I attended a workshop on burnout the other week hosted by the fantastic Auriel Majumdar. This workshop focused on defining creative burnout, solutions to deal with it and thoughts around the modern Capitalist ‘extractavist’ society and the constant need to be busy. Auriel is a Creative Coach, Consultant and Educator informed by theoretical ideas drawn from Gestalt and Existentialism. I really enjoyed the session and Auriel’s approach to running the workshop. She was an open book admitting she didn’t have all the answers and was learning still. This is something i’m currently practising myself, having attended several workshops recently and spent a lot of time in introspection.
The workshop talked about several topics, but I particularly related to several concepts on letting go and pulling back. I’ve been dabbling in creative freelancing on and off over the past few years, but would say most of my income now comes from this. There is a lot of work and worry involved in the process and it’s not a straightforward path. Burnout often occurs when too many tasks are taken on or the work/life balance tips over too much. It’s interesting to note that each persons definition of burnout is probably different, but it was also very useful to realise in the workshop that many people shared similar patterns of burnout. It’s a topic I haven’t discussed or delved into too much, so found it very valuable to relate to others on.
For me it’s all about prevention or harm reduction when it comes to burnout and stress. Trying to either not put myself in too stressful positions, by being well prepared, or learning coping mechanisms ahead of the situation. I find if I’m burntout or anxious that I have very little capacity to learn about solutions when i’m in the thick of it. I think anxiety is something that most people have some experience of, but it of course affects everyone differently and some much worse than others. I’ve been attending a mental health peer group for musicians over the past few weeks and have found it very rewarding and supportive. It’s interesting to observe how different people in the same situation can have completely different anxieties or worries, despite it being the same situation. I suppose this comes from everyone’s unique lens they experience the World through.
One of the things I learned from this workshop was to know your own process and look for early warning signs of when burnout is likely to happen. It’s likely a pattern based situation and certain things will trigger it. I would say i’m a pretty reflective person, though this often is a negative as much as a positive. Fixating on unhelpful things can lead to circular thinking that doesn’t really accomplish a lot. A helpful practise to stop fixating on things is to pull back and cut yourself some slack. The creative inner critic is often much harsher than any external critic can be, so it’s important to not feed it unnecessary ammunition. I listened to a podcast a while back about the inner critic and taking it under your wing. I’ll leave a link at the bottom of the article about it. It was a very useful concept and something i’d never been taught before. The inner critical voice will probably always be there, but if you treat it like a friend rather than an enemy, it can be a much better companion.
Perfection is a real struggle for creatives and something that i’m sure affects much of the rest of population. I find perfectionism to be a recurrent theme in anything creative that I do. As I work by myself a lot it can be hard to control or regulate perfectionism. I’ll often find myself fixating on tiny details of paintings or songs, and whilst this can be beneficial sometimes, it’s often a waste of time at others. Perfectionism also creeps into other areas of my art practise, such as writing blogs and editing things. The idea that I need to perform at my best and produce the most insightful and well thought out work possible, is not really a practical tool to use. It’s fine to fail, in fact a lot of growth can come from failure and admitting to it. This workshop featured the idea that we are all works in progress and it’s fine to fail. I need to remind myself this mantra as it’s often very easy to put previous bad habits back on, almost like an item of clothing.
I attended a workshop on Consent the other week, ran by the fantastic Jenny Wilson (The Irregular Way) This workshop focused on defining consent on a work and creative level. As a group we discussed what an agreement is and how each person has their own version of this. The notion that it’s more productive to say ‘no’ sometimes than blindly feeling like you had to agree to everything was also raised. I really like the idea that ‘no.’ is a complete sentence and it’s fine to say no to things. There doesn’t need to be a justification to why you say no. This concept is relatively new to me, but i’ve found it very useful for setting better boundaries.
Speaking of boundaries, that was the final topic of the burnout workshop. Boundaries is another concept that I was never taught and only learned about a few years ago by having my personal boundaries pushed. Essentially lots of relationships can ask too much or be unfairly weighted. This is especially true of work relationships. Everyone deserves to have their boundaries respected equally. This doesn’t mean people deserve preferential treatment, more that if somebody doesn’t want to do something, they shouldn’t be coerced into doing it. Boundaries can also involve being comfortable asking for help when it’s needed. By having boundaries on what you are comfortable doing and not doing, it’s much easier to perform at your best and not feel bogged down or as if too much is being asked of you.
The final thing that I thought was really useful is the idea of an access rider. This is something that you can give to people at the start of a project which explains anything that will make it difficult for you to do, such as disabilities or things like childcare. It could be things that are absolute necessities, such as ground floor or lift access to the building or much smaller things like not being able to work certain times due to other commitments. The idea of laying these things out at the start of the project is that they don’t need to be big problems down the line. I really like the idea of providing an access rider and think it’s something I might explore. I think it also plays into a more useful general theme, which is clear communication. If there’s something that makes it difficult for you to perform at your best, it’s fine to mention and explain this. If the receiving party doesn’t respect this information, then it’s probably a good indication that the project might not work well for you and it’s then fine to say no.
So here’s some of the things i’ve learned from the burnout workshop, i’m certainly going to explore more of the ideas from it and find other similar things in the future. I think it’s helpful to discuss and draw awareness to these ideas, as they’re things that everyone probably experiences, but maybe doesn’t recognise or know how to address. I certainly don’t (and probably never will!) have all the answers on any of these topics. But I do like to try and equip myself with more tools and abilities to deal with things, especially situations that could challenge me. What are some of your tools for dealing with burnout or are you the lucky creative who never experiences it?
Podcast on the inner critic 'The Artist Next Level' : https://open.spotify.com/episode/12JvOF4DGxJqUUvgwiNRtZ?si=fa6502094a7940df
Image credits Tara Winstead from Pexels
