What to Do When You're Tired (But Still Care About the Work)

There are seasons where creativity feels easy. And then there are seasons where it feels heavy. 

In this episode, I'm talking about to do when you're tired, not necessarily of creating but of everything that comes with it. The waiting, the uncertainty, the feedback, the time it takes to bring something meaningful into the world. 

If you've been feeling worn down or discouraged, or just not as energized as you used to be, this is your reminder: you don't have to do everything. You just have to do the next right thing.

Transcript

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Welcome back to your next chapter, the podcast for women who read, write, and live creatively. I'm your host, Rebecca Hastilak. I know that this time of year is often kind of known for energy and getting out there and sunshine, and I love all of that. But lately, I've been a little tired, and I'll explain. But maybe if you're feeling this way too, this episode might help. So what do we do when we're tired? And of course, as with most things, I'm looking at this from a creative lens, but this can apply to other areas of your life too. So let's dig in. There are seasons where creativity is flowing, ideas are coming, and you are so motivated and excited to just create and to keep moving ahead towards your goals. And I have those seasons a fair amount and I love them. But there are also seasons when you're kind of tired. And I have felt that recently. I'm not tired of creating. I always love the creation part of things, the writing part of things. But I'm tired of some of the process. I'm tired of the fact that this journey takes so long and that each step can feel heavier than the last. I'm tired of believing in the quality of my work and still not having external validation of that. I'm tired of sometimes getting feedback from a variety of sources that's sometimes contradictory and all of the time requires me to make another revision or try something else that's new. I'm just sort of tired. And part of that is mentally and physically too, because when you are pouring so much of yourself into a creative field, it requires a lot from you. It can be taxing. And we talked about the long game recently. And that's the goal, at least for me. I want to continue to write throughout the rest of my lifetime. I want to write novels forever and ever. Amen. And it is hard sometimes when you are committed to the long game and when you have committed to never giving up and to continuing to do these things. It can be hard when you hit these little slumps where you're like, you know what? This is just tiring. And so I want to tackle that today because maybe you've been feeling the same way. And what do you do? So let's talk about it. In moments when creativity doesn't feel expansive or exciting, but it feels heavy or foggy or like it's just too much. The goal isn't to do everything. The goal isn't to force yourself to keep going no matter what. It's to do the next right thing for you in that moment. So what is the next right thing? What do you do when you don't feel like doing anything? And for some of us, it can look different, right? Like I was saying, for me, there are very few times in my life when I literally don't feel like writing fiction. You could almost give me any day, unless it's like, you know, a day that's especially hard for some reason or another. And I will almost always be like, oh my gosh, do I get to write? That is so exciting. I love this because I do. I love it. I love the writing part. I love writing fiction. But give me all of the rest of it: the querying, the research, the editing, the revising, the writing a synopsis, the rejection, the the realization of just how long some of this stuff takes, all of that is just exhausting. And so when I need to do those things, that's when I'm most likely to feel tired. And so what do I do? I will not give up. So that's not an option. But let's think about it this way: not all tired is the same. That sounds like a weird sentence, but it's not. Are you physically tired? Like your body needs rest. Are you mentally tired? You've had too much decision fatigue and overwhelm. Are you emotionally tired? That might look like discouragement or comparison or rejection. Are you creatively tired? You might be burnt out, depleted, just you've had way too much output. Those are all different and you don't solve them all the same way. Sometimes the answer is rest, sometimes the answer is movement, and sometimes the answer is a smaller version of the work. There is a trap that says you either need to be all in or all out, right? It's the old all or nothing conundrum. And I don't buy it, but when we're tired, we do tend to think this way. We're like, if I can't do it fully, I'm not going to do it at all. And that's where people lose momentum. Consistency isn't built on perfect days, it's built on imperfect ones. So I want you to think about doing the next right thing based on what your version of Tired is. And there's a book that is called The One Thing. And it's written by Gary Keller and Jay Papassan. I hope I'm saying that right. But they try to teach you through the book about how to figure out what your one thing is. Instead of trying to boil the ocean, they try to help you narrow down what is literally the one thing that is going to help move you forward towards your goals. And it can be an incredibly freeing way to look at things. If you are in the creatively tired camp or even just mentally tired, it can be really helpful to try to figure out what your one thing is. So I highly recommend that book. And if you are creatively or mentally tired, what you might want to do is something I suggested in the podcast when we were talking about readiness as a creative blocker, is just to start small, write one paragraph, edit one page, outline instead of draft, or even go for a walk and think instead of forcing output. Those small actions can keep that thread alive and not take too much more from you. But what about if you're physically tired? If you are physically tired, you know that that is going to impact everything else. If that's the case, then your body is probably depleted. You might feel resentful toward the work or you're just like forcing something that isn't landing. Try to really dig into what the root of that is. If you are trying to avoid discomfort or waiting to feel ready or are just stuck in overthinking, you can continue gently through that. You can push through that and you can keep going. But if you genuinely need rest on a body level, that's gonna look different. That's going to look like total brain fog. It's gonna look like you're you feel exhausted when you wake up in the morning. The