Let's Talk: Expansion Burnout
A lil' something something for my creatives who are pushing themselves to infinity and beyond
Ah. Expansion.
Ye beautiful word that elicits the image of a spacious giant room, or running through a glorious mountain nature scene. Or perhaps breaking through walls like the kool-aid man. BEHOLD. I HAVE EXPANDED. FFFRREEEEEEDDDOOOOMMMMM.
Cut to: a creative entrepreneur curled up in a fluffy blanket with a giant dog stuffed animal, watching a Christmas movie called Nantucket Noel, crying, perhaps-micro-dosed-on-mushrooms-ALLEGEDLY, sipping chamomile today, wondering why everything feels so intense.
Expansion is a magical, wonderful tool. It also, like everything, should PERHAPS be taken in moderation (a term I am unfamiliar with and/or am saying ‘f u’ to myself while writing this, because I am convinced I can constantly move at the speed of a rocketship).
When you start to really step into creative alignment - that is - you commit to your journey as an artist, creative, or entrepreneur: expansion becomes inevitable. You’ll enter into cycles of an infinite, ever growing figure 8/infinity sign: one loop stretching you, and the other opposite contracting you. Like a breath: in, out. And then your capacity and belief in yourself grow into a larger 8.
But WHEN you are the fun particular combo of a creative AND entrepreneur… you are, likely, extremely intense with absolutely 0 ability to not go all in on ALL THE THINGS including, y’know, facing down all your worst insecurities, life stories, and sense of self.
I.e. an overly inflated ego about, y’know, dissolving your ego.
So, the cycles become a nonstop 8 patterning that perhaps move at a lightspeed instead of pacing one’s self, because it feels like PERHAPS you can speed up the path to your dreams and power through the discomfort of not already being at “success.” IT IS A COSMIC VIDEOGAME AND I BEAT THE OCARINA OF TIME’S WATER TEMPLE SO BRING. IT. ON.
I started running a few months ago and it’s been a parallel journey: you can’t overnight sprint miles - you build stamina over time (and don’t compare yourself to marathon’ers). The burn, the wobbling lungs, the part that feels like you’re dying or want to walk… That’s your body learning the new baseline. So maybe it’s not burnout after all - maybe it’s training. Maybe we’re just building the cardio for a bigger life.
Truthfully… This has been the happiest year of my life. I’m actually completely, 100%, in love with the process of making art and the journey of becoming a new version of myself. For me: that’s learning how to be both myself and a storyteller. For you that might be learning how to build an AI platform that turns your journal into a comic book, idk.
So while there is a bit of Expansion Burnout: pushing into constant states of expansion/contraction without much room for breathing…… I … kinda love it? (was I supposed to have a moral here about slowing down? OOPS I do not).
(But really: move at the speed of your own becoming and inner seasons. Mine just happens to currently be dialed up to an 11).
Be gentle with yourself if you’re as crazy/unhinged-ly ambitious as I am. Remember: it’s winter and you’re allowed to winter (verb). If you too ricochet between cosmic euphoric joy and holiday-movie-fetal-position, you’re in good company.
Expansion is starting to feel more like a rhythm, a tide, a dance, a daily routine on the ice… And that’s pretty f***ing dope.
Here’s to the next loop of the figure 8, the next breath in AND out, the next tiny or large collapse that leaves room for reinvention.
See you in the rink.
Check out the latest episodes of Multi-Hyphenate University (and my live journal vlog on this exact topic) here
+ check out my free guide on the 6 stages of Creative Expansion here