Sometimes the pressure we feel to change course can be so great we have a tendency to overload our plate in the hopes of creating that new future now. Such was the case with my experience. In the process, I nearly burned myself out completely.
For the past ten years, I’ve worked as a web developer. I have no love for the work, but it’s provided a comfortable life for me that’s made it possible to eventually find my calling. About four years ago, my distaste for my career had become so bad I felt the only way I could function was if I, at long last, found that calling. As it so happens, I did, but finding the calling is only the first step down a very long path.
On the advice of a friend, I had started my own sports and pop culture website, TheDallasProspect.com. I had written for sports blogs in the past but never really thought of starting my own. At the time, I was merely in search of a hobby to fill the downtime of the evenings. Eventually, however, the site began to grow.
Nothing crazy, mind you, but enough that I began to invest more time into writing and creating content for it. In an effort to extend my reach, I created a YouTube channel and podcast. A few hundred followers grew to a few thousand. Along the way, I grew — both as a writer and podcaster. I found my voice and, soon enough, I found my path in life.
Despite being 30 years old, I made the decision to return to school and finish my journalism degree. The next two years were brutal as I juggled a full-time work schedule, four to five classes at any given time, including classes during the Summer 1 and 2 sessions, and raising my daughter Harper, who was only months old when I began.
In the Fall of 2020, I also had a degree-required professional internship with the Denton Record-Chronicle, a local newspaper in Denton, Texas. Working as a high school reporter, I covered high school football and volleyball an additional 10–15 hours a week on top of everything else, writing previews, interviewing players and coaching, and penning game recaps. Despite everything, I never stopped creating content for my website, podcast, or YouTube channel.
The experience pushed me to my absolute limit and left me teetering on the edge of a breakdown by semester’s end. I was beyond burnout. I wasn’t even sure I could function well enough to continue with just school and work when the new semester began in January, but I knew I had to.
The experience forced me to become more resilient and to push through and persevere even when standing amid a raging storm. It also forced me to recalibrate right then and there.
My wife, daughter, and I stowed away to a secluded cabin over the holidays. There, I recommitted to the betterment of my physical and mental health. The first step, meditation, allowed me to clear my overwhelmed thoughts and think calmly. The next step, journaling, helped process the intense emotions and work through them. All told, these changes, as well as some others that came later, allowed me to return to a place of mental strength and resolve ahead of the new semester.
A week “off the grid” with my family was a good way to reboot. Selfie of author and family.
Now, a year removed from the brink of my breaking point, I find myself a mere two months from graduating with Summa Cum Laude honors and, at long last, finding opportunities along my new career path to earn a respectable living. It’s been a grueling two years, but they’ve fortified both my skills and my will along the way.
While it certainly wasn’t easy or necessary to juggle all of these things simultaneously or plow through my remaining course load in such short order, I felt an added sense of urgency due to the arrival of my daughter. I didn’t want to still be taking classes when she was two and three years old, going to school part-time by means of online or night classes exclusively. And I didn’t turn from any of the work I was doing with my platform because I knew it was important not only to continue with the momentum I’d built but to test out and apply the skills I was learning in becoming a journalist.
Only, it was too much — at least in the absence of a damn strong self-care routine. Without that recalibration, there’s no chance I keep it all together between work and school and Prospect, let alone do so while earning top honors. There are going to be times when you encounter great adversity amid a major life change. The key is to take care of yourself along the way and know when it’s time to recalibrate.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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