I've been working solid all day and I've got a heap more work to do tonight before I can head for bed but quite frankly I'm stuffed, I'm tired, I just want to go and play trains or read a magazine or do anything that doesn't involve looking at this bloody monitor for one more nanosecond. I don't usually feel like that, I can work solidly 7 days a week 365 days a year, I know I can because I've been doing it for the last 2 years so why do I feel so different now?
Have I just described how you're feeling? Chances are that if you don't normally visit this board but you're here reading this article now you can probably relate to what I've just said because you're restless and can't settle down and focus on the stuff that you have to do. Even if you're a regular here it is quite possible that what I have just described comes close to how you have been feeling lately.
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"Burn out affects people in all walks of life but probably has a bigger impact on webmasters ... simply because of the nature of the business that we are in." |
What I have just described are the mid to late signs of burn out, that insidious condition that creeps up on you and will one day change you from a 24/7/365 workaholic into someone who cannot stand to sit in front of the computer for more than 5 minutes at a time. It can also affect you in other ways; for example I knew a guy who had worked himself to the point where he could no longer go out the front door without feeling ill and starting to panic. If you think I'm kidding then think again, burn out affects people in all walks of life but probably has a bigger impact on webmasters than anyone else simply because of the nature of the business that we are in.
We have chosen to work in an industry that allows many of us to work from home and to work the hours that we choose and that may fool you into thinking that this business in really laid-back - but it isn't.
Early on we realise that if we don't work we don't get paid so we work longer and longer hours in the mistaken belief that the harder we work the quicker we will get ahead. We get to the stage where we will sit in front of the computer and work without a break for days at a time just to achieve our goals and it is almost proof of our determination and courage if we can say to other webmasters that we regularly do 48 hours straight or 72 hours straight or even longer.
If this industry demands that we work those sort of hours then there is simply no way that anyone can say that being self-employed and working in this business is in any way laid-back. Obviously this business is quite the opposite, it is high pressure and totally unrelenting and if you don't take great care, the pressure will destroy you.
For 18 years I worked in law enforcement, day in and day out I would face all manner of challenges without complaint, regardless of what the call was I would put my cap on and walk out of the office and do the job. I got commendations and I got long service medals and one day I got to the stage where when the call came I couldn't pick up my cap, I couldn't walk out the door and I just couldn't do my job. I wasn't reduced to a quivering mess, I didn't hide under my desk; I just couldn't walk out the door. After a month of paid leave I was fine again and I went back to back to work and worked for another 2 years with no problems at all. I was lucky, I was not self-employed and I had paid sick leave so I had an income.
How would your business be affected if one day you just couldn't bring yourself to turn on the computer and that problem persisted for the next 30, 60 or 90 days? If you rely on sales from free sites and AVS sites you might survive for a while before your income stream reduced to a trickle but if you make your money from TGP the shit would hit the fan very quickly and the added stress of trying to make ends meet at a time when you couldn't work would only make the recovery period longer.
Perhaps you still don't think that it could happen to adult webmasters. Unfortunately it can; in the last couple of months I have come across two guys who have very similar stories to tell. Both were doing very well after working non-stop for several years and then one day each of them decided that they needed a break and simply stopped working on their adult empires. They did other things, things that didn't make them any money, things that kept them away from their computers and from their business. At first both of them were only planning on taking a couple of days off but those couple of days stretched into a week and the week extended to a month and for both guys it was 6 months or more before they could bring themselves to sit down and actually do some work. By that stage their income streams had dried up, the industry had moved on and what had worked before just didn't produce sales anymore.
These days they are hanging out on newbie boards - a place they would not have gone before - desperately trying to catch up and learn all the new tricks they need to make sales. They're income has dropped to such a level that they are grasping at straws to try and get their income level back to what it was. What once took them years to build disappeared in a matter of months and it's not going to come back anytime soon. Will they survive? I wouldn't like to guarantee it.
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What happened to them can happen to anyone of us and it probably occurs much more frequently than we might think. People work very very hard to establish their on-line business', they start to make good money and just when they are on the verge of achieving their goals they reach the point within themselves where they can't handle the pressure anymore and everything goes pear shaped.
Is everyone going to suffer from the same problems? Probably not, some people can handle this in a way that allows them to continue on indefinitely but those people are in the minority. For most of us the sad fact is that if we don't learn to manage the pressure then it will get the better of us and all our hard work will go for nothing.
So what should you be doing to help you keep the pressure under control?
The very first thing is to get regular sleep every day. Establish regular sleep patterns and stick to them. Never work 24 hours straight, not even for one day! Studies have shown that the human body just cannot cope with long periods without sleep. Some studies have shown that after just 72 hours without sleep the human body begins to display symptoms of diseases such as diabetes.
The second thing to do is to spend time away from your computer every day and time spent sleeping is not counted. Go for a walk, go shopping, go to the bank, go anywhere but just go out! My partner and I spend a couple of hours every morning doing the things normal people do, we go walking, we visit our favourite coffee shop, we talk to people, we just get out.
The third thing to do is to spend some time right away from your work every couple of months. Shut the door on the room you use for an office, pack up the car, grab your significant other and go away to another part of the state or the other side of the city for a couple of days and don't even take your laptop. Go cold-turkey and enjoy life for a couple of days.
The fourth thing to do is to continually monitor yourself, assess how you are feeling and how you are coping with life. Compare how you are now with how you were 6 months ago and if you see negative changes seek professional help before it is too late. If you don't want to see a doctor or a counsellor surf over to Amazon or Barnes and Noble and get some good self-help books - and read them.
It's pretty easy to laugh all this off, after all real men don't suffer from burn out - or do they?
Don't take the chance, your business and your future is worth more than a gamble. Deal with burn out now, before it leaves your business in a smouldering wreck.