Experiencing creative burnout can actually help you maximize your greatest potential.
Vol. 081
Experiencing creative burnout can actually help you maximize your greatest potential.
It is only through crossing the line that you know where the line truly lies.
A quick bite:
“Sometimes when it comes to burn out, you have to go across the line to know where it is”. It is through overcommitting from time to time that you’re able to understand what you’re truly capable of. Living at the edge of this threshold can maximize your work, creative and profit potential.
Continue reading below…
Creative burnout is almost guaranteed in your career. But, that’s not necessarily a bad thing…
The other day I was watching this video about over-commitment by Matt D'Avella.
Even if you don’t watch his video, this article is still relevant… A quote in the video that caught my attention was: “sometimes when it comes to burn out, you have to go across the line to know where it is”.
Overall, the sentiment of “you must first overcommit in order to know what overcommitment is” is something I wanted to talk about. This idea applies to all things in life.
I feel like I've kinda felt this way for the duration of my self-employed graphic design career: always feeling like I'm in a little bit over my head.
I’m not suggesting that regularly burning yourself out is a good thing. Not at all. But, I am suggesting that you must first burn yourself out to fully understand how much you can truly tolerate.
Creative burnout — overcommitting and truly understanding what you’re capable of — will enables you to operate at the threshold of your maximum potential.
Unknowingly embracing this notion has catapulted me forward in my career, enabling Vicarel Studios to work with many international brands, build a multi-6-figure business and hire a team of contractors and an employee to support the vision of creating approachable and hand crafted branding work.
I owe much of the success of Vicarel Studios to learning where this line is and operating at this threshold. I want to explain a bit more about why I think it’s important to push yourself to the edge of creative burnout from time to time.
You must overcommit to understand where your threshold or work capacity lies
This is kinda like lifting at the gym — you'll never actually know how much you can lift unless you push yourself to try more than you’re comfortable trying.
Our bodies are often wired to avoid stress, so it's likely that as that stress or chaos begins to trickle in, you're preconditioned to avoid that situation. You’ll say no to something because you have too much going on. But, in reality, you’re likely very capable of taking on “that thing”.
I have learned countless times that Parkinson’s Law enables me to take on far more than I realized is possible.
Parkinson's law essentially states that a task or activity will "expand to fill the time you allow it." A task will take as long as you give it. If you give 4 weeks to do a logo design project, it'll take 4 weeks. If you give yourself 1 week for that same project, you'll knock it out in a week. Parkinson’s Law forces you to lean into your intuition, your gut, and prevents over-thinking.
As you take on more and more and more, you'll be forced to limit the time you spend on things. If done right, this sacrifice of time doesn't have to also come with a sacrifice of quality. This becomes easier to implement as you approach mastering your craft through your 10,000 hours (5 years) of experience.
You're capable of far more than you realize
Similar to my point above, you won't ever really realize how truly under utilized your brain is until you begin to max it out.
There are stories of mothers who have lifted up cars to save their children. Paula Sheer designed the Citi Bank logo (a $1 Million logo) in 2 minutes.
Sometimes it takes unique circumstances to allow you to hit your true potential.
You need to advocate for yourself, push yourself, and get comfortable being uncomfortable. As you continue to do this your baseline tolerance for stress and commitments rises.
Think of a new parent who has their first child. Prior to having a child, they "felt busy." They felt like it was tough to get all of their work done. Now, with a small human fully dependent on them for everything, they're somehow still able to handle their work and the child. Yes, sacrifices are made, sleep might be lost at times, activities may be adjusted... but they do it.
Through pushing yourself to the edge, you’ll be able to more easily reach your full potential, making the best use of your time and resources.
With time, you get better
Like anything, practice makes progress makes perfect.
As you grow as a graphic designer, or artist on your entrepreneurial journey, you'll pick up little tricks of the trade.
Using automation, tools, plugins and apps for efficiency and time management (these are the tools I use to help run my graphic design business) will help you be more efficient with your time and process.
When you find yourself doing repeated tasks, things that you hate, or things that take a long time, don't just put your head down and continue working through those same instances. Stop and think: how can you automate or expedite these tasks or processes with technology?
With time, a thirst for learning and development of your skillset and process, you will become better and better at managing more projects and work efficiently, enabling you to take on more responsibilities and projects.
If you're capable of more, you're likely to make more
Pushing yourself to the edge of creative burnout is good for personal and professional development.
Those who can handle more (work, projects, tasks, etc.) oftentimes have higher profile positions or opportunities.
Those with higher profile positions/clients will often get paid more.
Pushing yourself to the edge of what you're capable of will help you grow professionally, enabling you to ultimately maximize your profit potential.
The caveat: don't allow this threshold of burnout to become your new norm
While I've spent much of this article advocating for pushing yourself to the brink of creative burnout, you likely don't want this to become your constant baseline.
Speaking from experience, being busy with big projects and making more money is all great 'n all, but if it comes at the expense of everything else — is it actually worth it?
The answer is a resounding “hell no.”
You don't want to find yourself unable to reap the beautiful rewards of your hard labor. I believe you must find balance in a way that works for you.
I sometimes struggle with finding balance for myself. I find it hard to celebrate wins, projects and accomplishments because my brain is always on to the next thing. This is not a good habit as it also forces life to feel like it's flying by.
If you're always looking forward, and never embracing the present, you're forever living in a slight state of disassociation, never truly able to enjoy that which you have.
Celebrating your victories conditions your mind to appreciate the reward of your hard work. This prevents creative burnout. Do this regularly, with projects big or small!
A celebration could look like a $7 caramel latte instead of your normal $2 coffee, or it could be a nice dinner or even a little trip depending on the project size!
When I finished the Native Roots cannabis branding project, I took my girlfriend and I out to a nice, fancy dinner and I drank top shelf whiskey while we were out — something I NEVER do. But, it felt good, and it's literally one of the most memorable dinners I've had.
Pushing yourself to the edge of creative burnout — literally crossing the line of what you’re capable of — is an important boundary to understand. You must first cross the line to understand where the line is.
Creative burnout sucks, and you should avoid making a habit of doing it. But, doing so does come with significant advantages. Understanding your work-capacity threshold enables you to set clear, definitive boundaries moving forward and helps you in the following ways:
It helps you understand where your threshold lies.
It functions as an opportunity to push yourself in ways you didn't know you were capable
It is an opportunity for you to "practice" taking on more. With practice makes progress makes perfect.
It opens the opportunity to a more lucrative business
Remember: don't allow yourself to live in this overcommitted space in perpetuity.
The balance of pushing yourself the right amount without being constantly over committed is honestly tough to find—I'm constantly in an ebb and flow of this—but it will enable you to grow, evolve and learn at an incredible rate.
Hopefully this is a little kick in the toosh to keep pushing yourself — you are more capable than you realize!
Cheers,
Adam
