Latest / Many Things with Steph Libby / Burnt out and dead tired, but still showing up
Transcript
- 0:01Hello.
- 0:01Hello.
- 0:02Welcome to another episode of Solitary Creature.
- 0:05I'm Steph and i'm documenting the messy winding journey of working towards living a more mindful and intentional life.
- 0:14Something that's been on my mind a lot this week.
- 0:18Well, first of all, I just have to say I am so exhausted right now.
- 0:22I am trying.
- 0:23The hardest I've ever tried to keep the momentum and just sort of like and keep my energy up for recording this podcast.
- 0:33I just got done with 12 hours at work.
- 0:3512 hours the day before and just like countless long days for the last couple weeks.
- 0:41And I know I've been grumbling a lot about it, but it's just a reality of the life that I'm living right now and that is kind of what this podcast is all about The real life stuff, you know, it's, it is hard to fit in self growth and mindful practices and self care and time for yourself when you are working really crazy schedules.
- 1:08I'm literally recording this in my bed.
- 1:10That's how tired I am.
- 1:11I really couldn't bring myself to, usually I record at my desk.
- 1:14In my office, but I spent so much time there this week and last week.
- 1:18I just couldn't sit there for like another minute and record this episode.
- 1:23I just could not, I had, I just, I'm literally laying down as I record this because it's taking all the energy I have to do it.
- 1:30trying to find time for that stuff is, I think.
- 1:35The whole point of living a mindful practice.
- 1:38It's like you can't grow if you're not making time and you have to set aside deliberate time for it.
- 1:44Like the reason why I haven't grown in a lot of areas in my life is because it's always on the back burner.
- 1:50So part of just getting better about hitting those things head on and doing it consistently and having routine and structure.
- 1:58And fitting it into the messiness of life really is at the heart, at least for me, what living a mindful life is really all about.
- 2:05Because work has been so.
- 2:06Difficult the past few weeks and, and honestly, it's like not just the past few weeks, it's been probably the last couple years I've been really, really frustrated with where I'm at.
- 2:16I'm frustrated by the pay, which I know I get paid better than.
- 2:21I have in a lot of other jobs, and I know that it's decent.
- 2:25It's not like I'm making no money.
- 2:26I know I'm making decent money in what is fast, becoming a very tough economy.
- 2:32But I wanna make more, Just like really hard to, feel okay about where I'm at..
- 2:39Being frustrated with my job aside, I think it is time for me to really come to terms with the fact that I really need to do something different.
- 2:46I really need to figure out what it is that I wanna do.
- 2:49I can't, I'm so burnt out.
- 2:52Long story short, I'm burnt out.
- 2:54I'm burnt out financially.
- 2:55I'm burnt out mentally.
- 2:58I'm burnt out every other way that I can't think of right now.
- 3:02Just I'm just burnt out.
- 3:04I'm burnt out at work.
- 3:04I'm burnt out on relationships.
- 3:06I'm burnt out on friendships.
- 3:07I'm burnt out on.
- 3:09I just, it's not any one thing.
- 3:12It's just, I feel like for the last couple years I've been slowly.
- Steadily, kind of careening to the edge of this burnt out cliff.
- And I think I finally just gotten there.
- And, I'm overwhelmed by how burnt out I am.
- I don't know that I've, I don't know that I've ever felt this burnt out in my life, and I think that's why, I'm having such a hard time.
- Grappling with it.
- It's not just like stress.
- There's not any particular thing I need to be overly stressed about.
- It's interesting, it's like I've always associated being burnt out with being stressed.
- But I'm realizing now that being burnt out isn't necessarily stress related, it's just fatigue.
- It's a fatigue that's not depression.
- It's a fatigue that is just omnipresent and it, everything feels difficult and everything feels like a challenge.
- I just feel like there's just a heaviness on me right now and I just can't seem to break through it.
- It just gets heavier and heavier and it's, it's not that I'm like.
- I'm not like grossly unhappy, you know, like I still think there's a lot of good in my life still right now.
- but I just can't, I just have like nothing left to give.
- Like my gas tank is is bone dry.
