I Had to Get Out of My Blogging Funk

I’ve spent so much time focusing my creative energies on my clients’ projects over the last three months, I almost forgot about myself and my own website.  I didn’t feel like blogging or posting on social media. My concentrated designing efforts seemed to have drained my motivation, putting me into a blue funk—one not to be confused with the R&B or jazz variety.

Maybe it’s the hangover effect from the end of a good project. No more adrenaline or too much for too long and now I’m trying to recover. Whatever the cause, I’m just coming out of it, so it’s back to the keyboard and multiple monitors to offer my unsolicited and unsponsored observations for whatever they might be worth, at least for now.

But this post is about more than my own experience.  Other freelance designers have had and will have similar experiences. We are a global community. So, let’s examine how to identify burnout symptoms and more importantly, how to combat them.

Working for yourself offers autonomy and lots of freedom. But it’s not always what it’s cracked up to be. There are times you feel you are running on a treadmill. Yes, you’re busy. You design graphics, websites, t-shirts, brochures, and other materials for your paying clientele. They express their appreciation by paying you, hopefully on time. But when you have a chance to catch your breath at the end of the day and evaluate your activities, you may experience an emotional letdown.  I know after a big project, I’ve found myself procrastinating and avoiding devoting time to things that require my deep attention and concentration.

Or you might have grown weary of receiving negative responses to your business proposals. That can make it easy to begin to doubt yourself and let negative thoughts creep into your mind. Over time your enthusiasm to design lessens because you have too much negativity in your mind space. That’s what happened to me and my writing. I lost the desire to do it.

As a graphic designer, staring at a screen for hours on end sometimes leaves me feeling tired. When I recognize those familiar burnout symptoms beginning to surface, doing something different helps me to counteract them. Below are just a few of the things I do when I need to rejuvenate my mind.

These work for me, but you might have other things you like to do. What you choose to do isn’t as important as making sure you give your mind a break from thinking about work so you can get back to creating and designing, feeling rejuvenated.

To give myself a motivational boost, I took some photographs from my travels collection and imported them into Photoshop. I wrote my own short motivational passages using different typography on each.  From time to time, I’ll use the exported images for my desktop slideshow to give me some positive vibes.

I hope you find these suggestions helpful. Working for yourself is a real grind and we must each do our best to care for ourselves if we want to stay in the game. Share this post and connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn if you’d like to stay in touch or have other questions.