This is my favorite burnout topic: the couch potato. Essentially I’m encouraging you to be one and to feel bloody good about it. Your body and your mind are extremely tired when suffering from burnout symptoms or creative anxieties that overwhelm you. They are burned out. Get it? That's the story. You need to refuel them both. Put on a few new tires. Check the oil. And to do that properly, you need to stay in that garage for a while.
The most common complaint from burnout victims and those with high creative anxieties is their lack of energy and the fact that they stay such long hours on that couch. They feel useless doing this, adding to the feeling there is something wrong with them. Hint: there is nothing wrong with you. At the end of the day there are two physical things (apart from the mental) that will help you recover: rest and activity. I always recommend doing physical activity because it will snap you out of your thought processes. But those can be super, super simple as well. Jumping up and down for a minute is already cool in my book. Or just taking that walk. However, if you don’t feel like it, screw it. Lay down. Trust yourself that the fatigue will go away. It just needs time. Maybe you could even make it a useful moment, like catching up on documentaries. Or maybe not. Just enjoy the show on the telly. There will come a moment when you’re fed up with that too. That’s the moment you’ll begin to move again. Automatically. Don’t over think it. Don’t feel bad about it. Give it to yourself. Make it official: for now, you are a couch potato. Own it. And take it easy. Love, as always.
And check out the books Restart - Burnout Recovery From a Patient Perspective and of course The Whole Story - The Ultimate Guide to Storytelling.
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