Many artists suffer from burnout. Often it seems to come out of nowhere. The passion you have for your art, makes you to overlook the early warning signs. That’s what the article below is about.

Do you want to know if you need to be alert about a burnout yourself? Take the test.

Enjoy,
Hilde Spille

Last month I did a ‘Career Clinic’ about passion and burnout for students of the pop department of Conservatory of Amsterdam, earlier this month I did a masterclass about the same subject for students at the Herman Brood Academy in Utrecht.

In Amsterdam I talked to a small group of students. It was with a great atmosphere, very relaxed, open and honest. I mentioned several statements that can function as signal for burnout. One of the statements was, that you feel responsible, even for tasks that are not yours. Everyone answered positive to this one!

Are you curious how you would score? Take the test.

The danger of burnout is, that it knocks you down. It’s not like a flu, when you get back to your normal self within 2 weeks. The symptoms can be similar though. Once you’ve got a burnout, you are so tired that you can’t take one single step anymore. Everything becomes a very heavy burden. You can’t even bring yourself to playing some music for yourself or going out to buy some bread. Your passion in itself feels like a burdon.

On average, people need 11 month to recover from a burnout, show statistics of Broodfonds, a Dutch alternative for a work-disability-insurance for entrepreneurs. Imagine, being out of the running for that long! Many musicians loose their passion for music during their burnout period. When feeling better, music reminds them too much on the bad period just before the burnout, on how their passion for music drove them to neglect their health.

Music shows us that there is more to this world than politics, economics and the daily rush we live in. Music shows us that we can connect, even if we speak different languages. Music is a shortcut to our emotions. Music is important to you, to me, to the world. That makes it important to all of us to care for musicians.

I’m very passionate about preventing burnout for musicians. In the training Artist’s Burnout Defence Shield you can develop your own personal protection against burnout.

If you want to prevent a burnout, you have to look broader than your passion. Passion is good, but you have to realize that other factors are important too. Your health, your physical condition, your network, your purpose and your energy are just as important. They can all support your passion.

You want to keep your passion burning, without burning out. So you have discover how to recharge. You have to develop the habit of regularly putting on more wood to the fireplace, in order to keep the fire burning.

How you can recharge, is different for every person and situation. I recharge by sitting on the couch with a cup of tea and a nice book. My sister needs people around her, that gives her energy. Jogging, or swimming in cold water, can give you a great energy boost too. Often the energy comes from something that is not directly linked to your passion.

In her renowned book “The Artist’s Way”, Julia Cameron advises every artist to book a weekly date, an ‘artist date’. The ‘artist date’ is a date with your inner artist, with no one else. You take your inner artist to a date, to get inspired, to recharge, to put some more wood on the fireplace. It can be a visit to a museum, a visit to the library, a long stroll in the woods or on the beach, a visit to a record store or a music instrument store. Most important is, that it feels as an inspiring treat to yourself.

What ‘artist date’ do you plan for yourself this week?

With 22 years experience in working with artists in the international live music business, I’m now using my background as master in psychology to write about the psychological side of being an artist in my blog Compass for Creatives. The blog with 200 posts is visited daily by 350 visitors with 2000 total hits on average.

Recently there are some great initatives and articles about the mental health of musicians in the news. They all create awareness for the mental health musicians. I’m working on creating awareness with my blog and with guest lectures at various European universities. The next step is make the threshold for musicians to look for mental health support as low as possible. Mental coaching can make a big difference.

If you want to know more about mental trainings, please contact me.