Hi. I'm Blink — you probably know that already. Hard to end up in The Adventures of Blink without bumping into me! 😏 Normally, I'm overflowing with curiosity, passion for tech, and an unrelenting drive to figure out how things work and how to build cooler stuff.
But not today.
Today, I want to share some real talk.
You see, it's easy to look at someone’s public-facing self and assume, "they’re always like that". High-energy. Driven. Upbeat. Like the camera never turns off.
But that's not how it works.
At least, not for me. Not lately...
I’m burned out.
Some personal things have gone sideways. And they’ve drained me—not just of energy, but of interest. Some days I’m struggling to care about anything, let alone chase big ideas.
Now before you dive into the comments or click away, I'm not looking for your pity, or your "thoughts and prayers", or any of that. I'm sharing this for you to learn from: because if you've never been through something like this before, it can be difficult to diagnose and even harder to work through.
How I Got to Burnout
The imagery associated with the term "burnout" can be wide and varied, can't it? When a physical object "burns out", you might see it go up in a wall of flame, violent and hot. Or you might see something that smolders for hours, struggling for an extended period before finally exhausting the last of its fuel.
A good starting point for our discussion is that Burnout is not the disease... it's a symptom of some incongruity in your life. In the past I've felt burnout caused by:
- Lack of self-care. Maybe I've overcommitted and exhausted myself, saying yes to too many obligations.
- Personal Drama. Family problems, Relationship problems, Friendship problems... these can all negatively affect your motivation.
- Work Drama. If I have work stress (like a mismanaged workload, or a crappy relationship with management, or that one coworker who always starts something) it will directly sap my motivation.
- Career Drama. I categorized this separately from work drama because, if you haven't noticed, the tech industry in general has been kind of a mess. Tons of mass layoffs, AI taking all our jobs (😏)... these stressors can weigh on you too.
Identifying the source of your burnout is an important first step because when you don't know where it came from, you feel blindsided by it... like it sneaked up behind you and (proverbially) bonked you over the head, it can be demoralizing. But in order to know what caused your burnout, you have to know it's happening. What does the beginning of burnout feel like?
There Were Warning Signs
The first indication of burnout for me was actually an increase in productivity. Weird, huh? But no joke - I was actually more productive. In hindsight it makes a lot more sense to me than it did in the moment: I knew that I wasn't feeling right, and I was compensating by pushing myself harder in response. I signed up for additional responsibilities, and said 'yes' to things that I knew were going to be taxing. It's common to try to self-manage these things... I knew I wasn't happy, so I tried to add things to my life that I knew I enjoyed.
That led, of course, to the next symptom: Exhaustion.
This is what makes burnout hard to self-diagnose - because if you remove Burnout from the discussion, the evidence points to just being a little bit overworked! But Burnout ALWAYS comes with more than just exhaustion - I'd even go so far as to say that if you're genuinely Burned Out, someone has undervalued you. You can't reach that level of demoralization without it.
The Best Tool For Burnout: AWARENESS
The first time I ever burned out, I didn't know what was happening to me. The whole thing jump-scared me right out of a closet and I barely knew anything was wrong before I was absolutely clobbered by it.
In subsequent burnouts, I've begun to use those warning signs to let me know I was getting close to the edge. Sometimes I detect it early enough to fix it, sometimes I don't... but being aware when you're not at 100% can help you at least brace for the impact.
Knowing that you're about to hit a rough patch can be empowering: You aren't just buffeted along anymore, you're actively participating in the story again.
The Next Best Tool for Burnout: PATIENCE
Remember when I said that I noticed an increase in productivity right before I flamed out? This was a subconscious effort to fix what felt bad. I detected that I wasn't feeling happy, and I was pouring it on to try to catch that dopamine burst of completing extra work. I was in a hurry to feel good again. In reflection, I think that being willing to sit in my exhaustion would probably do me more good... instead of fighting harder to juggle everything (and indeed add more stuff to juggle too), I should simply be patient.
In my current burnout cycle, I detected it right as several high-effort (but temporary) tasks were completing... the warning alarms went off with the finish line in sight. Having the insight to realize that I was too close to the flame allowed me to let those temporary responsibilities die off naturally, and be intentional about replacing them... with nothing. As I write this, I'm sitting in that space where I feel like I have lots of slack in my life, but I'm being intentional about not committing to anything new for a bit. And while I know I'm still struggling with the burnout, the cool part is that I'm not flaming out this time... I'm smoldering.
What about you, friend?
If you're there too-- feeling the burnout. Bored. Exhausted. Over it... I want to encourage you today. You're not broken! You're human. And it's okay. Be patient with yourself... not judgmental. When you're ready to come back, you will.
I'm trusting in that, too.
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