CREATIVE BURNOUT

Okay, just a disclaimer before anything else. I am beyond grateful that my passion for designing,
which I developed in high school, has become my profession now, and for that, I am incredibly happy and thankful
for having the privilege of making what I enjoy my work.

Back when I was first starting, I didn’t know what they were talking about - burnout or art block, and whether that was even real in the first place. To see is to believe, and here, it is to experience it firsthand. What’s tricky about creative burnout is that you don’t know when it will hit you, which is why you will never be ready for it. No one is prepared,
and no one is exempt.

I am actually in the middle of creative burnout while writing this. As for me, having a creative burnout is that you suddenly don’t have any idea what to do even though the brief from the client is there nor you already have idea written before but suddenly nothing is making any sense, I can’t translate the materials that was given to me and it sucks most importantly if you have deadlines, and you are a workaholic (me sometimes). There is this moment that I know in myself that something is wrong, that I already have it (I thought being in-denial will help) and since I have a rush work to do and I need to work because this is my bread and butter, I need to push myself to work only for me to result to “okay na ‘to” or “this will do” in English even though I don’t like it myself and I am proud to it but since I have a deadline to chase, and I just passed it. Result? The client backed out. Bummer, I know, that’s when I realized that “okay, I’m having an art block”.

One thing about creative block is that it will manifest with your craft; it will mess things up. Before I tried to create while in the middle of it, but then I tend to stop and close Photoshop in the middle, and then it will be forever work in progress, I will forget it, and worse? I might not continue anymore.

Before I thought, I just needed to fight it, I just needed to create and create until it left my body and mind. But now,
I learned to recognize it and sit with it, let it consume me, because what else is left to do? It’s okay, it’s normal for an artist like me to feel it, and it’s not the end of the world, spoiler? It’s not forever! It might go away sooner than you think.
But since I mentioned that this is my bread and butter, that doesn’t mean that I will completely stop working.
I still work but lightly, and I am no longer forcing myself to do heavy tasks that I am not motivated to do. An example of that is I try to clear out the pipeline of my postings to my business account or update things for the admin stuff, something like that. Still working, but lighter tasks and entirely related to what I usually do, and sometimes just a little edit to some work that needs revision.

I also want to mention that I am thankful that I know how to save money, because having creative burnout also means that money will slow down, and it might affect your finances and your day-to-day needs. That’s why I am thankful that I built savings in time for this, so that even if I experience it, I will still be able to live and function. You might experience creative burnout in days that you don’t expect it to be in, but you will be fine, you can still call yourself an artist, brighter days are coming, and you will still be able to create art that you will be proud to say is yours and show it off to the world.