Burnout.

Something I’ve experienced more than I would have liked.

Twice, and twice was enough.

I thought I would never have to struggle with burnout again.

I had experienced it enough to learn and do better.

Or so I thought.

The Universe has a very funny sense of humour.

I started my first full-time job last year and I experienced end-of-year fatigue.

If you don’t know what end-of-year fatigue is:

End-of-year fatigue is a common phenomenon when people feel tired and fatigued as the year comes to an end. This is also referred to as end-of-year burnout.

Though I started late in the year, I was exhausted and my motivation was low.

(Believe me, many of my friends were not happy with my complaints).

Between balancing the job, content creation and my business, it makes sense.

The job was the newest addition to my life.

And I struggled with making the necessary adjustments to make everything work together.

And it’s no different in 2025.

With a few changes here and there, I am working my job, studying university, creating content and building my 1-person business.

With all this, the chances of burnout happening again are high.

But I won’t.

Why?

This year, I’m taking my experiences, learning from them and creating a plan to prevent burnout.

Burnout doesn’t have to be an unavoidable part of our lives.

With the right systems and habits, we can sustain high-level performance year-round without burning out.

I’ll be sharing my plan and its systems with you, in hopes of inspiring you to create your plan and systems to meet your needs, balance your demands and make it to the end of 2025 burnout-free.

Let’s get into it.

If you are anything like me, you are driven, ambitious and want to achieve big goals.

(If you aren’t, this might not be the newsletter for you.)

Moreover, you’re willing to do whatever it takes to achieve your goals.

You work hard and grind harder.

But then something flips.

Your output is less.

Your focus isn’t as sharp.

Your energy is plummeting.

And no amount of caffeine is helping.

You’ve burnout.

And though we experience burnout in many ways — creatively, emotionally, spiritually — mental and physical burnout are the most common.

Burnout is the result of chasing success without sustainability.

It’s neglecting your health, well-being, emotions and relationships to pursue your goals.

It’s admirable that you can sacrifice to achieve your goals, but when you do and you have none of these things in the end, was it really worth it?

Chasing your goals without personal systems leads to:

• Increased stress

• Reduced creativity

• Chronic exhaustion

• Lower quality health

• Poor decision-making

• Unstable emotions and moods

• Strained relationships due to neglect or irritability.

• Declining productivity, leading to slower progress and mistakes.

All these problems build up and prevent you from achieving your goal because you ultimately sacrificed yourself for the goal.

Success and achievement mean nothing if you are the sacrifice.

But luckily, you don’t have to be and there is a way to have both.

Prioritising Sustainable Systems For Success

Since the goal is to prevent burnout, perform at your best and achieve your goals at the end of the year, you need to create a system.

A system that allows you to sustain progress and achieve your goals.

This leads me to the plan and system I’m creating for 2025.

A year-long system focused on sustainability through practices and habits to ensure you maintain peak performance and high energy in 2025.

Why do this:

Upon studying successful and fulfilled high performers, I’ve noticed that they operate with systems and habits that sustain their energy and productivity—not deplete it.

This is why they can perform at such high levels in their respective domains.

Even more impressive when this high performance spreads into other areas of their lives.

How you can do it yourself:

• Have a clear, vivid vision for the year and where you want to be at the end of it.

• Have roadmaps for your months, weeks and days.

• Prioritise what matters most and focus on needle-moving tasks to achieve your goals.

• Build habits to support your health, well-being, mental clarity and physical energy.

• Leverage breaks and vacations for rest as rest is an essential part of maintaining productivity, performance and well-being.

Instead of treating burnout as inevitable, you can have sustainable progress and success.

You shift from neglecting your well-being to prioritising your time and energy as the most valuable resources you have.

When you make your time and energy the foundations, it allows for more fulfilling and meaningful success.

Instead of surviving the year, especially the busy seasons, you can thrive through them.

That’s what I want to do at least.

So here’s the game plan.

My Burnout-Free Game Plan for 2025

The game plan has 3 main pillars.

Like I said before this is my plan for 2025.

You know your needs and goals better than I do, so please feel free to adjust and tailor it best to yourself.

Pillar 1: Daily Habits (Foundation for Energy)

Since habits are what we repeatedly do, we can influence how our life turns out by looking at our daily habits.

When we take care of the days, the days take care of the months, the months take care of the years and the years make our life.

