Understanding burnout for writers – 4 concepts that are changing my life

Last week my monthly newsletter went out, and I shared what I’ve been learning about burnout from Becca Syme, creator of the Better Faster Academy.   

I learnt about Becca through another author in December and, once I saw she had burnout-related content, I devoured it. I read her book on the topic, binged her podcast series about it, and even signed up to an exploratory coaching session. (If you’ve done any coaching with her team, let me know what your top Clifton Strengths are – it’s super interesting.)   For the first time, I found burnout described in a way that felt actionable to me, and in a way that made sense for my dreams as a writer. 

While I’d originally planned it as newsletter-only content, I think it’s something that could help a lot of writers, so thought, why not share it here as well?

The most helpful thing for me was the language she gave me to describe burnout – energy pennies, plates, pits, and ladders.  

Before we get into that, though, I send a newsletter once a month that shares an inside look at my writing life, new release updates, interviews, events, giveaways and occasional deep dives like this. If you sign up below, you’ll also get the first three chapters of Powerless for free 😉

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Energy pennies

Energy pennies are fairly straightforward – everything you do (mental, physical or emotional) has an energetic cost. Some activities cost more than others – a six-hour, uphill hike will cost more than a 20-minute stroll on level ground. And if you have to use willpower to do something you don’t want to do, that costs more again – because the willpower costs pennies in addition to the task you’re trying to complete. 

 This is similar to the spoons theory, where each spoon represents a certain amount of energy, but I find the idea of energy pennies to be far more intuitive. Pennies are a type of currency and, even if I can’t put an exact value on the balance in my account, or the cost of certain activities, I understand the ideas of spending and saving these. Spoons never quite clicked in the same way. 

 Beyond spending your pennies, there are also things that can give you energy pennies. Eating and sleeping are obvious ones, along with activities you find nourishing. In my case, reading, walking and singing are big ones. But there’s a balance – if I’m pushing myself to read a book that I’m not getting into, that can end up costing me pennies instead of creating them. Similarly, walking can be a bit of a challenge – I used to love long walks (90 minutes plus), but now I find that anything over 45 minutes puts me into risky territory, and sometimes I can only manage 20. When you’re burnt out, the challenge is maintaining the balance.

Plate size

Plates relate to the idea of having a lot on your plate. Becca says everyone has a plate, and they may be different sizes. So some people might naturally have a size 10 plate, which means they have the capacity to get a lot done, while others might have a size three plate, and aren’t able to manage as much.

Your plate size tells you how much you can comfortably take on without getting burnt out. When you start to take on more than that amount, the contents on your plate start to bleed from the main part of the dish (where you would put a meal) to the lip around the edge. If this keeps happening, your plate will overbalance and flip over. This is burnout. If you go through burnout, when you recover, your plate often isn’t the same size it was before. This has been my experience – when I think back to my first couple of years in business (if you’re new here, I had a publishing company called Grammar Factory from 2013 to 2019), I definitely had a size 10 plate. Even now, I’m in awe of how much I managed to get done, how much information I could hold in my head, and how many balls I could juggle concurrently. 

 
 The first time I burnt out was in 2015, after six months of 12-hour days, seven days a week, where I was editing multiple books at a time, training new staff members, reviewing all their edits, and writing a book of my own. After this, I got to the point where I would just stare at my computer watching YouTube, unable to do anything that required input from me. 
 
 Even though I did recover, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten back to having a size 10 plate – the highest was probably a seven (and now I’m around a three to four, depending on the day).

The pit

Once you burn out, you fall into the pit. This is the lowest of the low – whatever that might mean for you.

I struggled to claim the title of burnout in the past, because I didn’t think things were bad enough. I read articles about people who were unable to get out of bed for six months and, being a very literal person, I thought that if I was getting out of bed, I must have been okay. 
 