- It is bone dry, and I am.
- Trying to just figure out what to do about it.
- I've never really been in this position where I felt so burnt out, I felt exhausted before, I felt stressed.
- Before I felt very depressed before.
- Like I'm familiar with all of those feelings, but this type of being burnt out is just really new to me.
- It's, I, I really am struggling with how to deal with it.
- and it doesn't help that we're like heading into winter, we're heading into the holiday season.
- And that comes with like a whole other new set of expectations and disappointments and, you know, cold, dark hibernation feelings and.
- 5:06Then there's more family obligations and just the, you know, that like stress of the holidays.
- 5:11So I know that I'm like getting ready to go into like even more feeling burnt out and I'm trying to feel like I'm trying to figure out how to deal with it.
- 5:23And it's just a really strange feeling for me.
- 5:26Because I feel like so burnt out.
- 5:28I'm just beyond feeling overwhelmed.
- 5:30But it's interesting because I, I don't know what it is.
- 5:33I'm so overwhelmed with yeah, of course I have work chores and like the mundane daily life stuff, but I.
- 5:40Beyond that.
- 5:42I mean, I, I'm so burnt out.
- 5:44It's not like I have a lot of energy to dedicate towards like, oh, a really rigorous workout routine or some big creative project or, I'm, I'm honestly like not even studying for my PMP certification, my project management professional certification, I'm really like dedicating like almost zero time to it, which is a topic I'm gonna get in a second that relates to this whole burnt out thing.
- 6:06You know it, it's like I understand when people talk about being.
- 6:08Burnt out when they're working 60 hours a week and they're raising kids and they have, you know, a million other obligations outside of their house, like maybe they volunteer or like just being, I guess like I understand why people talk about being burnt out because they're spread too thin.
- 6:26I don't think I'm spread too thin.
- 6:28I'm just exhausted.
- 6:30I'm just depleted.
- 6:31I have nothing.
- 6:33I don't have the energy to even try to be spread thin.
- 6:38I'm barely getting through my day-to-day stuff.
- 6:41It's just my capacity is at zero.
- 6:44Maybe it is depression.
- 6:46I don't know.
- 6:47I, it doesn't feel like the depression that I'm used to, which is more like a, a scary suicidal depression, like crying endlessly all day every day.
- 6:58Like that's the depression that I've dealt with in the past.
- 7:01I've never dealt with a depression that feels more exhausted.
- 7:05I've been thinking about,, trying to find someone to talk to, but at the same time it's like I also can't really afford therapy.
- 7:13This is gonna sound awful from someone who is trying to work on themselves.
- 7:17But there's a part of me that is just like, what am I gonna get from therapy? I've done therapy before.
- 7:24I've done a lot of therapy.
- 7:26I've worked with different therapists over the years and don't know that anyone has really, really truly helped me.
- I feel like I've always am just.
- Talking at a therapist.
- No one has ever offered insight.
- No one has ever offered solutions.
- No one has ever offered, analysis.
- I think the most I've ever gotten from a therapist where they've offered something is a couple of worksheets that I honestly like could have Googled and found myself.
- And recommendations for outside reading.
- So, and I've gotten a lot from those books that they recommend, but again, like that is a good read search that is not really what I'm paying 40, 50, $60 a session for.
- It's expensive.
- Like I really just like don't have the money to pay someone.
- To feel like I'm not gonna get anything out of it.
- I know that, and I realize that that is a horrible, horrible way of thinking about it.
- But because of my experiences, I just felt like it is not worth the additional stress that I'm gonna get from having to shovel out this money every month because I feel like.
- if I'm gonna go to therapy, I want it to be at least twice a month.
- And that's just like money I can't afford, like.
- On my feet a little bit so I, I just like, don't want that extra expense.
- Like, I'd rather just keep reading self-help books and self, I've just like never felt, uh, uh, being burnt out this kind of way before.
- if it's depression, I just like, it's not a depression I'm familiar with.
- but I had mentioned that I'm not even studying for my project management professional certification.
- I think that ties back to how I'm feeling about just work in general.
- I come from a family where.
- You are your work.
