Many months ago, I felt super uninspired. I have time for my morning routine, work that I love doing, can eat all the delicious food around Bali, have routine yoga and meditation sessions, sunbathing and sunset every day, in short: I have a beautiful life every single day.
But looks like, I’ve made my life too easy and predictable. I literally get burnt out from stacking pleasure!
I didn’t know what was wrong with me at first until I came across a thread shared on Twitter by a quite well-known VC’s LP that sounds similar to my ‘symptoms’. I followed down the rabbit hole of the newfound suspect of my vanilla life to YouTube, and spend a few hours watching podcast after podcast by Andrew Huberman.
Turned out I was trapped in a situation called: dopamine addiction. I kept giving myself more and more rewards and stimulation every time without even needing to try hard (late-night TikTok scroll is one of them). And now that I feel numb to all of the pleasure I’ve built in my life, I need to stop and do dopamine fast.
Dopamine fast is when you stop giving yourself constant predictable rewards/pleasure for a while. Think silent retreat, not using your social media for a while, fasting, etc.
Also Read: For your mind only: How to deal with founder’s burnout
The key is to be mindful and be present. This is also a good time to practice meditation, journaling, enjoy quality time with your loved ones without gadgets, etc.
I’ve learned that we also get burned out if we can’t see the immediate results of what we’re doing. I break goals in small chunks (I have OKR even for my personal life). I make it a habit to create a daily intention and checklist that will show my progress on that day.
I notice and celebrate my micro-progress and write it down in my gratitude journal. I also celebrate progress with my team/best friends.
Give random rewards to yourself. The anticipation of pleasure is what releases dopamine. Pause, reflect and recognise that you’re doing something positive. A well-known stoic practice is to journal the answer to these questions:
“What went well today? What did I do to contribute to that outcome?”
Last but not least, take joy in the pursuit. We’re always getting there and it’s fun!
Enjoy the first half of January 2022!
Ps: To increase my dopamine level, I’m stepping up my game and organise a conference for Remote Skills Academy with 35 speakers from Indonesia and around the world. Check out Remote Skills Summit Indonesia 2022
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The post Beyond burn out: Why you should also celebrate the pursuit and not just wins appeared first on e27.