Hi Friends,
It’s been a while! I have missed you! As you may have noticed, my site looks a little…or maybe completely different. Long story short, my previous web hosting plan expired, and I swapped to a new one. However, in the process, I hit a bit of a snag and ended up having to redesign my whole website. So, here we are. I am now accepting compliments about how great it looks and how it is even better than the original. Wow that is so sweet of you thank you! It took about 25 mental breakdowns to get to where we are now. Soooo any and all positive feedback is greatly appreciated in my attempt to convince myself it was all worth it LOL! Anyway, I thought I would kick back into things with a life update.
Burnout
I have been feeling horribly burnt out for about 2 months now. At first, I thought I was just being lazy and unmotivated, and thus I dragged my butt and continued to push through. However, when doing that continued to make me feel worse, I realized I was burnt out. It is hard to tell the difference between the two. When I was questioning which I was, I googled it and read “start a task and if after 5 minutes it makes you feel worse, not better, you are likely burnt out.” and that’s when I knew.
Of course, my next course of action was to figure out what to do about the burnout. I must have 15+ journal entries all titled “How Do I Get Myself Out of This Rut?” and yet no success. Until today…maybe. Today is the first time in a long time I have sat down and just written no real end goal or purpose. I guess it kinda structured itself as a blog post but I just went to a book store, put my head phones on, put my laptop in front of me and started typing and for the first time in months there are words coming out onto the page.
In a variety of my “How Do I Get Myself Out of This Rut?” journal entries, I have attempted to explore what caused the burnout in the first place. I am the type of person who studies her mental health like there is a test on Friday. Because if there is one thing I hate, it is being unprepared to react differently when/if history repeats itself. I want to know what caused the anxiety attack, the burnout, and the depressive episode, and what I did to improve them.
That way, if it happens again, I am ready with the previous knowledge to hopefully not let it get as bad or get out of it faster. Basically, it is my way of trying to protect myself from reliving my past experiences and take control over something I don’t have complete control over whatsoever. Basically, the roller coaster that is living with mental illness.
Burnout 3 Laura 0
So what did I find? A freaking rabbit hole. When this new chapter of my healing journey started at the beginning of September last year, my therapist warned me about this. She said, “Healing is great, but you need to know going in that once you start to peel back those layers, you may end up finding a lot more and going much deeper than you ever intended,” and you know what she was correct. Shoutout Michelle (she is definitely not reading this) you hit the nail on the head girl!
Anyway, what I realized was: everything I do is creative, ALL OF IT. My jobs are creative, my hobbies are creative, literally everything I do requires creativity. Which is great and I would want it no other way, however, I learned there needs to be separation. There are a few problems I discovered with the way I am currently approaching doing what I love most for work/aspiring for it to be that way.
Number 1. I have forgotten my original purpose for doing it. The very first concepts of my blog came from my love of writing, my desire to do something with it and share it with the world, and my desire to help others who are struggling and advocate for mental health. Yet most recently, I have been more concerned with what I can write to get the most clicks, readers, subscribers, and views, and that has drained all of the fun and passion out of it. Burnout 1 Passion 0.
Number 2. Everything has become for content in some way, shape, or form. Baking used to be my biggest stress reliever and one of my favourite things to do. However, now I have to make sure I have enough footage to cut videos for both tiktok and instagram. Once again sucking all of the fun and passion out of it. Burnout 2 Passion 0
Number 3. I have absolutely no input. My bucket is not being filled because anything that goes into it I pour right back out 3 fold. If I do some sort of self-care, it becomes content. I am now actually outputting instead of actually being present in the act of self-care and receiving the input. Burnout 3 Passion 0
Okay, okay, I admit it, I have turned into a content zombie. If you are unsure what a content zombie is, it is something I came up with recently. Basically, it means that the passion is dwindling, and instead of looking for brains like a zombie, I am just pushing out content, looking for results as a way to keep me going. Whether that be in social media, writing, or otherwise. As a content zombie burnout is inevitable because creating content and keeping up with a blog is wayyyyy too difficult, time consuming, and draining to fuel it simply with results. It is just not sustainable. However, doing it from passion is. So we are bringing it back to my roots and my why.
What Now?
Now don’t get me wrong I still love writing and creating! I just need to find a balance and figure out how to do it without drilling myself into the ground. So, to the 2 maybe 3 people reading this, what can you expect from No One Listens to Laura moving forward? ME! I am bringing myself back into everything I do! The other day, I saw a video that said, “instead of creating what you think people want to consume, create the content you want to create and let your audience find you”. So that is what I am doing now.
I celebrated my 1 year of No One Listens to Laura earlier this week, and that led me to reflect on the last year. It was not what I had planned for or envisioned whatsoever, but I am still insanely proud of what I accomplished! That being said, I have big goals for improvement for the year ahead. At the top of that list is consistency. So this year, my goal is 104 blog posts. That may sound like a lot off hand but that is only two posts per week.
That means showing up and posting every Monday and Thursday at 5pm EST. I need to learn how to adapt my priorities to reflect my dreams and goals. It is time I start taking my dreams seriously and prioritizing them in my day-to-day life. I will also be posting an ICYMI (In Case You Missed It) Weekly recap highlighting all of my content from the week every Saturday, so you never have to worry about missing a thing. This year, I am committed, and you can count on me to be here consistently!
Thank you for your endless support! I can’t even express to you how much it means to me! I am so so sooo happy you are here!
Until next week, my friends!
P.S. I’m proud of you 😉