Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to avoid burnout by having something going
Speaker 1: on in your life that you are intrinsically motivated to do.
Speaker 1: I'm borrowing this tip, as I did in earlier one
Speaker 1: this week, from my friend Neil Pestricha, who is the
Speaker 1: author of the new book You Are Awesome, How to
Speaker 1: Navigate change, wrestle with failure, and live an intentional life.
Speaker 1: Neil shares a story that in college he wound up
Speaker 1: writing for a humor publication called Golden Worlds. He and
Speaker 1: his fellow students had a blast putting issues to gather
Speaker 1: each week. He devoted countless hours to writing and editing,
Speaker 1: with no compensation whatsoever, but he enjoyed it immensely. Indeed,
Speaker 1: he enjoyed it so much that after school he got
Speaker 1: a job doing comedy writing. It sounded it would be
Speaker 1: perfect alas he discovered that once he was writing humor
Speaker 1: for money, much of the alert was gone. Instead of
Speaker 1: creative freedom, he had to write what he was assigned.
Speaker 1: Instead of freely associating with friends to produce content they
Speaker 1: personally found hilarious, he was scheduled to write with certain people.
Speaker 1: He soon found himself unhappy and decided that he was
Speaker 1: best off doing comedy writing mostly for fun. There's something
Speaker 1: to this. Realms of research shows that when people are
Speaker 1: intrinsically motivated to do something, they're more creative and tend
Speaker 1: to work harder. Of course, there's nothing wrong with external
Speaker 1: rewards per se. Most of us need to produce an
Speaker 1: income if we're going to feed and house ourselves and
Speaker 1: our families. We enjoy being praised and having our good
Speaker 1: work recognized. The trouble is that when we orient ourselves
Speaker 1: too much towards external rewards of any sort, this can
Speaker 1: become a trap. For instance, Neil started a blog a
Speaker 1: great many years ago to share his thoughts on the world.
Speaker 1: He quickly realized that he could figure out how many
Speaker 1: people visited to read those thoughts on the world, and
Speaker 1: he became obsessed with moving that number higher. Pretty soon,
Speaker 1: this led to a cycle of hitting a goal, still
Speaker 1: feeling unsatisfied, and then setting a bigger goal. The ultimate
Speaker 1: result burnout. So how can you avoid this? In an
Speaker 1: article Neil wrote for Harvard Business Review, he suggests asking
Speaker 1: yourself about any potential project. Would I do this for free?
Speaker 1: And I'll suggest a corollary. If no one knew you
Speaker 1: were working on this project, would you still find it interesting?
Speaker 1: If your answer is yes, Neil writes, you've found something
Speaker 1: worth working on. This is wonderful and it's a huge
Speaker 1: bonus if you're actually getting paid to do it. I
Speaker 1: know I feel this way about some of my projects.
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to write books, and I still pinch
Speaker 1: myself to realize sometimes that people pay me good money
Speaker 1: to crank them out. But if the answer is no,
Speaker 1: I would not do this for free, be aware of
Speaker 1: This doesn't mean you do it, of course, but it
Speaker 1: does mean that you should let paid work remain paid
Speaker 1: work and not expect more from it than it can deliver. Instead,
Speaker 1: keep asking yourself what you would do simply for the
Speaker 1: pleasure you derive from doing it. You want to have
Speaker 1: something in your life that keeps you intrinsically excited and
Speaker 1: that you do for its own sake. Whatever that is,
Speaker 1: it's worth spending time on because there's no risk of
Speaker 1: burnout when you spend big chunks of your time doing
Speaker 1: something you absolutely love. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Hey everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast pod. That's be the number four then Breakfast
Speaker 1: p o D. You can also shoot me an email
Speaker 1: at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com
Speaker 1: that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio. For
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