One major difficulty most adults face is burnout, from our jobs, emotional stress, etc. Being a creative fashion designer, a job that was borne out of passion, yet, stress is one major challenge I face with my job, and has had me break down health-wise on numerous occasions, of course, this isn't a good thing, and there are sometimes I've had to face creative block, emotional and mental break down, in a bid to satisfy my clients, working overtime, sometimes including all night on a row especially during the festive season where orders from clients are usually on high side.

In times like that, I sometimes detest even going near a sewing machine to work on the smallest of projects, just because I have overstressed myself, thereby making me miss out on the initial joy and satisfaction I derive from doing what I love to do, 'fashion designing'.

So far so good, I have learned to adjust how I work, know when to take a break, and most importantly keep the creative mind juice flowing, because that is my main asset in my line of work, and I wouldn't want to mess with or take for granted.

Early this year, one of my New Year resolutions was to take self care very important, as I have always been one who looked out for others while neglecting myself, and this same attitude is what I had also inculcated in my job, sometimes, I could sew all day and forget to eat, rather I kept on snacking on junks, believing I was sparing the time for cooking to make my job faster so I could meet up with deadlines, It wasn't until I fell very ill late last year, and became anemic due to self-neglect, all for the job, did I realize I needed to take this part of my life serious.

My mum once said to me, that if I die today due to being overly hardworking, pushing myself beyond normal limits because I feel I can, those clients I killed myself for would move on with their lives and even get my replacement as soon as possible, and that was a hard pill to swallow because it is the truth, life moves on.

What has been helping me so far, is taking in between breaks while I work, it could couple or hours or days, I also don't allow my clients to push me for urgent jobs that would have me overwork, imagine giving your designer a dress to make in less than 24 hours as if she is a magician, well, I did the magic, but not anymore, I made them aware of the duration I can work with peacefully and not in a haste, and also get disciplined knowing when to stop, eat a well balanced meal, what's the effect of working and not feeding fine, after all, we use a lot of energy to work which needs to be replenished, and make us feel good and reenergized to get started again.

And lastly but not the least, having a sound sleep after a stressful day, I take my sleep time seriously too now, and on days I need to take a nap, I do so as well. these activities so far has helped me stay above burnout lifestyle.

All images used in this post are mine

Thank you for reading