Casual Raid Leader

I’ve seen it more and more these days.  Burnout is kind of a common theme among raiders.  There can be lots of causes, but in the end of the day, it very much displays itself the same way.  Someone who had previously been a great guy or girl, never had an issue or anything else just suddenly gets snippy.  They get more irritable and finally they just haul off and explode at someone.  In the end, they decide that they need a break.

I can completely sympathize with these people.  We had a couple of people lately in our guild who have walked this path.  I burned out no less than three times in the last year.  Each time, I can easily point out a thing I did wrong that lead to my situation.  Distance makes it easy to see what happened.  I eventually came back to raiding, but wow… in the interim period I was so convinced I just couldn’t do it anymore.  So lets look at some of the common mistakes that I’ve seen.

Emotional Investment

I’ve done this… we’ve all done this to a certain extent.  We find something in our lives and we throw ourselves heart and soul into it with the hopes that it will bloom into something great… and then… that one person walks in and stomps all over your dream.  They stomp all over that delicate flower that you nurtured and kept safe.  Most people don’t do it to be malicious, but we get attached to what we do. 

We had a guy in our guild who’s just started his burn out cycle lately.  He quoted at one point a strategy he helped to make and how it wasn’t being followed.  Just from his words and his passionate plea on the subject I could see how strongly he felt.  He was really upset over the people not following it or even questioning the strategy.  Being in any sort of leadership role tends to lead people become deeply involved and attached to the work they put out… so they take it personally when it doesn’t work.. or someone doesn’t follow the plan.

Moral of the story?  You have to learn do distance yourself.  Separate yourself and who you are from the work you’ve put forth.  Strategies and Tactics are just that… strategy and tactics.  The people and the things they do are never going to be picture perfect.  Being passionate about wanting to move forward and build new things is great, but you can’t become so emotionally attached to it that when things go wrong, you just get crushed by the despair.  I did this… when we hit Shade of Aran.  I had thrown soo much effort and emotional attachment into moving forward and succeeding that when we failed… week after week, it just crushed me till I had to give up for a while.

Failure to Communicate

So often we fail to communicate our needs until its just way too late.  I watched one person quit our guild because they felt very strongly that we weren’t very helpful.  I know this guy personally so I really tried to sit down and talk with him about it.  I didn’t get very far, but really for him, he felt nobody was as helpful as they could/should have been.  However this wasn’t the picture of the guild I thought I knew.  For him, he wanted and expected certain things, but his failure to communicate his expectations and needs clearly led him to an ever increasing frustration level and a lot of emotional pain.

Whether its that you need a break or you just want someone to get off your case, open communication is one of the things I feel is key to avoiding burn out.  When someone asks you to fill in for a raid, you can feel free to say, “No, look I’m just really not up for raiding tonight.  I can’t handle it.”  You shouldn’t feel obligated to say, “No look I have something to do in a little while.” and then logging shortly after that.

Over Dedication

So many times we throw ourselves at something so much we feel that it won’t go on without us.  So we keep coming day after day to drive it forward even though its driving us further and further down.  I’ve made this mistake several times.  I felt that the forward progress of the raid relied on my being there.  Wow that’s a very self centered thing to feel when you think about it, but you really don’t think about it from that way. 

In the end, though it really comes down to you putting in too much time and losing too much perspective until you just finally look up and see that you can’t see the forest anymore… its just rows upon rows of trees.  Finding life balance is really a key here.  Its completely cool to say, “I want to dedicate 5 days a week to raiding.”  There is nothing wrong with it at all.  However knowing when 5 days a week is too much for you is the key.  Finding out when you’ve reached your level of overcommittment is the key part.

For me this really comes down to when is what your doing beginning to overflow.  When is it beginning to dominate your thinking and consume you?  If its beginning to do that, its probably time to look at stepping back for some perspective. 

Overall for me, I guess burn out happens.  I’ve done it enough in the current iteration that I’m well aware of what it feels  like.  I’ve learned a lot more about myself and where my limits are.  I’ve also learned some separation between myself and the game.  The game doesn’t play me… I play the game.  Its important to make these types of distinctions.  Achievements are great, but when it reaches a level where success and failure dictate your mood out of game… then its time to find some separation of your own.  Games are meant to be fun… not stress.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Introspective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.