Prepper burnout happens when a prepper begins to lose the motivation to prepare for a disaster. The symptoms can include fatigue, forgetfulness, anxiety and depression. Too much stress and worrying about your preps can even give you an illness. Fortunately, there are ways to keep prepper burnout at bay. Here are 11 things you can do to give yourself more motivation to stay on top of your preps. (h/t to SurvivalSullivan.com)

Take a break

One of the best ways to avoid prepper burnout is to simply take a step back and take a break. If you don’t feel like working on your preps one day, do something else. Spend some time with your family, play games, go out and watch a movie or eat at a nice restaurant. Give yourself permission to relax for a few days or a week. Once this short break is done, you should be ready to get back to your prep with more energy.

Set incremental goals

Sometimes, preppers overexert themselves by taking on tasks that are too big for them to handle, causing burnout. To solve this, set incremental goals. This turns that one large project into a series of tiny projects that you can do one at a time.

Have a plan

Along with setting incremental goals, you need to establish a proper plan for how to accomplish each one. Your plan will help guide you to what tasks you should focus on. If you want to ready your garden for planting, for example, lay out on a notepad or a calendar what you’re going to do to achieve your goal every day.

Find a new, survival-related hobby

If you’re feeling burnt out, consider shifting your focus to finding a hobby that’s related to prepping. If you’ve always been interested in learning self-defense, buy a gun and spend some time on the shooting range. If you want to learn how to cook, sign up for a class. A lot of hobbies out there can one day help you with your preps.

Share what you know

If you have friends or family who are interested in prepping, dedicating some time to teach them what you know can be a great way to avoid prepper burnout. Teaching others what you know helps keep your skill set fresh and it could also help motivate and inspire you to keep working on your own preps.

Don’t obsess over one potential disaster

If you’re living in an area that might expect one type of disaster, prepper burnout can come from spending months – or even years – obsessing over that one specific situation. Learn to branch out. Consider any other potential disaster that can affect your area. This will give you a new set of goals, and hopefully more motivation to work on your preps.

Alternate your focus

Many preppers focus a lot of their energy on obtaining knowledge, gathering gear, and learning a new skill all at the same time. Instead of spreading yourself too thin, consider focusing on one thing for a certain period. If you’ve always wanted to learn how to shoot, do nothing but that for one month before switching to another prepping activity next month, such as gathering gear or learning something from a class or a book. (Related: 8 Pillars of the survival protocol that every prepper needs to master.)

Be realistic

One way you might be burning yourself out is by setting goals that you can’t possibly achieve. Preppers need to be realistic about what they can do, especially with the limited resources at your disposal. If, for example, you try to prepare for every disaster, you will definitely burn yourself out. Instead, focus on one or two that you can prepare for right now. Recognize that you are only human, and that you won’t be able to achieve everything you do.

Stay organized

Another way to avoid prepper burnout is to keep yourself organized. This is especially true if you don’t have a plan, and you end up doing several things at once without achieving anything, such as trying to read three books on survival at the same time. Keep yourself organized by sticking to your plan, and you should achieve plenty of your goals in no time.

Stop comparing your prep to others

Every prepper is working through their preps at their own pace. Seeing the success of another prepper and comparing it to your own will only lead to burnout. Just keep working hard and focus on what you’ve already achieved.

Enjoy yourself

One good way to avoid prepper burnout is to focus on what you’ve already done at present. Remember to take a step back and allow yourself to be proud – within reason – of what you’ve already accomplished. Any hardworking prepper should be able to point to one project or goal they can feel proud of, whether that be a construction project you just finished, the difficult survival book you were able to get through or that one survival skill that you were able to master.

Prepper burnouts are normal and can help you reevaluate what you may be doing wrong with your prepping. It can make you understand that you don’t have a plan, you’re not organized or you’re spreading yourself too thin. Whatever you do to get over your prepper burnout, once you get back to work, take some time to figure out what caused the burnout in the first place, so you can prevent it from happening again.

Sources include:

SurvivalSullivan.com

ThePrepperJournal.com