- Hi, I am Stephanie.
- I am a insert title here.
- That's like what my family is.
- my family is all about work.
- It's all about, the practicalities of life that define you.
- Not really like who you are spiritually or who you are mentally or what your personality is.
- It's always work first, career first.
- Work yourself to the bone.
- Don't ask questions.
- Don't question your boss.
- Don't question whether or not you should be happy in your work or you should enjoy your work.
- it's funny 'cause When I was younger, my mom was very much like, do what pays well.
- Don't expect to do work that you love.
- And for a while my dad was a little bit of the opposite, but I think event.
- But now that I'm in the workforce and all this stuff, it's definitely shifted where it's like just focus on doing work and getting paid and don't, expect, don't expect work to be fun.
- Don't expect to love what you do.
- Like that's not the point of work.
- It's called work for a reason.
- Like it's that kind of mentality.
- I guess I've just seen, especially my dad, I've seen him work so many jobs that are so hard and so grueling that I thought that the whole point was to move away from having a work life that was like that and instead to find something that brought you joy.
- Like, you know, it doesn't feel like work if it's something you love like that.
- I thought that was the goal.
- I've never had that, like I've gone to school and studied for a lot of jobs that were supposed to lead to that, but I don't really do anything with my writing degrees.
- I don't really, I don't do anything with my teaching degree.
- And a lot of the reasons why I didn't pursue some of those things was just confidence.
- Like I just lacked the confidence.
- I didn't think I would do well.
- I was afraid kids, like kids would make fun of me.
- I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to speak up.
- I was afraid of being too meek as a teacher.
- I was afraid that.
- I wouldn't do a good job as a professor.
- I figured like, what if there's like kids? What if there are college age kids in my lectures that are smarter than me? I felt like if you had, if you were gonna be a teacher, I had to be like the smartest person in the room.
- And I definitely have different opinions about that now, but at the time, I just thought that that was what it would take to be a successful teacher or a successful professor.
- so I didn't pursue those things, I tried to find things on the periphery and they didn't work out or whatever, and I just got stuck in a marketing track because it took a long time for myself to be able to find something that felt like a professional, decent paying job or something that felt like it was on the track to leading to something that was more professional or better paying.
- And I just thought, you know, when you're 23 and you fall into.
- A marketing job, you just think like, okay, well at some point I'll be able to like veer out of this, you know, and, and do something else.
- and I guess because it, it took me so long to find a job.
- 'cause it really wasn't when I was 23, I don't think.
- But um, when I was like 25 or 26 or so, I think is probably when I actually started a marketing path.
- And it felt like it had taken me so long to get a job that probably a lot of other people were already doing out of the gate while they were like in college.
- That that kind of depressed me and it made me feel like I was years behind where I could have been if I had just believed in myself a little bit more.
- And I still feel that way, honestly.
- I felt like I was always being surpassed by, uh, younger people at work for.
- Better, more professional, better paying jobs or like they had the confidence to not stay at a job for eight years.
- They just stayed there for like two to get experience and then moved on to something better later.
- And I just felt no one will ever wanna hire me and whatever.
- so now fast forward, I'm 38 and I have, you know what I think most people would think is like a decent professional job with Pretty good pay I get to work remote and for a long time those things were enough to make me feel satisfied and make me feel okay about where I was at.
- But I'm at the point now where it's just not good enough I'm really needing to figure out something different.
- When I started studying for my PMP.
- Certification last year, I really thought that was gonna be my ticket.
- Maybe getting out of marketing and being able to do project management in a different field.
- it also felt like, I don't know, when I first started studying for it, it felt invigorating.
- Like learning something new always feels a little invigorating.
- And I was filled with optimism and I was enrolled in, um, in a course.
- So there was like a little bit of structure.
- It wasn't just on me Now it's a year later, over a year later from when I first started studying for it and I just could not be any less interested in it.
- I really should have probably taken this, this certification test back in the spring or even the summer, but I just couldn't, after that course was done and I was like trying to study and I was trying to do really good.
- I just don't, I think I realized today like I just don't fucking care.
- I don't care.
