I am notorious for working and living my life in a series of burnout cycles. And, I love it. I like to work very hard and then balance that with significant downtime. The challenge is timing when to slow down and making sure I get quality downtime when I do. I didnât do a good job with burnout this year. And, I am paying for it now with a cold, general exhaustion, and a physical injury I got a few weeks ago.
It is really hard when a business is new and small to be able to take quality downtime. When I did manage some downtime I went on an adventure instead of a vacation, and that didnât replenish me (I also needed an adventure and I donât regret that). It also didnât help that we didnât go on a family vacation in 2021 due to covid related reasons.
I take solace in the fact that I am about 100x better at managing myself than I was 10 years ago⌠as I used to just run through walls. It was fun but I donât want to do that now for myself or my family. I will do a better job at this balance in 2022.