I started to open craft booths in July 2019. It was a humble booth that have few crochet item. I don’t have any idea what I was doing but I just thinking just to attend it.
After that very first booth, I had opportunity to open two more booths in 2019 before COVID 19 striked. In November, I opened the most biggest size booth and the most successful booth during my own college convocation. That’s how I celebrate my graduation. It rakes RM2,000 within 3 days and my crochet rose sold like hot cakes!
During quarantine period due to COVID 19, I realized that I barely picked up my crochet hook and didn’t sell anything at all. I thought I was taking breaks. But ended up taking breaks until 2021. In 2021, I don’t have interest anymore about crochet, which made me let go all my yarn inventories to my friends!
A year after, I reflected how my life without crocheting and what makes me letting go all of my yarns. I was stressing myself thinking my yarns were sitting still in my wardrobe doing nothing productive. But my life was even more miserable when I have no yarns at all!
I talked to several of my friends, and I suddenly clicked that; I was burnout.
Opening the biggest size of booth and raking the first 4 figures was completely burning me out, making me losing interest from crocheting.
Crochet burnout, like any form of burnout, can happen you when feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and lose interest in crocheting. It’s important to take steps to prevent and address burnout so that you can continue to enjoy your craft. After all, art and craft are there to cherish life.
Here are some suggestions to prevent crochet burnout:
Set realistic goals
Set realistic goals can prevent you from taking on too many projects at once. Set achievable goals and prioritize your projects to prevent overwhelming yourself.
If you are a business crochet owner, set realistic goal on how much money you want to earn this month. Consider your current capability and business performance to prevent yourself from over do things. It’s like planning to bake 1000 cakes per day but your machine only can make 10 cakes per day. Over do cakes per day will cause harm rather than good to your business.
I recommend you utilize crochet planner or journal to set the realistic goal and track your project.
Take breaks
Regularly take breaks during your crochet sessions. Stand up, stretch, and give your hands and eyes a rest. This will help prevent physical strain and mental fatigue.
There are a lot of productivity techniques that includes taking breaks in between. My favourite one is pomodoro technique, where you take 5 minutes break after 25 minute deep work.
Taking breaks could mean taking one week off from crochet projects and that’s totally fine too!
Vary your projects
Monotonous is the enemy of creativity.
Don’t stick to a single type of project for too long. Mix it up by trying different patterns, techniques, and yarns. This will keep things interesting and prevent monotony.
For example, if you are a crochet business owner that taking orders for flower crochet only, consider to crochet other things outside your niche just for you, for fun.
You can vary your crochet inventories; try new type of yarns, try new crochet hooks, and try new crochet gadget.
Learn new techniques
There are a lot of fresh new crochet techniques introduced in the world of crochet everyday. Expanding your crochet skills by learning new stitches, patterns, or techniques can help prevent boredom and burnout in long run. This can reignite your passion for crocheting and provide a fresh perspective.
Join a community
This is my favourite! All of us wanted to hang out with the local crochet community while ranting about life in general. I felt energized every time after meeting them.
In the boundless era, we can connect crochet community in the internet. We can expand our perspective further, meeting crocheters from different races, religion and culture.
Share your work, seek inspiration, and engage in discussions. Surrounding yourself with fellow enthusiasts can be motivating and rejuvenating.
Take care of yourself
Ensure you’re practicing self-care. Get enough rest, eat well, exercise, and manage stress. When your overall well-being is taken care of, it can positively impact your crochet experience.
I used to think exercise and eat well is for fitness enthusiast and athletes. I used to be a netball player during my university years. Not long after, I realized that everyone who want to succeed in their life in whatever area, one must get enough rest, eat well, exercise and manage stress.
Taking care of yourself will ensure you are fit to crochet and generating ideas. I have tried myself eat high carb and sugar and doing nothing in a week – I found myself lazy and don’t want to do anything including crochet.
Establish a self care routine is important.
Set boundaries
Have you ever received a request from friends and family to crochet something you don’t like, but you crochet them just because you have to? You received their money but you don’t feel fulfilled.
I used to make 300 amigurumi bees for RM3/bee, while I can charged up to RM20 per bee. It was exhausting and not fun.
Since then, I learned to say no, especially to ridiculous, underpaid order.
I do say no to many orders this year because I wanted to learn to design crochet patterns, making videos and writing, rather than making crochet orders.
Learn to say no.
Don’t feel obligated to crochet constantly or meet unrealistic deadlines. Set boundaries and allocate time for other activities and responsibilities. Remember that crochet should be enjoyable, not burdensome.
Rotate your hobbies
Don’t feel guilty when you taking break from crochet and doing sudoku, embroidery and painting.
Exploring other hobbies or creative outlets alongside crochet helps you from preventing burnout and promote balanced and diverse set of interest.
Alongside crocheting, I found myself dancing, writing, designing and studying stocks during my spare time. I don’t crochet 24/7 like I used to.
Rediscover inspiration
Seek inspiration from various sources like books, magazines, websites, nature, or art. Explore different color schemes, textures, and design elements to keep your creativity flowing.
Inspiration don’t have to be limited at crochet boundaries only. It can be found at other form of art. My very own flower crochet frame was inspired by Cricut lovers, where they arrange paper flowers in a frame for mother’s day. Then I was inspired by hand-lettering art. I taught myself to hand-letter to write wishes on the frame.
I find it is amazing to withdraw inspiration from other form of art.