- And there's still a part of me that's like, well, you should care.
- You've come this far and you just need to keep studying.
- I feel like I am back at square one.
- I feel like every time I open my book I'm having to like start at page one and I just don't wanna do it.
- I keep trying to come up with like study plans and sit down and watch videos and try different courses or books or you know, video playlists that people have put out or study guides and I just don't know what to do.
- I just am not feeling it.
- And.
- I'm really struggling with, like, when do you say no to something? Saying no is so foreign to me, obviously.
- Anyways, if you're listened to even a second of this podcast, you know, that I do not say no to anything.
- so I'm really struggling with is it okay to just say you know what, I've given it a year.
- I clearly don't want this, so I'm just gonna like not deal with the pressure of it anymore.
- Like why have this thing lingering on my to-do list that I don't wanna do anymore, that my heart's not in it? Probably like 10 years ago, I had started a blog.
- Actually, it's probably way before that.
- It's probably been like 15 years ago.
- I probably started a blog and it took me six, seven years of having it in the back of my mind, always feeling guilty about not doing it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
- And finally I was just like, you know what? Like clearly I don't wanna do this.
- Like as much as I feel like I should wanna do it, or it'd be nice if I wanted to do it.
- I'm not dedicating myself to it, so I'm not feeling it.
- So I finally made a really hard decision where I just said, I'm not renewing my website.
- I'm not gonna live under the pressure of that anymore.
- And I stopped doing it.
- And at first it was really scary, but it was the right decision.
- My heart was not in it.
- I admire all the people at the time, who were starting blogs and going viral and being really successful.
- And I wanted to be one of those people, but like I did not wanna do the work that it took to become that person and to have that level of success.
- So I stopped and I look back on that decision a lot actually and think that's probably the one time I felt like I was truly listening to myself and truly in tune with myself.
- So when I think about Do I even wanna do this certification anymore? I think back to those moments when I said no to this blog and think, is it one of those moments? Like is it like a new kind of that moment or is this me, is.
- Just trying to shy away from hard work because I'm scared or because of self-doubt, or because I'm unsure of myself or because I don't know what the future means or because I'm scared to have a reason to prompt me to want to leave this job, and this job is a very safe little cocoon.
- I know what to expect.
- I know what I'm being paid.
- I know what the silver lines are.
- I know it's like the devil, you know, versus the devil you don't, Is it that kind of situation where this just feels nice and easy and safe, even though it's driving me crazy? It's better than the stress and craziness of going.
- Through like a job hunt process and getting hired somewhere, and the uncertainty of the economy is kind of in the shitter.
- So like if I, what happens if I get hired somewhere and then they just lay me off like I'm fucked.
- I don't have.
- I don't have an emergency fund.
- I don't have a nest egg.
- I live paycheck to paycheck.
- I have a little bit of savings, but when I say savings, it's like savings with a lowercase s.
- It's not like capital letters savings, you know? I have enough to get me through a couple of vet appointments, maybe a car repair.
- It's not an emergency fund, you know, this isn't oh, I'm gonna live off of this for months while I look for a job kind of savings.
- This is My tire blew out and I need a new tire kind of savings.
- So not proud of that, but that is the reality of it.
- And I'm just being honest.
- So I feel like I'm at a, a crossroads with everything and I do feel like that that what I'm thinking about with my job, my certification, all of that does feed into this feeling of being burned out.
- And I think.
- Not being able to say no is something I'm constantly struggling with and that's coming up a lot with my job and the certification and it's probably a big reason why I'm burnt out as well.
- I just like can't say no to stuff.
- I can barely say no to myself.
- Well, no, I take that back.
- Probably the only person I'm ever able to say no to is me in the, but like in a self-sabotaging way.
- What I find really, really interesting is that like I cried today at work because I had to work until 8:00 PM after I'd already been online at 6:00 AM this morning, and as tired as I was and as done with the day and as done with frankly life I was today, I still.
- Wrapped up my last email, made some sleepy time tea, and then sat down to record this podcast.
- Like, I love this podcast so much, and I'm sure there's, there's not a ton of people listening, but I'm so grateful for anyone that's listening.