So here are some of the daily habits I’ll be incorporating:

• Healthy Nutrition and Diet:

  • Hit my protein and micronutrient targets.

  • Eat balanced meals that fuel my mind and body.

  • Implement meal prep to reduce decision fatigue and stay on track.

• Getting My Sleep:

  • Aim for 7 - 9 hours a night in bed.

  • Create a wind-down/ evening routine to get to bed on time and wake up refreshed.

• Deep work:

  • 2 - 3 hours of deep work for my business.

  • University work (I’ll adjust it better once I start).

  • Complete job responsibilities as quickly and effectively as possible.

• Meditation and Inner Work:

  • Spend at least 15 minutes meditating or journalling a day

  • Read over my goals and vision at least once a day

Pillar 2: Weekly Routines (Maintain Momentum)

Though I’d love to do most of my habits every day, it’s not practical or realistic.

This is when we extend some of these habits into weekly routines.

We’re not robots.

By extending some of the habits and tasks across the week, I gain a lot of flexibility while staying on course.

Focus on progress, not perfection.

Weekly Routines and Rituals:

• Exercise 3 - 5x a week:

  • Focus on weekly progress and consistency.

  • Track and adjust training based on progressions.

  • Rest properly. Gains are made during rest, not work. (I went to the gym on Monday and the DOMS are destroying my legs. So... rest is non-negotiable.

• Planning the week:

  • Use Sundays to reflect on my week and plan for the next week.

  • Schedule hardest tasks during my peak energy hours.

• Socialising:

  • Spend time intentionally with my loved ones at least once a week or month.

  • This could be going out together, doing an activity or a long call.

• “Do Nothing” Days:

  • Block out one day a week for complete rest — no work, no obligations and no overthinking.

    The thinking behind "Do Nothing" Days:

    • I roughly work 6-day weeks 1-2x a month at my job. Or I use Saturdays to learn and create content, but as said before, we need rest.

    • I also struggle with not doing something. I feel lazy or anxious when I’ve relaxed for a while even though there’s nothing to do.

    • "Do Nothing" days will most likely be on Sundays for me. Let's see how it goes.

Pillar 3: Monthly and Quarterly Systems (Reset and Recharge)

As much as I love structure and routines, a little spontaneity and change is good.

So to avoid getting too rigid, monthly and quarterly systems will be used.

These will allow me to assess my progress and make the necessary changes going into the next month or quarter.

Monthly and Quarterly Systems:

• Extended breaks:

  • I'll need more than 1 day a week for rest, so scheduling a weekend away or a week of holiday will be really helpful.

• Rewards:

  • It’s easy to get lost in working, that I forget to look back on the progress I’ve made.

  • So after a month or every quarter, rewarding myself will be a great way to celebrate what I’ve done and stay motivated.

  • To add more motivation, planning events, trips or milestones in the future is a great way to stay motivated (e.g. vacations, music festivals, purchasing a big investment that I’ve saved up for).

• Evaluations:

  • A lot can change in a month and even more in a quarter, so I want to do monthly and quarterly evaluations to review progress and make the necessary adjustments.

Bonus: Challenges, Seasons and Modes

I’ve found I work well with 90-day challenges because it gives me the time to lock into something for an extended amount of time.

So using different challenges (30 or 90-day challenges) helps.

I refer to these as ‘seasons’ or ‘modes’, if there’s something I’m working towards and want to focus on.

I find these are great for narrowing focus, cutting away distractions and making bigger leaps in progress.

When I do these will depend on what I feel life demands of me or what I demand of myself.

That’s my plan for a burn-out-free year.

This was more of a brainstorm than an actual plan, but that’s okay.

I’m collecting the building blocks and with them, I’ll be able to tailor the plan and create a system that flows well.

This works great because life is very dynamic and changing.

And my life has been changing a lot lately.

Instead of having a fixed plan, focus on having the principles and basics down.

This will allow for more adaptability and flexibility without losing your way.

Your plan doesn’t have to be perfect.

What matters most is that you are executing and taking action.

I’d love to hear what your plan for a burnout-free year looks like (or what ideas you have).

Let me know in the comments and replies.

p.s.

If you are an entrepreneur or creator who wants to unlock deep focus, mental clarity and 2 - 5x your productivity, fill out this short questionnaire.

Other than that, that’s it from me.

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter as much as I did.

I’ll see you in the next one.

— Shana