You might have noticed, I did not send out a newsletter last weekend.
I am currently in Auroville, South India. My family has moved here for about six months. It’s still our first month, and we’ve been enjoying everything. Within the first week, we found a nice house for rent. We found a play school for our son to attend. We rented a scooter.
My son and I have started learning Italian. We’ve started learning a Tamil martial art called Silambam. My wife and I have been going to a gym regularly. I’ve been playing pickleball. We’ve been attending events – a play, a music night, a board games evening, etc. I have been going for a half-day meditation course on weekends. We’ve been to a bunch of cafes. We went to the beach the other day.
All this is in addition to my regular work, and some household chores.
It’s been super exciting!
I did find, though, that at times I needed to, not significantly, but still, mildly push myself to do some of these things.
Now, some of these things I look forward to all day. For example, pickleball. I can’t wait to go play almost every evening. But for some of the other things, I found that I had to push myself, ever so slightly. And I would come up with reasons to skip some of these things sometimes.
Also, the last couple of weeks, the newsletters have been going out on Sundays instead of Saturdays, just because they weren’t done in time.
So all this had been going on, and then this week, I missed my newsletter altogether.
The realisation
It took all this to happen for me to realise that while I’m enjoying everything that I’m doing, all of it combined is getting to be a bit too much. I’m starting to feel burned out.
In hindsight, I can see the symptoms.
- Me needing to push myself to do some of these things
- Me coming up with reasons (excuses really) to skip an activity
- Me wanting to just rest whenever I could get a chance
- Me not having as much energy as I would like to play with my five-year-old son
All these things have been building up for around the last 10 days, I think. But in the moment, I didn’t realise that these are symptoms of the fact that I’m headed towards getting burnt out. It took me missing this week’s newsletter to realise what had been going on. That too while the symptoms had been repeating, and had been getting more severe.
I want to reiterate this point: It took me missing a commitment to realise that “of course I had been heading toward a burn-out”. It seems so obvious in hindsight. But in the moment each of these acts seemed isolated … trivial even. I had not been paying heed the symptoms.
Trying to slow down
I have tried to slow things down now, and part of that was being okay with not sending out a newsletter last weekend. It was kind of a milestone, too. This is the 26th newsletter I’m sending out, so a half-year anniversary. Not a huge deal compared with many others, but pretty significant for me.
And let me add: I’m still managing all this, including my work, in around 50-60 hours a week. That’s less time than many people spend at just work alone. I’ve done that myself – I’ve worked close to 60-hour weeks for extended periods of time.
And a bulk of my time currently is spent doing things I’m truly enjoying.
But even this much has been getting too much for me.
So for me to think, “Oh, man, others are doing so much, even you’ve done so much in the past, and anyway these are ‘fun’ activities – come on! There’s no reason to feel burnt out.”… doesn’t make sense.
While rationally or at a conscious level I might tell myself “it doesn’t make sense to feel burn-out doing what you’ve been doing,” my mind and my body have been telling me, “No, this is getting too much. This is not sustainable.”
A lesson for you (as much as it is for me)
So, in addition to sharing why I didn’t send the newsletter, let this also be a lesson to you:
Burnout symptoms can often pass unnoticed. Keep an eye out for those symptoms of burnout. Don’t take them lightly, and don’t wait for them to get so severe that you eventually crash. Catch them when you can. Take preventive measures. Slow down if needed, reduce the hours, reduce the days, take breaks.
Let me add: I’ve only been in Auroville for slightly over 3 weeks. And I’m quite certain that the first 1.5-2 weeks were anyway a breeze. It’s not like I’ve been feeling burnt out for an ‘extended period’. But even then, a part of my mind is kind of blaming me right now: “Why didn’t you catch it sooner?”
And then I have to remind myself, “Well, at least I caught it now. It’s better than catching it later.”
And anyway, what’s more important than blaming myself is that I understand I have to continue to listen to myself. Just because I’ve caught it doesn’t mean I’ve treated it. I will need to fine-tune my lifestyle regularly to strike a balance. I need to keep listening for these symptoms, and intentionally take actions that help me avoid heading to a burn-out. I need to create a week that is sustainable. Not in terms of “can I do it for one or two weeks,” but “can I continue doing it for three, four, five, six months, or maybe even more?”
My suggestion for your GMAT prep
So that’s my suggestion to you also. Plan your week in a way that is sustainable for you, not just thinking, “Okay, let me try and get the most out of this week.”
Even if you feel the GMAT is a month or two months away, that’s still a significant amount of time. (Reminder: I started feeling burnt out within 3 weeks while on a ‘vacation’). It can happen fast. So don’t rely on assuming you will be able to get through the GMAT before that stage happens.
And why is that state so bad?
- It could lead to not enjoying preparation anymore, and then not engaging with it – so you could end up going through all the motions, but not truly learning.
- It could lead to you procrastinating and not spending as much time studying as you were earlier.
- It could lead to you completely stopping your GMAT prep in its tracks. (And yes, I have heard from many students that this has happened to them.)
Anyway, here’s hoping that I’m able to create a more sustainable, more balanced week for myself, and I hope you work towards that also.
All this might have sounded dismal. But, I am truly enjoying myself. I feel lucky that my work and family allow me the flexibility to live out such an experience. It simply feels like a matter of fine-tuning 🙂