- But even if there were zero people listening, I love this podcast.
- It is the only thing I have honestly ever been able to consistently.
- Commit to for this length of time where I show up every week.
- It might not be every Thursday, but I'm showing up every week doing my damnedest to sit down, blab into this microphone and get it posted and be thoughtful.
- I don't know, there's something about that that's just like.
- Really eyeopening for me.
- And I don't know what that, I don't know what it is yet, like what that really means, but I mean, that's something for sure.
- Like I am dead right now.
- I like bury me, you know, I'm so tired but I love this podcast.
- So like when I think about.
- I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want a job that brings me joy.
- I want a job that feels like I'm contributing something to the world, even in a very, very small way.
- I wanna feel like I'm adding to society, not making it worse.
- I wanna feel like I'm doing something that matters to somebody somewhere and not just trying to.
- Sell more servers to other businesses, to sell services to another business, to sell services to someone else, to eventually sell goods to a customer.
- You know, like it's so meaningless and I don't enjoy it.
- I don't like marketing.
- I don't like working with clients.
- I don't like the work that I'm doing.
- Life's so short.
- I feel like we should enjoy the work that we're doing and I wish I were one of those people who could just show up and not think about it and not care and just like punch in and punch out and be done and then go live the rest of my life.
- But what I do for work is really important to me because we spend so much time doing it.
- Like if I'm spending 40 hours a week and.
- You know, like what is it like a third of your entire life has spent working or something like in terms of like actual hours.
- It's like that is crazy to me.
- Like it should be doing something that we feel like matters, that feels purposeful, that has meeting, that has at the very least joy or excitement.
- And I don't feel any of that.
- Like I wake up every day dreading going to work.
- Like why, like.
- And part of it is just that I don't, I don't know what I wanna do.
- I know like in a big.
- Like in a big pink cloud kind of way.
- What I wanna do, of course, I, I wanna, I've always wanted to be a writer.
- That's why I went to school for writing.
- That's when I spent my entire childhood being consumed by books and words and writing and making up stories and all this stuff.
- And.
- I love reading I'm so exhausted though that I don't even have time to read at night anymore.
- I'm so tired.
- I can't even focus on words.
- I can't listen to an audiobook.
- I just, I wanna watch Vanderbilt rules and veg out, you know? And that's not good either, but me being an author, me being published and making money and living off of that is like a pipe dream.
- I'm not saying it's impossible, but like it's a pipe dream.
- And I don't have the attention span, I don't have the creativity, and I don't have the mental bandwidth to dedicate to that.
- I also feel like I can't afford to have a job that would allow me to take a, that would force me to take a pay cut that would force me to take a pay cut in order to, have the mental bandwidth and the creative bandwidth.
- To really just focus on my writing.
- It's like this catch 22 situation I find myself in.
- but in the meantime, I don't know what I would wanna do.
- I, I literally have no idea.
- Every year my bosses ask me like, what are your goals? What are your ambitions? They don't just have to relate to like this place.
- They can be anything.
- Like, we want you to grow, we want you to figure out what we wanna do.
- All this stuff.
- I have no idea.
- Like I feel like I have no interest, I have no ambitions, I have no idea what I wanna do.
- And that's kind of scary.
- I worry that part of that is just because One, I don't believe in myself, so I don't allow myself to really think about what is possible because I have such a narrow, small view of myself that the jobs that I think I would qualify for or want are so narrow.
- I don't allow myself to dream big because I don't believe that I have the skillset or the charm or whatever.
- To get the result of the dreaming big.
- You know, like I don't wanna be in constant disappointment 'cause I dreamed big and then couldn't live up to the dream, you know? Which is how I've probably felt most of my life.
- So I don't know like how to plan, I don't know how to like think about.
- There's, I can't, you can't create a path forward if you don't know what you're working towards.
- I don't know what skills to focus on.
- I thought that going for this PP would help provide that clarity for me, but it hasn't.
- It's bored me to death is all it's really done it's also just made me more uncertain about the work that I'm already doing, which isn't helpful.
