Burnout is Real: The Exahusted Artist Reality
Burnout is Real: Burnout is like an invisible ghost that we carry on our shoulders, which feels like a curse but is actually there to save us and wake us up. Artist Burnout makes me feel like I’m losing my mind because I try to keep up with others, my own high expectations, commissions, new ideas, and everything else in life. Everyone out there sees me and thinks I’m fine when I’m not. They ask me how I am, and I simply reply, “I’m fine, working hard, tired but ok.” And inside me there is a voice that says, “No! You’re not ok.”
The desire to succeed in life, to excel with my talents, to beat the ruthless algorithms and have a successful life, led me down a path of self-destruction such that I lost my way and collapsed. Today I understand that burnout is the result of a constant struggle without clarity and without boundaries. When you push yourself beyond your own limits for the wrong reasons, you understand that today’s society is making us sick and that the lack of joy is leading us to critical points of self-destruction.
However, there is hope! If you are feeling or have felt this way, I tell you that it is possible to live in a different way. will share here the personal process that led me out of burnout and the experiences I had along the way. Burnout is not the enemy; it is a consequence of a society that makes us sick.
Perfectionism causes and worsens burnout in artists.
It’s not ready yet, I’m almost done, I think it still needs work—these are some of the common phrases we perfectionists use to avoid finishing what we have pending. When we understand that it’s better to finish it than never do it, we begin to flow with life. It has taken me years of frustration to embrace the possibility of doing things at 80% of my best performance without quitting in the middle of the process.
The endless steps to complete a project or lack of planning can lead to a never-ending process full of frustration and disorder. Who needs more mess in their life?
Projects need a start and an end date. It may be long, but please make sure you create an exit gate.
But learning that did not save me from an extreme stage of burnout. Because I was okay with not doing things perfectly, I was still so hard on myself that I eventually ended up in the same place. I was exhausted, depressed, and frozen by the fear of not performing at any level. I was toast.
Stop complicating it and keep it simple:
My happy Adhd brain works like this….
The problem: I need to create a little note for a friend.
Optimal solution: I could just take a notepad and write a thoughtful note for her.
Reality: I ended up creating a note in a design software with a unique, hand-made drawing of her and her cat. The note was not enough, so I walked 15 minutes to a shop to buy some chocolate cookies. When I got back home, I packed everything together. It took me 2 hours to solve a problem I could have solved in 10 minutes.
Analysis: The same situation happens when I am doing a project. I undercharge, underestimate the time it will take, overdeliver, and overcommit to it until I am exhausted, frustrated, and underpaid.
Being a perfectionist creates a distortion between what is possible and your expectations. That situation causes you to suffer and feel very frustrated. Instead of trying to fix your imperfect work, recover from perfectionism and choose to be healthy.
8 signs of Artist Burnot
While lost in the frustrating forest of exhaustion, I found eight signs of creative burnout.
1.You wake up tired and sleepy. Your energy levels are very low, but you force yourself to do routine tasks instead of creating something real.
2.You confuse perseverance with boredom. Continuing to work even when you are falling asleep over your work is not perseverance, it is torture. The most productive thing you can do for the next hour is take a nap.
3.Your Sketchbook Has Transitioned from a Playground to a Crime Scene. Every mark feels like a mistake. Pages are torn out, heavily scribbled over, or filled with harsh self-critique instead of playful exploration.
4.You confuse doomscrolling for “research.”Endless scrolling for inspiration has replaced making art. It feels like research but is actually a form of productive procrastination that leads to comparison and paralysis.
5.Shop open but not open: You have the space, time, and tools, but a profound internal resistance to creating anything for public consumption or sale.
6.Your notes on the project are a masterpiece. The project? It doesn’t exist. You’re so ready to start the project, but you don’t feel like doing anything other than running around to keep busy so you can get started.
7.Perfecting the Art of the “I’m Too Busy” Excuse. You are masterfully avoiding your work, constructing elaborate, plausible reasons for not creating, even to yourself. The performance of being a busy artist has replaced being a working artist.
8. Your inner critic is driving you crazy. Your mind constantly repeats how worthless your work is. How outdated your new ideas are and how awful and ridiculous your work is compared to the perfect, polished works of art that AI creates in three seconds. The enemy is within you, and it is killing the artist inside of you.
If you have felt this way or are feeling this way now, don’t wait any longer to start making changes to your routines, wrap up some projects, opt out of useless tasks, and start editing your life to create the boundaries you need to protect your mental and physical health. You have to be a priority in your life, because without you, nothing else matters.