thought of any form of physical activity just feels daunting. You might have some symptoms of illness, you might have a runny nose or sniffles or just feel off. All of those things are a good sign that your body actually needs rest. So don't keep trying to force it. Give yourself the time until you start feeling physically better before you try to handle anything creatively. You are not going to serve yourself if you try to force it when your body actually needs rest. If that is not the case, then you might be, let's see, which ones did we talk about? Physically tired, creatively tired, mentally tired. And then what about emotionally tired? This one gets me, I think this is the one I've mostly been in, is just kind of feeling a little bit discouraged. And I'll just be honest with you on that front. I believe in my work, I believe in what I've been doing, and I just feel a little discouraged by the nature of the industry. And this isn't something that's unique to me. I mean, it's a little encouraging when I look out there at the stats and see that so many published authors have gone through similar things that I'm going through. And basically I know logically that every creative person who has become successful has gone through rejection. And most of them have taken years and years and years to get where they are. And so I know all this logically, but that doesn't mean it makes me any less emotionally tired. So what do you do when you are emotionally tired? I think the best thing I can recommend is taking the pressure off of quote unquote success, right? Reframing success. When I have been feeling emotionally tired, I try to remind myself of all that I actually have accomplished. I've written five novels, started a podcast, grown so much in my writing throughout this time that even if I haven't hit the milestones that I plan to, I still believe that I will. And I still know that I'm further along today than I was last year or two years ago or five years ago. So that is all encouraging. The other thing about being emotionally tired, when you're reframing success, try not to think about it all at once. How am I going to break into this industry and how am I going to be represented and have sales and do this for a career? I mean, that's just super overwhelming for anybody. Think of success as what can I do today in this area that will bring me joy? And so for me, it's writing, it's dreaming about the next project, making some edits on my last one. It's writing a random scene that pops into my head that's just fun and isn't going to actually connect to any of the books I'm writing anyway. I'll also tell you, exploring other people's art can actually be really nice when you're emotionally tired and you've been stuck in kind of the depths of your own art for so long. I recently discovered someone who writes beautiful poetry. His name is Joseph Fasano, F-A-S-A-N-O. And I've stumbled upon him on Instagram, you know, like we do. And he's a poet. And I've never really gravitated toward poetry, not for any reason, other than it just never spoke to me like other things have. I really love reading fiction. And yeah, it just never grabbed me. And so I I randomly stumbled upon one of his poems, and it was so beautiful, and it just made me feel. And I was like, this is what art is supposed to do. It's supposed to make you feel for the creator and the consumer. And so if you're feeling emotionally tired and kind of burnt out and down, try to just engage with someone else's art. Try to feel something from that. Let that fill you up and fill your cup for the time being. And then when you feel ready, do one thing creatively that fills you with joy. Just those little small actions can really keep you going. But if you are tired in any of these ways, physical rest really will help in all of the ways. So if you're feeling especially discouraged, we know that how our bodies are fueled impacts how we feel. If you're feeling especially down or especially mentally overwhelmed, there's a good chance that you do need some physical rest. So pay attention to that. Let yourself sleep in a little bit on the weekend, go to bed a little earlier, work in some self-care, like a bath or some reading or things like that. Just try to give yourself a little bit of a calmer couple of days or a week or however long it takes until you're feeling a little more energized through and through. And just remember that creative work compounds. So it doesn't compound because of intensity, it compounds because of continuity. So every time you return to it, even if it's in a small way, you reinforce that you are someone who keeps going. That identity matters more than any single output. So I just encourage you to shift your expectations. On your tired days, it's okay to lower the bar. You can keep your standards high and lower the bar for your output, and both can happen at the same time. The standard on those days can be that you show up. And there is so much power in just showing up. A gentler way forward is what I'm encouraging for everybody. You don't have to solve everything today. You don't have to feel inspired. You don't have to be in your be at your best. You just have to stay in relationship with the work, even if that's loosely, even if that means literally pausing on it and not coming back to it for a while. That's still fine. You are still continuing to go and to create through the long term. And you won't lose your creative life in one tired day or in a tired week or even in a couple months. I mean, you can come back to it. Your creativity will wait for you. And there was one quote I wanted to leave you guys with. I really loved this. This quote is from Martha Beck, who is a PhD, Harvard-trained sociologist, world-renowned coach, and New York Times bestselling author. So quite the resume. She said this the recipe for your life should be like this: rest until you feel like playing, and then play until you feel like resting, and then repeat. So, you guys, if you feel like resting, rest. And then when you feel like playing, play and rest until you feel like playing and play until you feel like resting. That is so beautiful and it's so simple, but it's also honestly kind of profound, right? We put so much pressure on ourselves to be and do and reach these goals, and a lot of the time they're self-imposed. It's great to have goals. It's great to keep going. I implore you to keep going. Never give up on your creativity. Play the long game, stick in there, have staying power, but also remember you're human. It's okay to be tired, whether that's physically, emotionally, mentally, creatively, or in some other way. Allow yourself to be tired. Rest and then play. I hope that you will keep creating and keep turning the page.