- I've known for a while that this job does not make me happy.
- I've known for a while that it doesn't feed my soul.
- I don't know what else would feed my soul.
- one time I took like an aptitude test, like this is like a couple years ago when I was also kind of struggling with what I wanted to do Well, I took it twice and one time it came back saying I should be a copywriter for market for marketing.
- And I about lost my damn mind.
- And then the other one said, I should be a teacher, which I was like, well, no, duh.
- But we're kind of past that now.
- I wanted to die.
- I was just like, okay, this is not helpful whatsoever.
- Um.
- But I, I don't know what I would wanna do otherwise.
- And I, I think that's kind of sad.
- I feel like I should, part of it is that I also just, the reason why I can't answer that question, sadly, is because I don't think I know myself very well.
- Which is part of the reason why I started this podcast, frankly, is to help discover what I like about myself, discover what I'm good at.
- I think that's part of romanticizing your life and enjoying the pleasure of your own company is learning what you do and don't like learning what your strengths and weaknesses are.
- Learning what makes you tick and what makes you unique, and what makes you special, and what do you love about yourself I don't really know yet.
- And not knowing those answers makes it really hard to figure out well, what would I like? Like I'm 38.
- I don't really have the time or the luxury to just sort of waffle around.
- It really has to be something that feels, I'm making a career switch intentionally, and I have a pathway forward.
- I don't do well with the ambiguous.
- But I don't know what that path would be.
- So I would just kind of remain stuck and I don't wanna feel like I'm just spinning my wheels and wasting time because I did that in my twenties.
- I went to school for a bunch of things and tried a bunch of random things to try to make anything happen.
- I joined a board I volunteered I was writing and I was doing freelance writing.
- I was doing all these different things to try to find something that would click and nothing really clicked.
- So I feel like I am out of ideas and options.
- The only thing that I really felt any passion about.
- Has been this podcast, and I don't know what that means.
- And I barely have time to sit down every week and record this podcast.
- I was hard enough tonight to show up and record this episode, even though I was psyched to do it but I also don't know what does that mean? I'm just not good at betting on myself.
- I'm not good at taking a risk or taking a gamble.
- I feel like I'm drawn to unconventional things, but I want to pursue them with a more dimensional career approach or outcome.
- And I don't think sometimes those two things jive together.
- I'm just feeling really lost I think that that's important to share with you guys and to talk about, because I don't know, I don't, I don't know if enough people talk about that, like weird burnt out.
- Adrift kind of feeling like, I think we talk about it after the fact, like once we found our footing and once we found our way, we kind of reflect back on the time when we were feeling lost.
- But it's kind of.
- Scary to be lost in the moment.
- It feels like I'm drifting in gravity.
- Like I'm out in space, I'm just floating in nothingness.
- I can't move forward.
- I can't move back.
- I'm just floating.
- And that sounds relaxing, but it's not.
- I'm just driftless, I'm aimless.
- I, I don't really know where I'm going or what I wanna do, and.
- I'm not, I've always thought of myself as like an ambitious, driven person.
- I think you can be adrift and still be ambitious and driven, but I don't know where to throw my energy into and, and more so I don't even know where I'm supposed to find this energy and muster this energy to throw into something.
- And to throw into learning a new skill or putting out resumes or.
- Even just the energy it takes to like shift your attitude.
- I don't even know that I have that right now in me.
- It's just a lot of feelings that I've never really had to deal with before and I'm just trying to make better sense of them and I am, maybe it's also because I always get really reflective at the end of the year, like a lot of people do.
- I'm a big goal setter.
- I love the start of a new year.
- I love the start of a new month and a new week.
- Like I'm one of those people where it's like fresh start, rip off that calendar page and get to a better year.
- Whole new year, whole new lease on life.
- Like that whole thing.
- With it being end of year, I'm obviously thinking a lot about goals around work and career.
- I'm thinking a lot about goals for my personal life.
- I also know that like at some point I have to just tell my employer, I don't wanna take this test anymore.
- And I'm still waffling on that decision.
- But I just don't feel like it.
- I feel like it would feel really good to say no to something and just say.
