Contractor burnout and taking time off

[clearedforlanding]

The moment you get a whiff of burnout, please hit the pause button. I made the mistake of thinking it was a temporary thing. It impacted me for years.

I am not alone.

[northernladuk]

I am not alone.

You are when you are out with friends I bet.

[NowPermOutsideUK]

The moment you get a whiff of burnout, please hit the pause button. I made the mistake of thinking it was a temporary thing. It impacted me for years.

I am not alone.

The point is it’s not possible to know before it happens if it’s a bad time or real burnout. How could you have identified that in hindsight

[Scoobos]

The moment you get a whiff of burnout, please hit the pause button. I made the mistake of thinking it was a temporary thing. It impacted me for years.

I am not alone.

WHS or:
Yes, after 5 years I felt like this, but I'd lived in 6 different places/countries. I ALWAYS take at least 3 months between contracts now - what got to me , is taking holiday during a gig , and thinking this is costing me x per day, in the money lost from not working.

You have to do it, else you could end up like me

[GigiBronz]

odd you had to create a forum thread for this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master...slave_morality

sometimes what makes us great and wonderful is closer than we would like to think. there is no recipe. nobody knows your circumstances.

just do what feels natural to you and be happy with the decision. there are too many corporate stooges in this world anyway.

[ladymuck]

The point is it’s not possible to know before it happens if it’s a bad time or real burnout. How could you have identified that in hindsight

There are signs but it's not always that clear - the link below has some info and the 'symptoms' are really quite generic. That's why it gets missed and assumed to be something else. It's also worth having a frank conversation with friends and family who are most likely to see the signs as a change in personality or outlook.

https://mentalhealth-uk.org/burnout/

[WTFH]

odd you had to create a forum thread for this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master...slave_morality

sometimes what makes us great and wonderful is closer than we would like to think. there is no recipe. nobody knows your circumstances.

just do what feels natural to you and be happy with the decision. there are too many corporate stooges in this world anyway.

True, it also falls under the saying "Where your love is, there your heart will be also"
If you value work as the most important, that's where your heart will be.
If you value money as the most important, same thing.
Everything else takes second place.

If you're not sure where your love lies, read the content of your posts.
And then the question is - are you focusing on something that is causing the problem, or is helping to solve it?

[vwdan]

I'm kicking myself a little because I've been meaning to get my HGV licence for a few years, just as something to play with outside of contract (Got a few mates in the industry). Would've been perfect this year!

[ladymuck]

I'm kicking myself a little because I've been meaning to get my HGV licence for a few years, just as something to play with outside of contract (Got a few mates in the industry). Would've been perfect this year!

There's still time! Get in quick

[Whorty]

Mrs W and I took a year off back in 2011, when we spend time in Africa and trained to be safari guides. I very rarely went from one contract to another and tried to take at least a month off in between.

Past 3-4 years I've been working first 4, then 3 and more recently 2 days per week whilst caring for Mrs W 24/7. Since she died in December I've really struggled working just 2 days and all WFH hence why I've gone back 5 days for now to put a bit of structure back in my life.

So I've gone the opposite way for now, but for kind of the same reason.

We each have to do what we think is right for us personally at the moment in our life.

Never really felt burn out though, but then maybe I just don't work hard enough