I feel completely and utterly burned out in every freaking area of my life and I can't go on like this it's driving me nuts. I have no motivation or passion. I can't focus. I have literally 0 attention span even when doing things I LOVE doing. My brain just doesn't want to work or be fired up.

I've tried everything from taking breaks to forcing it. I don't know what to do. If anyone has any suggestions I will attempt them [if I choose to lol].

That does suck. I call those the "fallow times".

If you can afford to, if the duties of daily life allow, I recommend taking a three-day staycation to do absolutely nothing. Maybe sit and just notice what's happening, and if your notice wanders somewhere else then just go with it. Go for a walk around your neighborhood, if you feel like you should be doing something but don't know what you have the inner resources to do. It's like meditation, without the rigor or focus. Most of the time, natural restlessness will kick in before the end, and you'll return to regular activities renewed.

Sometimes it's a matter of getting into a nutritional rut, too, so iron or B vitamins might have gone out of your diet. Or maybe just fresh air and sunshine.

Aww. This happens to so many of us sometimes, and it leaves us feeling utterly hopeless and restless.

I would suggest taking a break too. Just stop doing whatever it is that you do for a couple of days, try and calm yourself, take it very very slow. Breathe deep, go for walks, stay up at night and feel the quiet moments, try and figure out what is eating you. Just don't do any work, or think that you have tons of tasks pending. Let things be. Sometimes we need a full throttle pause before getting back on the groove.

You can also watch some good movies while you're at your break. I'd suggest these:

Garden State
Good Will Hunting
The Intouchables (french movie with English subtitles, amazing one!)
Dead Poets Society
Paris je T'aime (French, with subtitles)


Let us know how you're doing.

I admit this took me so long to reply because I lacked the motivation to read more than a sentence ...

Hmm I might try vitamins. I know I am likely low on iron and vitamin D. Well maybe not iron because I am eating a tonne of meat. Who knows ha ha. Definitely need to OD on some vitamin D though. Will look into eating more vegemite for Vitamin B's. Actually I had some tonight and noticed almost an instant increase in my mood. I am not sure if that was due to the fact that I was eating, I had real butter on my bread, or I was getting something my body wanted lol.

I can't stop for another few weeks because it's crunch time...but the issue I'm having now is that I am far behind because I injured myself and fell ill one after the other and was unable to go to school for over a month....so I have 2 weeks to complete all that work . And all that time stuck in bed helped me nought. I thought all the resting would have made me feel better but I feel like I started this semester off on the wrong foot and I'm still stumbling. I would kill for a do-over with my energy back.


Really appreciate you guys replying. I will def try out the ideas as I am able .

I know the feeling of complete burn out and it sucks sooooo bad! I recently went through a bit of this myself.  I took a week off of work recently and felt so much better after doing it.  I was to the point where I would sit at my desk with pile of pending assignments and just stare at it because I did not know where to start and lacked motivation to get any of it done.

I work a full time job, have a family, and I am also trying to get a writing career going so that I do not have to actually get up and go to work each day.  It got to the point where I was working each moment that I was not sleeping and I finally just got exhausted.

Take a small vacation and just do nothing, but what you want to do.  Summer is here so go to the beach (if you have one around you) or go for a nice long walk in the sunshine.  I find that being in nature helps calm me down and take away a lot of the stress.  Good luck and keep us posted with how you are feeling!

What ended up happening was this: I was so exhausted and depressed my Fiancé ended up coming over and spending a week with me just about. I put everything out of my mind and just relaxed and once I was able to breathe I felt a lot better. I also increased my B vitamins naturally and that had an impact too.

Then I came back and looked at my plate and now I am all sorted. I don't feel burnt out anymore but I'm not a raging fire at the moment so I will just take things slowly. I'm feeling much much better!

Bunny (11:04am Tue, Jun  3, 2014)

I admit this took me so long to reply because I lacked the motivation to read more than a sentence ...

Hmm I might try vitamins. I know I am likely low on iron and vitamin D. Well maybe not iron because I am eating a tonne of meat. Who knows ha ha. Definitely need to OD on some vitamin D though. Will look into eating more vegemite for Vitamin B's. Actually I had some tonight and noticed almost an instant increase in my mood. I am not sure if that was due to the fact that I was eating, I had real butter on my bread, or I was getting something my body wanted lol.

I can't stop for another few weeks because it's crunch time...but the issue I'm having now is that I am far behind because I injured myself and fell ill one after the other and was unable to go to school for over a month....so I have 2 weeks to complete all that work . And all that time stuck in bed helped me nought. I thought all the resting would have made me feel better but I feel like I started this semester off on the wrong foot and I'm still stumbling. I would kill for a do-over with my energy back.


