I’m not typically one who makes many New Year’s Resolutions, but I promised myself to start doing some of the simple things that started feeling out of reach at the peak of my burnout. Some of the activities include: attempting to cook with ingredients I’ve never tried before, visiting the cool-looking shops that I’d drive past on my way to work, doing 500-piece puzzles, thrifting cute little nick-nacks, watching sunsets, and going on walks around my neighborhood. Most of these things may seem basic or mundane to some folks, but burnout can leave us struggling to find joy in the little things, or in my case, to even attempt to try those little things. 

I started a new job about a week after the New Year. For the first month, I was working from home, spending 8 hours between team Zoom meetings and self-paced video training. Ultimately, spending more time in front of the screen than I’d like to. I also found myself wanting to escape my work environment at the end of my workday. But since my social meter was often depleted by the end of the workday, I rarely wanted to go out somewhere and be around a bunch of people. 

Keeping my resolution in mind, I figured that going for walks at the end of my workday would give me an opportunity to get out of the house, without having to worry about unwanted social interactions. I also figured that my walks could count as my daily physical activity since I’ve never been too fond of going to the gym. With those two factors in mind, my partner and I set off for our first walk. We told ourselves it could be a short walk, just something to get us out of the house for a little bit. Much to our surprise, we ended up walking for about two hours. On that very first walk, we realized that we had just discovered our new favorite activity. In those two hours, we were able to see that there were so many benefits of going on walks that never even crossed our minds. After that day, we decided that we would try to go on walks at every opportunity we got. As long as it wasn’t pouring rain, we would set time aside to go walk around the neighborhood. 

These walks gave me an opportunity to: 

• Decompress after a long day
• Talk about random things with my partner
• Get fresh air every day
• Close my workout rings on my apple watch. 
• Admire cute houses and landscapes in the neighborhood
• Make friends with the neighborhood kitties

My absolute favorite part of my daily walks after work was being able to see the sky light up with vibrant colors as the sun prepared to set for the evening. Witnessing the sky transform before my eyes brought peace to my spirit that I can’t even explain in words.

Someone once gave me the advice that when you’re struggling with your mental health, do the opposite of what you want to do at that moment. I was skeptical of this advice at first because I thought that I was feeling burnt out from having to do so many things that I didn’t want to do (i.e. go to work). But after starting to go on walks, I realized that that was some of the best advice I’d received in a long time. At the peak of my burnout, after work, all I wanted to do was crawl in the bed scroll mindlessly through social media until it was time to go to sleep. But taking the time to go outside and simply enjoy my environment helped me make significant progress when it came to improving my mental health. So the next time you’re feeling burnt out or overwhelmed, try going on a walk. You never know what beautiful things may be out there waiting for you.