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Last month I wrote a newsletter so raw and visceral I asked my wife "should I actually send this?". She replied "it's your truth", and so I sent it.
The gist of that last newsletter was that, 2.5 years after leaving my career at Amazon and 1.5 years after starting LearnGit.io, I've landed at a point of uncertainty. Thankfully, I now have a bit more clarity about the origin of these feelings and at least some semblance of a path forward.
The origins of burnout
The closest description of what I'm feeling comes from author Dan Martell in his book Buy Back Your Time. He calls this feeling The Pain Line:
“
This work-hard, "no one can do it like me" mentality works. Until it doesn't. You can sustain growth up to a point. But then the emails, the to-dos, the low-value tasks you hate doing continue sucking up your energy-it all creates a wall of pain. You realize that the more you grow, the more pain you'll experience. Your calendar will explode, and the weight of the responsibilities will increase. You think about work constantly, and you dread going in... An entrepreneur will ruin their business before letting it grow into something more painful." - Dan Martell
I certainly don't want that last sentence to come true, but unfortunately it resonates with me because it describes the same feeling that led me to quit my career at Amazon.
For years, my daily tasks drained more energy than they gave back. But Amazon's deteriorating work culture, coupled with my own naïveté, convinced me that personal sacrifice and powering through burnout would eventually lead to a breakthrough. That was a fool’s errand.
My ability to show up for myself hit rock bottom.
The only option was to quit.
I'm not yet at this point with LearnGit, but I'm seeing glimpses of déjà vu. I've reached a stage where the tasks I enjoy are no longer the most critical for business growth. Marketing, social media, and outreach now demand my attention, but these are the areas I find most draining. And while they're incredibly important, I know how painful it will be to suffer through the inevitable wave of false starts and failures necessary for long-term success.
So what’s the answer?
Charting a path forward
Blindly pushing forward without considering how it affects my well-being is a bad idea. If I want self-employment to be sustainable, I need to step back and chart a better course. Shouldering everything on my own isn’t just inefficient—it’s bad for business:
“
What's worse is when you don't enjoy something, you're also not good at it. In other words, while you think you're sacrificing for a worthy cause by working hard at things that challenge you, you're actively costing your company. It's a lose-lose move." - Dan Martell
My current plan is simple:
- Finish in-progress feature development
- Create and schedule 3 months worth of social media content
- Stop and regroup
Aside from the work already in progress, other software features won't meaningfully move the needle. Plus, scheduling 3 months worth of content frees me up to singularly focus on the vision for LearnGit.io.
Reflection
In many ways, the past year has felt like a sprint. Incorporating my business, building the software, scripting/filming/editing/animating all the lesson videos, handling customer support, fixing bugs… the list goes on. Being a solo entrepreneur means juggling everything at once, and for a while, that sprint was invigorating. But now that the dust has settled, this always-be-sprinting mindset isn’t translating into the same level of progress.
The goal of this three-step plan is to free myself from the endless cycle of lower-level tasks and carve out time to focus on the bigger picture.
Ideally, step 3 includes at least a month of "downtime"—a chance to rest and recover, plus a few weeks dedicated to higher-level strategy.
I have some guesses about what this recovery and strategy time will yield. As I mentioned, bringing in outside help is likely part of the long-term solution, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself just yet.
As much as I'm able, I’ll keep you updated on my progress.
Thanks for reading.