Last year I started thinking of my situation as ‘high-functioning burnout’. Even though I felt exhausted, sometimes emotional, and I couldn’t focus or produce the way I used to, I could usually get it together for a couple of hours if I had to. I could put on a nice outfit and a smile and force myself through two or three hours of meetings or an event, and no one would know anything was wrong. What they didn’t know was that as soon as I got home (or as soon as I hung up on Zoom), I would be staring at my computer screen, unable to put words together, or lying in bed to recover. 
 
 I’ve been here three times – in 2015, in 2022 when I had a job that was both high-powered and toxic, and from November 2023 to January 2024.

The ladder

The final metaphor is the ladder – this is how you get out of the pit. You see, the pit is too deep for you to just jump out – you need to build a ladder.

The challenge is that it takes energy to build that ladder – every rung costs energy pennies. You might build a rung, and then get stuck there for a bit while you save up more pennies.   
 
What happens with a lot of people (especially me), is that you climb up a few rungs and start feeling better. Not 100%, but you start to feel like you’re on the road to recovery. Then, because you have a little more energy, you decide to try pushing yourself like you used to in the past.   
 
That then knocks you back into the pit.   
 
This has been my story over the past two years. After I resigned from my job In August 2022 and moved back to Australia, I was lucky to find a role with much less responsibility. Over the next couple of months, I started feeling better.   
 
And then I decided it would be a good idea to try to write a book in two weeks
 
In hindsight, I realise that this was not the best idea – this challenge used precious energy pennies that could have been spent continuing to climb up the ladder, and after pushing myself like this, I struggled to write for the first half of the year. (To be fair, publishing Powerless might have had an impact on this as well.) I wasn’t back in the pit, but I was back down on the lower rungs of the ladder.   
 
Then, in June, Powerless came out and I found out about my husband’s affair. This was a challenging period and while I wasn’t feeling 100%, I was largely positive after the initial shock.   
 
It wasn’t until November that I fell back into the pit. I had managed to maintain my hold on my rung of the ladder. But, in November, our house had been on the market for six weeks (which meant the work spent fixing it up and cleaning for biweekly inspections), I’d just bought a new apartment, I faced a challenging situation in my day job, and I agreed to take on a ghost writing project.   
 
Three weeks into the project and I was running behind. I was anxious about the lack of interest in our house, and feedback that our bathroom and kitchen needed renovating, and I decided to paint the grout in the bathroom tiles. I thought this would be a two-hour job, and it ended up taking fifteen.   
Fifteen hours on my hands and knees, scraping grout paint from every tile before the next inspection, while I had an angry colleague messaging me and a ghost writing deadline hanging over my head.   
 
After this I crashed. I stepped back from the project, did the bare minimum at work and on the house, and spent the next two months on very shaky ground.   If I’d known about the ladder back then, I might have behaved differently.

Recovery

When I came across these ideas in late December, for the first time I felt like I had language to describe how burnout worked. The plate metaphor helped me understand why I don’t have the same capacity I used to, while the energy pennies and ladder metaphors helped me understand why I haven’t been able to push or challenge or hustle my way out of this.

In 2024, my top priority is recovering from burnout. That means being very careful with my energy pennies – taking time to do things that replenish them, and avoiding things that drain them where possible.   
 
It means some compromises – I had originally hoped to release the sequel to Powerless in the first half of the year, and that definitely won’t happen. I’d also planned to return to that ghost writing project in February after I moved into my new place and, at the time of writing, I’m considering telling the client I’m still unable to take it on. I’m also considering my options for stepping back from work – whether it’s possible to take an extended holiday or leave of absence.   
 
It means difficult conversations. The client one in particular is difficult – I’ve always believed in honouring my commitments, and this client and I have a relationship that goes back almost ten years. I don’t want to let him down. Similarly, my new company has been so good to me that I don’t want to let them down.   But I also can’t keep letting myself down. I don’t have the resources left.   
 
While this might sound a bit depressing, I find it hopeful. Understanding that I can budget and save my energy pennies gives me hope. Understanding that there’s a ladder I can climb out of the pit makes me feel positive about my ability to build a sustainable future. It means my writing might not happen as quickly as I want it to, but now I understand why and can avoid this pattern of burning myself out in future.