Our contributor, Katherine Hilton, gets real about burnout and reveals ways she works through it.

I am someone who loves to be busy. I enjoy challenging myself and having a lot of different projects to work on. Alongside my practically full-time job, I am a full-time student. I also contribute for GG (can’t recommend it enough) and like to work on little personal projects here and there. I also love to work out, sometimes doing so two times a day. Like I said, I love being busy.

Typing it out makes me think that I’m not actually nearly as busy as I sometimes tell myself, which is a problem. Some days, I feel like I’m not doing enough and should be doing more, and others I feel like I’m so overwhelmed that I just want to crawl under my covers and hide from the world. The past couple of months, I have been experiencing more of the latter than usual. I’ve been feeling really burnt out.

Burnout is a common phrase that I hear all the time. It was something I never really expected myself to go through because I love everything that I do so much—and how could you feel burnt out when you love your work, right? Well, I was wrong. No doubt about it, I really love my job, field of study, contributing for GG; but that doesn’t mean that I don’t get burnt out from it. A lot of my day-to-day is full of brainstorming, planning and researching. I am constantly using the creative side of my brain, which I love, but man can it be tiring. Needless to say, the burnout is real.

So, I have been challenging myself to find ways to cope with the burnout and work through it, because I know that it’s just a phase and I have to pace myself through it. It has actually been getting a lot better this past month, which I’m so happy about.

When I first felt the burnout coming on, I forced myself to take some time to reflect and ask myself what it was that I thought was making me feel burnt out. While I couldn’t pinpoint one thing in particular, I knew it was a combination of trying to do it all that was giving me a hard time. I was feeling like I had no time to simply relax and turn my brain off. Realizing that I was feeling burnt out and overwhelmed honestly made all of the difference. I was then able to make some conscious decisions about what I needed to change in order to feel a little more sane.

First things first, I took some time for myself. I took one Saturday where I knew I didn’t have anything to do and just laid on the couch and binged Netflix. That is my all-time favorite way to relax. I feel like I can fully shut off my mind and responsibilities and truly just chill. I already felt better the next day.

Another big thing for me was really learning how to organize my days. I am the most productive in the mornings, so each day, I try to tackle my biggest, most daunting tasks first thing. That way, I don’t have to stress about them all day and then end up cramming them in and sacrificing the quality of work because I was burnt out from my day and just trying to quickly get it done.

Something else I have tried to incorporate is taking small breaks throughout my days. Whether that’s taking 5 minutes to scroll through Pinterest to re-inspire myself, or taking a 10-minute walk to refresh my brain, I have found that these short resets throughout the day have helped me feel more willing to power through.

At the end of the day, I really think that burnout is inevitable. It is normal and if you work yourself too hard, it’s going to happen. It is not the end of the world, and you will get through it. Just remember to always put yourself first. You do better work when you feel your best. If you’re feeling burnt out, take some time to reset and relax so that you can give the best version of yourself in everything that you do.

Midwest-born and -raised, Katherine is currently a college student living in NYC where she attends the Fashion Institute of Technology while studying Advertising and Marketing Communications with a focus in Public Relations. She tends to think of herself as a very non-traditional college student. She has a passion for health and wellness, home décor, fashion, city living and so much more. In her free time, you can find her scrolling Pinterest, hitting a workout class or watching HGTV.

Connect with Katherine on Instagram

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