- No, I'm not taking that on.
- Or even just to say I am putting this on the back burner for six months to really figure out if this is something I really wanna do, because I've, if, if I really wanted it, I think I would've taken the test by now.
- And I don't know why I don't want it, but I just know that right now I don't want, I don't know if it's a timing thing, if it's a mental thing, if it's a confidence thing, if it's a fear thing, or if it's just a simple.
- I don't care.
- I don't fucking want it kind of thing.
- Maybe it's a fear of if I take this certification that I'm gonna feel trapped and obligated to keep pursuing this career path that gives me nothing I sunk this money and this time into it and I need to do something with it now, and I can't let it be another thing that I've accomplished and gone on a shiny piece of paper for and then done nothing with.
- That's probably a big part of it, So it's the end of the year.
- I've just been thinking a lot about what I want, what I wanna do, and what I wanna put my energy into.
- In 20 26, 20 25 was a killer of a year.
- It has been a tough, tough year and I know we have two months left to go, and I don't know that 2026 with the way 2025 has been going.
- Across a lot of different areas in life.
- I don't know that 2026 is necessarily gonna be like that breath of freshs that we need, um, and that we hope for it.
- It could just very well be a lot of, a lot more of the same old bullshit, frankly.
- And.
- But I think it's a good time to start to think about, I'm being prompted in a lot of ways to think about what I want and what I need.
- And, um, that, and especially with being so burnt out honestly, most of this year I felt really burnt out.
- It's just really making me go, like, you can't, I can't keep, something's gotta give, something's gotta change.
- I can't keep doing the same things over and over again.
- And the little bits that I am trying to improve on, like mentally and physically are helpful, but they're not solving, like some of these bigger issues that are, are probably holding me back.
- Like I, I really do think like staying at a job you hate and being angry about it all the time and being stressed about it all the time.
- Not feeling like you have work life balance a lot of the time, and that you don't, and that you also don't feel like you're gaining anything financially.
- I'm not really gaining skillsets either.
- Like while I'm there and I'm not getting anything that I want to do more in the future, I'm just continuing to like sink myself deeper and deeper into this marketing hole that I desperately wanna get out of, but don't really know what I would replace it with.
- This, this episode was really rambly, but it felt good to get a lot off of my mind.
- I'm sure that there are so many of you that are in a similar spot or have been in the same spot where you're just like, what am I doing with my life?, Maybe I'm just having like an early midlife crisis.
- I just, maybe that that does kind of feel like what this is.
- It just feels like, I know 38 is still relatively young.
- I don't feel young.
- I feel old as fuck, but I don't know.
- I just feel like I'm questioning.
- Every facet of my life and really just trying to find more meaning in my life.
- I just think we should all be able to do something that makes us happy and makes us feel fulfilled and makes us feel like we're contributing to something bigger than ourselves and bigger than a profit and loss sheet.
- I wanna wake up in the morning feeling excited about my life.
- I wanna.
- Wake up in the morning excited by the possibilities and the challenges that I'm gonna face instead of feeling overwhelmed and defeated constantly.
- I wanna feel vibrant and I wanna feel energetic, and I wanna feel.
- Like, I'm bringing my best self to every day of my life, and I don't feel like that right now.
- I wanna find ways to resolve that.
- I think our jobs and our livelihoods are a big factor in our day-to-day lives.
- And I know that this job has contributed to like my amount of, the amount of anger that I talked about.
- In recent episodes and it doesn't help.
- So I'm just really, I, that's where I'm at.
- So anyway, if you have ever dealt with this, if you felt burnt out, if you felt kind of career fatigue, if you've felt aimless and adrift, please reach out to me on Instagram at Solitary Creature Pod.
- Let me know about your experience, how you got yourself out of it.
- Are there books that you read? Are there workbooks that you tried? I'm still gonna think about therapy, but I'm still gonna think about therapy, but it just feels like a, it feels like another thing to add to my list right now, and I'm just really trying to take things off my list.
- I almost wish that I could afford a career coach more than a therapist, which sounds crazy.
- Anyway, thanks for listening.
- Bye.