Really appreciate you guys replying. I will def try out the ideas as I am able .

Bunny, I have had four times in my life that I have felt like that.

1) When I was depressed.
2) When I had Glandular Fever
3) When my Vitamin C levels dropped to 13% of what they ought to be.
4) When I had my heart attack.

I tend to think it is likely number two from what you said. I was really drained and losing a stack of weight. I dropped down to 75kgs and could not eat enough food. I was basically eating 6 times a day and usually hamburgers (or equivalent) and cheesecake (or equivalent) every meal and the weight fell off.

(As a side note. BMI would tell you that 75Kgs is my ideal weight at 5'9" but my friends and I agree that it looked unhealthy on my frame. I am best at around 85kgs)

Check Vitamin C though. With Vitamin C deficiency I was aching in the joints and lethargic, hard to motivate and tired all the time.

Heart attack, well you know generally how that kind of thing goes.

Depression. That is kind of all emcompassing. But you know when you are Depressed but possibly kid yourself it is not as bad as what it is. If that is the case, get on top of it.

In fact, in all of the above case, get on top of it.

I went through a period of several years of burn-out.  One thing I did was do "The Artist Way" by Julia Cameron.  It forces you to write and makes you look at it from a different perspective.  Another great inspiration was "Writing Down The Bones" by Natalie Goldberg.  It's approaching writing as a type of Zen meditation.  Check them out, even if you are over your burn-out by the time you read this.  They are infinitely inspiring, no matter where you are in your writing journey.

I have also gone through periods of time in my life when I felt like this. For me, it was more of just feeling overwhelmed than being burnt out, although i was that, too. But when too many things seem to go wrong at once, and you don't know where, or even how, to start getting all of it done, then it is easy to get overwhelmed, and just want to give up.
Sometimes, taking a break and just not thinking about it for a while is a good idea, and it gives your mind time to work on things and help put together a plan to get everything started, and done.
I have found that even just going for a walk, and "turning your mind loose", so to speak, will allow it to sort things through, and helps me to start over more refreshed.

I have noticed I get overwhelmed so easily. I think my plate is not smaller than others but already dealing with significantly more crap....and I just get so used to repeatedly dealing with it that I become desensitised to the magnitude of the crap on it and then somehow something is added and it's the straw that broke the camels back.

I'm not sure what to do because much the crap on my plate is there for life. At least a 4th is self inflicted though so I should probably work on that.

I think that we  all struggle with the things that are there in our life, but totally unmanageable by us. Usually things that involve other people that we love, or even ones that we have to work with.
I was married to an alcoholic/drug addict for many, many years; and that  I had no control over his destructive behavior was a constant frustration in my life. Al-anon helped me get through much of that, and it basically teaches you that you can only control your own life and behavior.   I learned to plan for taking care of myself and the kids, even when their dad was not around or capable of doing it.
What we can't change, we have to just let go of, and work on the things that we can change, Bunny.
Then, at least your plate will not be quite as full, and there will be parts of your life that you  can feel better about.

I sometimes get to the point where I feel completely overwhelmed with life too, and walking seems to help me clear my head for a while.  If I can't walk then I read a good book so that at least I am turning my mind loose into a fantasy fiction world for a while.  At some point though we must all resurface for air.  I do believe that in life, we are not handed anything that we can't handle, and that each experience that we go through is a learning lesson.  Any way you look at it, there will be good years and bad years and you just have to think ahead and remember that nothing bad lasts forever.

I also suffer from getting easily overwhelmed. I don't have a miracle cure to offer you, and I don't know what the crap on your plate is so I don't want to seem like I'm trivialising it, but one little bit of advice that I thought might help:

I've heard it described a few different ways, either positive thinking or positive mental attitude (PMA) or self-affirmation. Some people will try to just tell you to buck your ideas up and get over it (which is about the most unhelpful thing possible!) but the way that worked for me was when I read an article in a magazine that recognised that things are much more complicated than that, and this idea of using PMA to help break the habits and triggers that put you into whatever rut you are in.

Basically, your first step is to really think about what your problem is and what is causing it - but be specific. My issue at the time was with weightloss, so instead of just thinking "I'm fat" or "I'm too lazy to exercise" I sort of broke that down into things like "I snack on unhealthy things when my energy is low" or "I don't have the motivation to do exercise". Then you come up with counter-arguments to that, and make sure you phrase them in a way that is not only positive but puts you in control. Or, if there's a particular habit with which you are sabotaging yourself, you find a way to redirect it and come up with a phrase that fits that as well.

