Burnout, Being Human and Beyond

Host Erez Shek

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I am Erez Shek. and you are checking in with the Shek Check. The podcast dropping gems of awareness that hopefully let you take it inward to work that self-awareness muscle of yours, promoting that self check fact check on how we think feel and behave. Today, let's talk about burnout, shall we? Let's get Shekked!

There is a quote by Sam Kean that states "Burnout is what happens when you try to avoid being human for too long." I've been thinking a lot about burnout lately. Really we've built a culture and a society based and promoting burnout and let's face it over the last couple of years. We all know burnout pretty well. We're also identifying it a lot

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more than we used to, which is not always preventing us from burn out. Yet. And the truth is we are all experiencing burnout on some level, but you know, I'm here to talk about my own burnout and why it matters and why it matters for me to talk about it right now in this moment.

Also, of course, as usual, I'm hoping that it inspires you to have this conversation with yourself and with others because hello, it's needed. It's necessary.  And if there is nobody in your life telling you this it's permitted, it's human yo!

Now, if you are returning to the podcast, you would know that the last episode that I put out was a few months ago, actually it was like six months, six months ago. And it was like my hundredth episode of the show. And, you know, after I put it out, I was just tired. And I think I had been tired for quite some time actually kind of felt like I was pushing myself to create, to put content out there, content that I, I fully believe in and I fully back.

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It still felt like a push.
So after I put that hundredth episode out, I was like, you know what, I need a break. But at the same time, I wasn't actually able to admit fully, even to myself that I needed a break. I couldn't even admit to myself that I was exhausted in my creative realm. Exhausted in the way that I was exhausted.

Here's the thing. Podcasting is hard. And I mean, I think in general, being a creative person and creating in general is hard and as beautiful and as fulfilling as it is, it's exhausting. It's exhausting. It's beautiful. It's hard. It's fulfilling. You know, I don't really give into this thinking of, you know, that, that bullshit that, that you heard growing up or that I heard growing up, which was like, you know, if you, if you find something that you love to do, then do it and you will never work a day.
Bullshit. It's work. Anything, anything you care about that is requiring energy from you in any way

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is work. And like, that's that's okay for it to be work and it's okay for you to love it. And for it to also be work, that's not bad. It's again, it's like it's human.
But for me, you know, as a podcaster or more specifically an independent podcast or who doesn't necessarily have all the money and other resources to put into like the fancy editors and the producers and the people who do all the other work, the extra work, maybe.
Uh, the finding of the guests, the, the, the editing, the research on the guests, all things that I actually love to do in, in their own ways, but I don't have anyone to like help me with it. And that's exhausting. I think not being able, not having that help having those resources. It's exhausting, but you keep going, right?
Yeah. I kept going because you have to make sure that content is flowing out of you because if content is not flowing out of you, then what? You must not get contently constipated with your content. It's not what we do.
So, yeah,

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although I was not able to admit it to at the time I was burnt out and then thinking about all the things that I needed to do in order to start back up again, to start putting out new content in terms of the podcast. I got overwhelmed, you know, like in my head I was thinking about all the things that I would have to do. And I got overwhelmed, which honestly looks a lot like fear and anxiety, which you could say, look like procrastination, which is really based in perfectionism and anxiety and fear.
Then more time passed, which actually just up the overwhelm, because you know, you believe there is even more steps that you have to go through and, and address. And then you are far from the flow that you once had. And the flow is the only thing that kind of kept you going. So now you're like no flow, too many things to do too much. It's a beautiful loop deloop that just feeds off of each other, which just leads to more exhaustion.
So I can look back, right. I can look back at the last six plus months, right. And I could go, okay. You know, this is where I am. Now. There there's so much that I could look back at this

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last six months and you know, I can learn from it. So if this kind of burnout happens in the future, then I can bypass all of this and I can get back to working and I can get back to doing the things like I could do all of that. Right? I could say this is a learning experience. How can I override the burnout response? What can I do? What should I do? What would I have done differently? Go back, analyze, learn, correct. Prevent to protect, to prepare Another lesson we are taught. Prepare for any future disasters, the disaster, not being the burnout. The disaster being how I handled the burnout.