Often the key to having massive impact is the ability to keep going when others would have burned out. Below, you’ll find some brilliant entrepreneurs and creatives sharing how they’ve overcome or avoided burnout.

Dave Fustino

As an end-to-end Industrial Designer, I help clients bring their product visions from idea (literally napkin sketches) into reality. Navigating this process can be exhausting & demands a great deal of endurance to determine the best results. Design in general, is not a linear process & requires many iterations, failures, attempts & abstract observations, to discover the right solutions. This can be discouraging at times but necessary for success. Read more>>

Danee Black

My mother was a functioning addict, which means that she provided all of my basic needs: food, clothing, and shelter. When it came to getting my emotional needs met, I had to get creative. I learned early on that if I wanted my mother’s attention, I would have to Perform ( get good grade, sing, or dance, anything she could brag about), Serve ( clean, work hard, answer her beck and call or Obey ( saying yes regardless of how I felt, doing everything I was asked to be perceived as good or being pretty and quiet. These tactics that I learned as an adult are a trauma response, ways that I learned to survive the uncertainty of my childhood. It took me years to recognize how these traits still managed to show up in my life as an adult. It was most noticeable in my relationships but upon further inspection I could see how these insidious traits were showing up in my profession. When you are a people pleaser, you don’t recognize it as problematic initially. You think that you are just a good person doing good in the world and you cant understand why more people aren’t like you. So when I became a teacher, I literally thought I was going to change the world… and I did. But it was at the expense of myself, my energy and passion for connection. Burnout is tricky because you don’t see it coming. My days of overcommitting, over-giving and always saying yes led to compassion fatigue. I was like a dark cloud over my classroom and that eventually lead to depression like fog where I was always exhausted. It took a lot time to learn about burnout and to recognize the signs before I get too low. I learned that the best way to combat burnout is prioritize myself. 1. Become self aware and recognize my limits 2. Express myself and share my thoughts with others. 3. Set Boundaries and rest. 4. Have compassion for myself on the hard days. 5. Be intentional about my self care and nourishing myself. I had to become an expert in ME to overcome burnout and unlearn the techniques I used to survive as a child. Now, I pride myself on setting boundaries, say no when necessary and asking for what I want. I learned my needs matter. I am important. My worth is not determined by how much I can show up for others. I am enough just as I am. Read more>>

Nicholas Powell

Burnout is something that can plague anyone and I used to deal with it constantly. I would work myself to the brink of exhaustion and still feel like I wasn’t doing enough. I was told that growth and productivity doesn’t have to be linear by someone very important to me and took that phrase and ran with it. I grace myself with “off days” or days that I can rest and rejuvenate my spirit and my mind to make another strong step forward within my creative journey Read more>>

 Sarah Srdarev

When I first started my art business, I was working a full-time job as a writer, freelance writing outside of that, helping out at a local shop on weekends, AND trying to build an art business. I remember I would regularly work 14 hours today trying to balance everything. It was tiring, and the quality of my work was taking a hit, as well as my physical health. Read more>>

Brenda Magallanes

While I was going to Esthetician school, I was juggling a lot! I was at school all week from 9am-4pm and then I’d rush to work or see a client and I wouldn’t end my day until 10pm— sometimes even midnight! I was stretching myself so thin trying to juggle so much that when I finally finished Esthetician school, I realized I had reached my limit. I was burnt out and unmotivated. I had worked so hard for my esthetician license only to feel like throwing it all away. Read more>>

Camille Prairie

The first time I experienced burnout was in college. Until I left home and went to university, I hadn’t known a reality where I wasn’t good at everything I did – either because things came easily, or because trying hard was enough. Except for that C in calculus in high school. That should have been a sign of what was to come. So after years of being told how exceptional I was, I got to college, determined to become a doctor, which requires a rigorous track of study in the life sciences. And I worked myself to the bone just trying to stay afloat in courses I had no natural affinity for like chemistry and calculus(again). Biology would come with time, but at first, even advanced level biology concepts overwhelmed me. It didn’t help that my school, Drexel, ran everything on a quarter system(10 weeks) but with a normal workoad. So I took about 16-17 credits within 10 weeks. By the 7th or 8th week of my freshman year, I just stopped. I sat down on a bench one day and refused to get up. My roommate gently dragged me home, but I was just numb. I couldn’t bring myself to care anymore. The next day, I went to therapy for the first time. And so began my journey to overcoming what has become chronic burnout. Read more>>

Carley Tryon Erica D’alesandro

We started our business in 2020, right as the Pandemic hit. It had always been our goal to work for ourselves full time, but given we are wedding planners and all large events were shut down in New York State, we stayed at our full time jobs and built our business on the side. Read more>>

Sundeep Sharma

I’ve been making music since 2020, but in 2022 and 2023, I was also working a full-time job. My time was starting to be cut too thin, and I was struggling to balance work, shows, practice, and time with my wife. By 2023 I was burnt out and had to take a step back from music for a bit. I went back to my home country of India to spend time with family and friends, and that gave me a chance to fully step away from music for a few months. When I returned, my mind felt much clearer, and I was able to return to my creativity with a renewed love for music. This entire experience made me realize how important it is to not over-focus and overstress on artistic work. This lesson taught me that life should be a balance of different experiences, both everyday and artistic, because they all fuel creativity. Read more>>

Chivonne Gabriel, Lcsw-c

As a woman who enjoys checking things off my to-do list, I can get pretty carried away to the point of not eating until it’s done. Needless to say, I’ve experienced burnout more than I would like to admit and it’s that bottoming out that has turned things around for me. I realized that burning out caused me to be far less effective and impactful than I desire to be. Things suffer, people suffer, I suffer. Read more>>

Whitney Vazza

“Wow, you’ve got your hands full!” “You must be tired!” “You have a lot on your plate!” “Do you ever sleep?” Without fail, these are almost always the comments I get when someone sees me alone with my three kids under the age of five. I read an article recently, where an older gentleman saw a woman with all her young kids and rather than commenting the usual, he said to her… “you must be having fun.” Read more>>

Ryan Hollums

The burn out rate of people in my industry is pretty high. Mushroom farming is a career path that many start on, but most only make it a couple or few years before deciding to abandon the dream of cultivating fungi for a living. It’s a job that is incredibly demanding, and in most people’s situations it takes at least a few years of working 365 days to really get things rolling. Mushrooms aren’t like vegetables. They grow very fast, and once you start the cycle of cultivating them on a regular basis they just don’t stop coming. There is a very short harvest window for most varieties, and at the very least it requires plucking them from their substrate twice a day with no compromises. Read more>>

Yori Latiker

Avoiding burnout as a nail tech is all about having balance, self-care, and smart business practices. Being self employed means I am in control of my schedule, I never overbook and I have clear policies in regard to the way I want to run my business. I stay hydrated and eat meals in between to keep my energy up. I also charge my worth to ensure I am not working for less and also my prices match the quality of work. I schedule days off to enjoy my family and personal days for myself so that It never feels like I dread going into my shop. Lastly all of my clients and potential clients schedule through my online booking system so I never stress about booking. Read more>>