So, for example, my counter-arguments were things like "I find it easy to make healthy food choices" or "exercise is a priority for me and I can always find time for a short workout" or "I enjoy feeling fit and energetic". And I replaced a habit of going for the chocolate box or biscuit tin when I was feeling ground down with having a cup of tea instead (it's not perfect, but it's an improvement!) and would tell myself "A cup of tea is a brilliant pick-me-up".

The bit that sounds silly is that once you have come up with a handful of these positive phrases, you have to repeat them to yourself a few times a day. You can also write them out on notes and put them in key places around your house or workplace (I had the healthy food choices one on the fridge door, and the cup of tea one on my work computer screen) to help remind you. The idea is that often it's your negative self-talk that gets you stuck into a rut and makes you feel like getting out of it isn't within your own control, so you need to replace that with positive self-talk. You focus on a few at a time, and when you feel like you have made decent progress with those, so that the positive thoughts are becoming a habit, you can add some more or move onto the next area that you want to work on.

I know it sounds like a cliché, and in the past I was convinced that this sort of stuff was all just pretend psychology and a load of old nonsense, but it really does seem to work, so please do consider giving it a try.

That is some very good information and I can totally understand where it would come in handy and help you.  Instead of feeling down on yourself and making it worse by saying things that bring down your morale and energy even more, turn all of the negatives into positives.

I have been having issues not getting enough sleep lately as I have been working a lot just trying to get to where I need to be in this world.  I have a very demanding job and as a result, I have been spending countless nights trying to earn some income online and filling out job applications for other work.  It has come to the point in which I feel like I am always at half mass as far as being able to have a clear head.  As a result, I have been messing up on a lot of things and it feels like I can't do anything right or proper lately.  The underlying issue though is that I am just tired all of the time and my head is foggy.  When I finally told myself that I just needed to stop and get some sleep, I became much more functional again.

I really like this topic because it gives people a chance to just vent how they are feeling and what has helped them get through the difficult times.  Everyone gets burnt out at something in their life and at least we can pass around ideas of how to get through it.

JRose, I think that you have brought up a very important part of keeping ourselves positive, and moving forward, regardless of what direction life takes us in.
Often, it is not so much what happens to us in life, as how we look at what happens to us , that makes the difference.
When I was selling insurance for Combined, we had motivational meetings every morning, even just a short one sometimes helped a lot.
One of the little sayings that they taught us  that within every adversity in life, there is the seed of an equal or greater benefit.
When we are down there in the bottom of the well, it is pretty hard to see that part; but it is there , even if we don't realize it until much later.

My oldest son wanted to be a law officer when he was much younger.  He volunteered at the local Sheriff Dept., and eventually becamse a jailer, and then one of the road patrol deputies.
When they had an opening for a State Trooper, her took all of the tests, and was in the top 10 of over 500 applicants. The future seemed bright !
Then, on his way home   from church one night, a deer ran across the road, and right into his motorcycle, and he ended up in the hospital with a broken leg, and other injuries. 
You can't be in law enforcement and have your life and other people's lives depending on you, and not be able to run.
So, he changed his plans, and went to college to learn computers, which was a big thing back then.  In college, he met his wife-to-be, fell in love and got married.
If he hadn't broken his leg, he would never have gone to college, never met Laura, who is a wonderful wfe and mother.
So, you just never know how things will turn around in your life.

I think I'm pretty good with the positive attitude, sometimes I do get down and get a bit mean but mostly I am realistic and positive. I know I have trouble with weight, for example because I have no motivation at all to get off my ass and I feel let down because every time I make progress some major health thing happens and literally confines me to bed for 1-3 months and it's just worn me down....so I'm eating healthy and weight is slowly coming off, and when I get to the point I was at last time (which is maybe 8kg away) then I will feel motivated again (I'm 100% sure) and excited and really start moving my butt .

As for the other stuff I just don't feel motivated. The more things I have to do the less likely I am to do them. I feel like I just can't get started to be honest.

I think my best course of action is to focus on the things I am excited about and do those first. Then I may have the energy to work on other things - and I won't lose interest in the things I am excited about (which would make things worse).

I think it's a case of not trying to start fires in these burned out areas, and focusing on the flames elsewhere and allowing them to spread back to those old areas again .

That sounds awful! You should start by getting outside into the fresh air and do some exercise. Walk and observe the people, places and objects that you see around you.
Picture their lives and begin stories in your own head.
When you get home try to write about what you have seen and this might motivate you to do something inspiring.