Hustle Hotline #1: Career Burnout

We're going to say that this is okay . Heart to Hustle is a podcast that I host and produce and edit and all of the above , where I dig into the passions behind people's careers .

It's where passion meets purpose and I interview people who try and lead their careers with the things that they love most , so that they can live a life that's worth living and not just clocking into their nine-to-fives until , basically , they die

. Yeah , the Hustle Hotline is just like a career Q&A bonus episode series that I came up with to have a little bit more one-on-one time with my audience . I'm a student . I've been there . I've been in the shoes of people who are wondering what the heck to do with their careers .

You know what path to take , what degrees they need , should they even go to , you know , college or university . I've been through all of that Internship , jobs , getting jobs , classes , not doing well in classes , maybe changing a major ?

I have some experience in a little bit of all of those things , so I'm just here to give my advice from someone who's been there and who's also a fellow Gen Z who gets it , because Gen Z gets a lot of flack recently , especially in the professional landscape , and I figure that this is just a good opportunity to give us a little bit of a leg up , some

advice , some tips and tricks . Yeah , so the main point of the Hustle Hotline is that you can go to my SpeakPipe account . A link will be in the show notes , but there's this website called SpeakPipe . You , the listeners , can send in voicemails , anonymous or include who you are . Either is fine . You can ask career questions .

So we're going to go through one of those today as just like an intro episode to what the Hustle Hotline will look like now and in the future . Okay , so this first voicemail is a little bit interesting . So let's hear our first ever Hustle Hotline

voicemail .

So how do you suggest balancing bringing the things that you love into your workspace without ruining them in a way that doesn't make you want to do it anymore ? Thank you , love your work . You're amazing .

I'm Layla , I go to school at Emerson College , I'm about to graduate , actually , and I have been in the same situation of your career and then something that you love doing that's a hobby or a passion project or you know anything in that realm . So actually , my career in podcasting began as a hobby slash passion project In high school .

I was a sophomore , didn't really start taking it seriously until I was like a senior in high school . I had a series called Hollywood Hero , did two seasons of that , and that was like big senior in high school . I had a series called Hollywood Hero .

I did two seasons of that , and that was like big passion project and something that I basically fell in love with and just was obsessed with doing and was lucky enough to make podcasting

and audio stuff my career . I got an internship at a state agency in Boston at the end of my freshman year at Emerson and that was also for audio and podcasting and I'm still doing that to this day . I'm coming up on three years , so I have been able to transition from passion to career . However , within that it is super , super tough to not burn out .

I guess For me it was less of a burnout and it was more of a losing my passion . I started to not do podcast and audio stuff on my own for me and it ended up just being something I did for work and I didn't like that . It was a really slippery slope . Eventually I did get out of that rut , but it wasn't until like probably a year later .

And it was tough because podcasting started for me as a passion project , as a hobby , as something I just liked to do at that internship , and that I was able to get paid for what I loved to do .

But within that there's a lot of difficulty separating the two , you know , separating what is passion and hobby and stuff that I want to do on my downtime to enjoy , and then what is nine to five workday related stuff , and when they're so deeply intertwined , especially in terms of like at least for me in podcasting it was all just audio podcast stuff , so they're

so deeply intertwined , and when I'm in wind down mode and want to , you know , produce podcasting stuff for myself , then I feel like I'm in work mode , because it's the exact same

thing I do for work . So I would say if you're looking to just fully separate the two , the first thing I would recommend is to just do things in different spaces . Another thing that has helped me in the past is to honestly have a schedule .

So if you know you're working nine to five or maybe you're part-time and you're working like less hours in the day , having different days of the week where you do your work and where you do your hobbies is super , super helpful in terms of just like separating them mentally .

I've had a few guests on Heart to Hustle , the main series sorry , shameless've had a few guests on Heart to Hustle , the main series sorry , shameless plug . A few guests on Heart to Hustle have talked about this , about the work-life balance and then burnout as a whole . It's really tough and I don't think it's something that anyone ever fully masters .

I am actually like a few weeks ago I was on the verge of burnout myself and I think once spring sprung and the sun came out and the temperature went up , I was like , fine , I felt better . But it's really easy to get yourself caught in that rut of just like you don't want to do anything , you're unmotivated , and then everything feels like a chore .

For the sake of our mental well-beings and you know our hobbies and our mind not feeling like chores we really need to like separate physical space . Do you work stuff at work ? Or if you work from home remotely , do that in your home office or go to a coffee shop or something , and then your hobby stuff .

If you're like me and you like to really be on the couch , do all your hobby stuff on the couch .

Or if you're someone that likes to do a lot of their work from bed and you're really productive that way , even though I don't really recommend that , because then , like , we get some sleep problems that get kind of wishy-washy in there , but do your work from bed but do not do work , work and hobby work in the same spot . I would not recommend that .

And I'm not an expert , like I just said . I am someone who has struggled with this and still struggles with this . It's kind of just a learning curve . You have to figure out what works for you .

But the best thing I'll say is to just make a physical barrier yeah , physical barrier and I guess the other thing would probably be just like have a set time for you to do hobby stuff and not just when you're bored , because then it could feel like you know , if it's scheduled into your day can make things a whole lot easier .

And then I would just say don't work when you don't need to be working . When you don't need to be working if it's not in your work day , that time is for you to wind down and to reconnect with yourself and your hobbies and the things you love doing on your downtime not working , and that's a lot easier said than done .

Like having an internship that is remote and , like you know , I have the Outlook and the Teams app on my phone . Like after hours it can be hard to not check your email , answer an email really quickly , like that stuff's really tough . But you have to create boundaries with your job and also with yourself .

Like it just is healthy to have the boundary physical and mental boundary

between hobbies and work . So , yeah , I don't know if any of that made sense . I think that's going to be all for today . Hustle Hotline episodes are going to be really bite-sized .

They will be video like this , hopefully every time , but they're going to be really bite-sized , really just like quick and dirty advice for you to take away and if you want to be featured in an upcoming episode , then I highly recommend going to the link in the show notes and sending in a little voicemail .

You can include your name , you can include any information you want about yourself . That will help me answer the question better . And yeah , so if you liked this podcast , be sure to give us a reading and a review , because us indie podcasters it's rough out here , okay , and anything helps other people find the podcast .

You leave a comment , you know , follow us on instagram heart to hustle pod . All of the things . All the things will be in the show notes and , yeah , I will see you guys next time bye .