing now. I'm dropping all my projects, all my beliefs and habits, and any plans I made for the future. I'm just going to accept my current reality as it is, which is something that's really hard to do at times. Not sure how I'm going to make money at the moment, but I think I can afford to take some time off for now.
Thanks everyone for listening. I don't really like to talk about myself, but I'm hoping me doing so will help anyone who's experienced something similar. I really think it's important to take care of yourself first, and not just hustle to you mentally and physically fall apart.
If you made it this far, here's a picture of one of my swords, for no reason at all
Now I'm going to go outside under the beautiful night sky and look at the stars to remind myself of the miracle of life and small everything we think that's important really is.
About a year and a half ago I was extremely motivated. The fire of desire was burning bright within me. I was part of a startup which I was determined I could make successful, I was keeping my own finances afloat with several freelance gigs, I was teaching myself new skills etc. etc. Hell I even decided, "you know what? I'll get a university degree. It will make my parents happy, and it will just be proof that I can do anything I decide to do."
I put myself into full warrior mode. I cut out pretty much every activity that wasn't related to my work, studying. Oftentimes I didn't go outside for days at a time, and had little contact with friends. I found if I couldn't complete all my goals in a day, I could just cut out sleep, because who needs that anyways, right? My motivation was on overdrive, I felt a sort of perpetual optimism about the future. Also, my mom was starting college to become a nurse, so I moved in with her to help her financially, with homework and raising my sister and such.
Well raging fires need lots of oxygen and when they don't have that, they just die.
I couldn't figure out why it was getting harder and harder to motivate myself. I just started to feel tired and lethargic all the time. I figured maybe I'd take a short break from everything, come back to it later. Nope still the same. Suddenly even simple tasks became a challenge to concentrate on. I knew I could manage my time correctly and be able to study for my classes. Nope. I would be staring at my books for hours on the same page while the universe around me fades into a blur; all the while the background processes in my brain were saying I should be focusing on my business. So I decided screw it, never liked school anyway. Dropped my courses, and figured I'd have more time to work.
Then I realize, I can't concentrate on that either. Okay now this really sucks. It's taking me way longer than it should to complete work for clients, and I'm not taking jobs as often. My bank account no likey (I've always liked to spend money tbh). Next to that, trying to deal with my partners in my startup, as we can't seem to agree on a direction to take. Long story short, I bid them adieu, and realized how much I didn't like the lack of control anyways.
So now that I have more time on my hands I decided I can get back to work, build some steady income, and save some money while I decide what to do with other areas of my life. But I was having the same problems. I went to see a doctor because I have no idea wth was wrong with with me. My thinking was it was my tourettes acting up, but I wanted to get referred to a specialist to find out for sure. The doctor I saw referred me to a psychiatrist who said I have mild depression, but it didn't seem bad enough that I needed medication.
Later on, only thanks to a family friend I got to see a neurologist, who said I seem to have ADHD, and gave me some medication for that. It seemed to help a bit at first, but I still had a lot of trouble motivating myself, and every day just seemed gloomy and miserable. So I'm weaning myself off of them because I never wanted to be reliant on meds anyways.
It may sound like everything is negative, but it's not the case. I've had lots of time for self-reflection and I'm learning to be a more compassionate person. Before I was pretty hot-headed individual and damaged many close relationships because of it. But I've really decided I don't want to be the kind of person that brings others down; I want to uplift them and make their lives better.
No one around seems to have an idea of what's wrong with me. But it kind of dawned on me a while back that I may just burned out. I did some research about burnout and I match pretty much all the criteria: was highly motivated and working myself to death before, now everything just seems pointless and stagnant. I have no energy throughout the day even if I manage to get a decent sleep, and I view everything I was pursuing with a layer of pessimism.
So why did I title this thread "Wiping the slate clean?" Because that's exactly what I'm doing now. I'm dropping all my projects, all my beliefs and habits, and any plans I made for the future. I'm just going to accept my current reality as it is, which is something that's really hard to do at times. Not sure how I'm going to make money at the moment, but I think I can afford to take some time off for now.
Thanks everyone for listening. I don't really like to talk about myself, but I'm hoping me doing so will help anyone who's experienced something similar. I really think it's important to take care of yourself first, and not just hustle to you mentally and physically fall apart.
If you made it this far, here's a picture of one of my swords, for no reason at all
Now I'm going to go outside under the beautiful night sky and look at the stars to remind myself of the miracle of life and small everything we think that's important really is.
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