Momentum Defeats Burnout
These past few weeks, I've been making a ton of progress on my game. A few days ago, however, I started to feel like I was "burning out". Things at work have been very busy for the past few weeks, I've been recovering more slowly from my workouts this whole month, and I was running out of inspiration for certain levels in the game. I even started to wish that I didn't have to write a blog post every day.
Here's the cool part: I never burned out, because momentum is more powerful.
Instead of letting myself reach burnout, I pushed through all resistance and defeated every urge to "just relax". Here's what I have going on:
- Weightlifting
- Full Time Software Development Career
- Language Learning
- Daily Blogging
- Making a Video Game
These 5 things happen in pretty much that exact order, almost every day. The trick to not burning out is using their momentum as though they were different instruments playing a song; not every instrument needs to be playing the same amount of notes all the time. In this way, I'm giving some parts a bit of a break while another instrument plays its solo. Last month, my weightlifting was doing its solo. This month, it's playing rhythm. But it never goes away. Each is a necessary part of the song, and together they create the momentum that can break through any burnout. Because the show must go on.
Last night, I felt like I was going to burn out. Instead, I forced myself to sit down and write some code. I ended up having one of the most productive nights in a long time, creating 4 new abilities for the final character in Robot Ops. I just have 1 more ability to go, then the character is complete.
That's the power of momentum. I was able to push through burnout because I never stopped playing the song. I only gave the bassist a break.
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