I used to be good at time management and very motivated in my career. Then about two years ago I lost a close friend over a strong disagreement and then lost my job.
Slowly but surely I became a bit depressed and had some physical health issues. I'm seeing a therapist already, and a few months ago I finally managed to get a plebe job at a retailer, but when it comes to doing my personal work that would open doors in my industry I just can't seem to find the time and motivation to do it.
Don't get me wrong. I got plenty of time available, I just find myself being ridiculously avoidant or distracted or tired, you get the idea. And, no, I don't use social media much, I don't videogame or binge shows. I just get distracted with house chores or simply overthinking.
I've already tried lists, planning and goal setting ( all this comes naturally to me), but it makes no difference.
I've tried reducing the expectations and goals, no difference. I still don't do anything.
I tried apps to keep track of my progress; also useless.
I've even considered finding a life coach, but I get the feeling they're a scam. Unfortunately I don't have any friends or relatives that can help me stay on track with my goals.
TLDR I'm getting a bit desperate here. Any suggestions welcome. Thanks.
I'm sorry if this is not what you want to hear, but I'll give my perspective anyway.
Why do you care about getting "back in your industry/career"? Yeah you did it previously, but is it really what makes you happy?
When you have goals, you always think "once I reach this, everything will be better". In my experience and with everyone I ever talked with, this was never the lasting case. Reaching some nice goal gave satisfaction for days or sometimes even weeks or months, but never longer. Then it was back to dissatisfaction and another goal.
The common path frequently described out of depression is getting back into the groove of setting goals, following them, not being satisfied, setting another goal, repeat. This is not how I got out of my depression and also not a good life.
I don't think it's important that you reach your goal of getting back in your industry or whatever. I think it's important that you're fine with not reaching it. I think it's important to recognize that you can be happy and satisfied right where you are, exactly with what you have.
yeah life coaches are unregulated and therefore extremely likely to be a scam or some earnest wanker who will make you worse with bad advice like manifesting, bootstraps mentality, or other impossible bullshit.
Sounds like you're still working through depression to me. Be kind to yourself, give yourself time to heal and work through things, I'm glad you've found a therapist that's a great step. Do you think you want to go back to the industry or could you be avoiding it subconsciously? Something that has helped me a lot is journaling, you can wipe down your goals and break them down into smaller goals if needed.
I know I want to go back, what I'm not sure about is the precise reason behind the avoidance. Because I am absolutely avoiding it.
Something to talk to your therapist about maybe. Definitely focus on yourself as your priority though. Do things which make you happy, exercise, seeing friends / family, spending time outside.
This is the main reason I'm going to therapy, of course this is in the menu
Is it possible you burnt out at your old job? That takes years to recover from properly and takes a lot of radical self acceptance and being okay with rest
I did unfortunately and only realised when it was too late. Where did you get this information about the years to recover?
I originally came across that idea from someone on TikTok who was studying burnout for their doctorate. But I can’t find them now. The closest I could find for you in terms of a citation was this:
Evidence suggests that [burnout] has relatively high stability over time, with studies showing that physicians who score high on burnout assessment at one point in time tend to continue to do so at subsequent points, at least up to about 3 years.
Edit: I’ll say that in my experience, this timeline is for full recovery, not for reaching the point where you can sustainably work again. One thing I got told that helped me was to plan out in detail what I think my daily schedule would look like outside of burnout and pick one thing to focus on starting to do 5 minutes at a time. And that looked like me literally quitting halfway through cooking instead of pushing myself to finish sometimes. The exhaustion is real but if you don’t have any other major mental health factors (like if you’re in your early 20s and this is your first major autistic burnout for example) then getting back to where you were is realistic.
That sounds interesting but I'm not sure I'm understanding what you did. What do you mean by "daily schedule outside of burnout" ? You mean everything else you need to do except the activity that causes burnout? Or am I getting it wrong, and everything caused you burnout meaning you couldn't do more than 5 minutes of anything? I you can clarify I'd appreciate it, if sounds like something I could try for myself as well.
Like in the early stages of burnout for me, even getting up off the couch to go to the bathroom was a struggle. And for me, this was my first big autistic burnout, which meant that I needed to reorient my relationship to work, play, and self-care to make sure I was doing all of them in a sustainable way. But in the beginning, that meant if I couldn’t do more than 5 minutes of a task, I wouldn’t beat myself up. But starting with that 5 minutes was a way for me to push myself just a little. Because the normal advice is “let yourself relax” and that advice just didn’t work for me. For one, I didn’t have the support to be unemployed for long periods of time. And for two, being depressed and laying immobile on the couch wasn’t relaxing in the first placed. I was just stressed while appearing relaxed. So getting back to doing things was my way out. And so I built up a tolerance for that and slowly built up the ability to do things sustainably while also pushing through the burnout to survive, which made it last longer. But eventually the sustainable stuff won out. I rest more than I used to and have a better relationship with breaks and self care but I’m working full time in my field again and pursuing betterment both in and outside of work. That said, I work in a job where I can flex my hours and take the breaks I need pretty much at will as long as I let my coworkers know and get my work done. I’m aware I’m very lucky to be able to do this and that it’s not a universal solution. But I’m just trying to be as honest as possible about my experience.
I really appreciate it, thanks for sharing. I feel identified with some of what you've described, you give me hope.
