I have been an overachiever my entire life. Perfectionism has dictated the way I work, study and interact with my activities at school. My perfectionism led me to understand through trial and error the work strategies, studying techniques and sleeping patterns that help me excel the most. However, there was an aspect of college that I never prepared for: burnout.
Ever since I started my first semester at SLU, I have kept myself busy. I have been on executive boards for clubs, held jobs on campus during the school year and summer and am currently in a year-long case-review internship. If all that does not sound busy enough, I also manage my classes, my health and my interpersonal relationships.
My biggest mistake was thinking during freshman year that I would be able to handle the load I did when I was in high school with the same coping strategies. College is a different playground: the adult world. You make decisions on your own, learning every day to manage your work while keeping yourself healthy and happy. It was not until the end of 2023 that I experienced burnout for the first time in college.
The world suddenly became darker, duller, uninteresting and, most importantly, exhausting. At one point, surviving each day was a struggle, and even after doing so, I still felt like I was not being rewarded. It felt like I was drowning in a sea of responsibilities that I was not sure I would be able to get through. A leave of absence, first-time job, my first tenure as president of a club and one internship later, I have realized some of the valuable lessons of college. It teaches us how to be adults and the skills to function.
When I was in high school, my view on success was heavily influenced by academic validation. I thought that, as an adult, my responsibilities relied on my proficiency — I needed to excel in my classes and to be involved in the SLU community. I felt I had to prove that I was worthy of being at SLU.
Alas, I learned that glorifying overworking yourself in college only teaches you the skills to avoid when surviving in the adult world. These skills are common scenarios, like a lack of boundaries with your professors and coworkers on deadlines and projects you realistically cannot meet. Or perhaps, when you stay up all night completing assignments for the validation of being the smartest or the most responsible. I am not saying that stress is not necessary in life, as it can be a powerful tool to drive you to success. However, it is important to understand that success cannot come at the cost of your physical or mental health, nor should it diminish your quality of life as you know it. The reality is that college is not about proving your worth, but rather, it is about teaching you the skills necessary to succeed in life.
The costs of burnout
As college students, we have all been victims of burnout in one way or another. A common approach to normalizing feeling overloaded is humor. We have all heard, “it must be nice to take a holiday,” or “days off? what are those?” — this is a coping mechanism. As students and young adults learning our way in the world, dismissing the reality of burnout is easier than understanding the harm we may be causing ourselves.
Academia distorts our perception of free time, making it seem like something that good students should not have. This not only shames students into indirectly viewing leisure time as wrong, but also as not important for success. This directly affects our well-being and health, whether we want to admit it or not.
A study analyzed by the Harvard Health blog concluded that people who overwork themselves can be at a higher risk for heart attacks and strokes. In fact, those who worked more than 55 hours were at a “13% greater risk of a heart attack and were 33% more likely to suffer a stroke compared with those who worked 35-40 hours per week.” It is normalized in academic settings to view overworking yourself as equaling success. College is the place to learn: to explore the possibilities of who you are and who you want to be in society. Most importantly, college shows us the skills to learn for the adult world and acts as a safe space for trial and error. Unfortunately, many college students have correlated undivided devotion for our academic work to validation and our sense of worth.
Laila Dames described her first year at Duke, from admission to first-year stories, recalling her need for validation and proof of self-worth in academic settings and extracurriculars. In her words, “for some reason, I have always felt a need to prove myself. A need to fill up every moment of my time and not have a moment to breathe.” Many, like me, can relate to the feeling of drowning yourself in academics, jobs, clubs and course-related field work to satisfy the need to feel successful. However, that is not an achievable reality; keeping yourself busy to the point of exhaustion and testing your breaking point does not equal success.
thriving, not just surviving
I would like to extend a helping hand to those who may feel like they are drowning or that both ends of the candle have burned out. Inspired by Aisha Mohammed, a sophomore at the University of Kansas, here are a few ways that can help you alleviate symptoms of burnout.
First, she suggests prioritizing the activities you want to do. She explains, “You have to understand that you cannot do everything, and it is more effective to channel your energy to fewer activities and be successful at those.” Second, Mohammed emphasizes the need for an organizing framework. We understand that college may consume us if we do not keep track of deadlines, upcoming exams and important events. Mohammed suggests that “writing down things in a planner lets you set time aside for the things you need to do.” Whatever form you may choose, whether it is a hard copy or digital archiving, it is a good idea to make a routine of keeping track of your important endeavors.
Finally, and most importantly, rest! In Mohammed’s words, “You will always have deadlines and tests to study for. If you don’t relax and refresh, you will have a tough time achieving maximum efficiency when it’s time to get to work.” The idea that time makes money and money leads to success is ingrained in American culture. For a lot of college students, hard work leads to rewards of many kinds. Nonetheless, there is a stigma associated with taking time off. Leisure time, including rest, is essential to optimizing performance across the various areas of a student’s life. According to Dan Bova, staff at the website and media platform Entrepreneur, fatigue leads to a fall in productivity, and the quality of your product may decline.
Even overachievers deserve rest. Having fun in college is not a bad thing; in fact, it is the perfect time to do so! In college, you get to discover who you are and what works for you. You learn skills to become a proficient adult in society and a successful professional.
It is OK to take a break and give yourself a minute to breathe. It is OK to acknowledge the experiences you are living and the lessons you are learning. It is OK to live more in the present and to remember how far you have come. It is empowering to know everything that you are capable of and all that you can do in the future. It is OK to take it all in, one step at a time. Signing off, a perfectionist and overachiever who is learning through college, too.