A Burnout Lesson for One of Our Own!
Every Monday, Jemima, our Social Media Manager, and I have a catch up to make a plan for the week ahead, and at every one of those meetings we discuss the topic of burnout in some capacity. Then Jemima posts about burnout during the week. We text each other about burnout almost every day. We are both therefore very familiar with the concept of burnout, but last week Jemima had her very own first hand experience of it! Here's her account of what happened:
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I have a confession…
As the Social Media Manager for The Conscious Equestrian, I wrote the post last
week about recognising the signs of burnout. That same day, the same as every other day, I attempted to make headway with the huge amount of looming final deadlines for my Masters degree, have a jumping session with my event horse before competing the next day, do a HIIT session because I need to be fit for eventing, school my giant baby horse without getting bucked off (his new favourite trick) and run my own business on the side. I’ve been having trouble sleeping too, my brain is just too busy to switch off, so I woke up the next day, running on a good 3 hours sleep and went to start making my horse look presentable for our first Intermediate of the season.
I was gently headbutted while giving him his breakfast and I promptly burst into tears, nothing new there, nowadays I seem to cry at any minor inconvenience. I then went inside for breakfast and my mother said I looked exhausted, and she didn’t think we should go (cue more tears). She then asked me if I had READ MY OWN POST on burnout for TCE as I was a classic case. The cheek of it!
Long story short, I was sent off by myself for a long weekend in a little cottage by the sea. I hate to admit it, but as soon as the idea was suggested I felt the most enormous sense of relief (there may have been more tears), and I had an absolutely perfect, relaxing, idyllic weekend.
I can’t remember the last time I had a proper change of scene; it must’ve been before COVID hit when I was living at University. Thanks to horses (I do actually really love them) my ability to get away, especially during the season which runs from March – October, is almost non-existent. So, I spent a blissful 4 days away from my everyday life and on my return, everything was absolutely fine, my amazing mother had taken over and apart from a couple of fresh-looking horses in the field, my world hadn’t fallen apart because I hadn’t been busy for every moment of the day.
It appears that I need to take my own, and Ali’s, advice! I needed to realise that I definitely was not essential, that I could disappear for a few days and it really wouldn’t matter! Now, instead of waking up exhausted in dread of the busy day ahead, I make sure to break it down, so it doesn’t seem overwhelmingly frantic. I write myself a few bullet points of things that I ‘need’ to do, such as ride my horses, write an assignment, do some emails, and package up orders. I make sure that there are only 4/5 of these essentials, as I always seem to find more that should be done, but it also gives me mental clarity and stops my constant stressy mindset of ‘I have SO much to do’! I really will be practicing what I preach now, and if I get to the same point of burning out again, I won’t hesitate to book an Airbnb and disappear for a couple of days!
Jemima
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Do you have a burnout story you'd like to share? We'd love to hear it! Pop us an email: info@theconsciousequestrian.net