Burnout

Working hard does not mean growing mentally and physically

"I think we talk about discipline because it feels tough to do. We’re doing the hard thing. We’re slogging through. But when we are at our best, we’re not slogging through. Great people are obsessed and they’re not slogging through. They are driven. They are motivated. They are deeply, deeply engaged. ... If it starts to feel like a slog and you’re... See more

The antidote to burnout and the existential inquiry it brings seems to be doing things that don’t scale in pursuit of things that can’t scale. It becomes exciting not to see what you can do without limits, but to see what you can do with them.

Burnout is not what it presents: it’s not about working too hard for too long, burnout is about working in the face of a goal that seems too far out, too unattainable, too abstract. 

Everyone has what I’ve come to call a “gratification window,” the period of time in which there must be a believable reward in order to stay motivated. As exemplified... See more