I've never fully grasped the notion of a person "burning out." I heard about it all the time in various sources, such as business magazines and online platforms. Still, because I never put myself in that entrepreneurial mindset, it never seemed real to me. For the last five years of my life, I woke up, went to work, ate lunch, went home, and repeated the cycle for years. The way I saw it, life was pretty simple.
It wasn't until I dedicated my self wholeheartedly to a cause I believed in, which is: to motivate and assist others in traveling the world solo. I threw myself into it entirely; after all, I was on my own now. No company hierarchy to abide by, no office politics to navigate, no mental cruise control to engage. The stakes were high, and I was going to go above and beyond to make my vision a reality.
As the weeks went on, however, my days were consumed by my goals. Yes, I was doing something I always wanted to do: travel the world, but the emotion and joy that I had felt started to diminish. I found myself tapping into (and often forcing) a part of my brain to work non-stop to develop and complete the next objective. No matter how scenic and invigorating a city was, my thoughts lowered the volume on it all. Monday through Sunday became a non-stop grind of 14 or more hours a day of creative work. I began to feel a level of tiredness I had never known before, which slowly led to a lower quality of work. Thankfully, I was able to analyze the situation I had put myself in and knew that this would end up being a significant problem if I continued on this path.
Once I examined myself and my situation logically, I tasked myself with getting back to what started it all: traveling for the love of traveling. My approach was to pick one or two destinations and leave my tools (laptop, camera gear) back at my apartment in my hub city.
This event happened while I was in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and I wasn't sure whether this technique would work in the first place. Perhaps I reached a mental point of no return, I thought to myself. So instead of choosing an entirely different country to put this into play, I opted for a weekend getaway to the second and third-biggest cities in Slovenia, which are Maribor and Celje. What resulted from this experiment was invigorating. I was able to detach myself from my non-stop work mentality and allowed my mind to focus on the present moment. Since then, this technique has now become a staple in my digital nomad and entrepreneurial lifestyle.
I now understand that losing the drive, also known as burning out, is a real threat to those doing all they can to bring something beautiful into the world. This technique (especially the self-awareness aspect of it) worked for me to get over a severe hurdle in my life, will it do the same for others? Who knows, but hell, at least it gives one a reason to travel and, more importantly, be proactive in finding solutions to improve one's life.