 Namaste everybody, it's really good to be here and thank you so much for giving me the floor. So, so far we've had a really amazing session, right? Yeah, we've had like really good speakers sharing their knowledge and expertise about all things WordPress. We've learned about creating websites with WordPress, about UX, UI design, SEO and content marketing. But I want to talk about something a little bit different. Okay, so I'm going to talk about something that's really important for all of us, but something that we tend to forget. We tend to forget taking care of ourselves and we forget prioritizing self-care. So that's what I want to talk about during my session because I think it's very important, especially for people here. I think most of us are students here, right? Can I see a raise of hands? How many students do we have here? Oh, wow, that's a lot of students. Okay, so I think you will find this topic interesting because my topic will focus on how you can balance your responsibilities as a student and still find time to contribute to the WordPress project. All right? So, okay, let's get started. So what do we really mean by a burnout? Does anybody know this term or is anybody here familiar with this term? Has anyone here heard of this term before, burnout? Okay, I see a few hands, so some of us already know. So the dictionary definition of a burnout goes something like, it's a state of intense emotional physical exhaustion. Like when you're, so you're a student, right? So maybe you can relate to this. Imagine you have a term paper and assignment and a final exam, all of them on one day. That's a lot of pressure, right? So when you're doing something for a long time without taking a break, that's when you start feeling frustrated. You start feeling very tired and exhausted and uninspired. All of these feelings that you're having, all of the symptoms that you're experiencing, this is called a burnout. And this, it can actually really happen to anybody. It can happen to somebody who's working as a WordPress developer. It can happen to somebody who's just contributing to the WordPress project. It could be happening to anybody, like even if you're a marketer or if you're a blogger, maybe you have a WordPress website where you write content and you publish them. So when you're doing that, but you're also balancing your studies or maybe your part-time jobs, so when you're doing all of those things together all at once, at one point, you can get really tired because you're not really taking a break. You're not really taking time to focus on yourself. That's when you could get a burnout. So for me, what category do I fall into? So I'm one of those people. I'm a contributor for WordPress. I basically contribute to the Polyglots team, but I also have a personal website where I write about books and movie reviews. At the same time, I work nine to five at a WordPress product company. So you see, what's happening is that I'm spending more than 15 hours a day working on my WordPress website. When I'm at my job, I'm working eight hours where everything I do has to do with WordPress, and when I come back home, I'm spending about two to three hours. So in total, I'm spending more than 15 hours working on a WordPress website. That's quite exhausting, but for me, I love it because I love writing. I love marketing. I love creating content. So even though it's really enjoyable for me, I'm spending a lot of time doing it. So now you guys might be wondering, if you're passionate about something, if you really enjoy doing something, can you ever really get tired of it? Okay, so you guys are saying, no, you disagree. Well, I'm about to tell you that you're wrong. So the reason why you're wrong is because, well, they say that if you choose a job you love, you don't really have to work a single day of your life, but that's not really true. If anything, when you put too much time doing only one thing, even if it is something you enjoy, after a certain point of time, you're not going to remember why you fell in love with it in the first place. In other words, you need some time to miss the thing you love. So if you're a student and you're studying away from your family, that's when you realize how much you miss your family. Is this true? Right? So it's similar to that. The same thing happens for your hobbies and your work life as well. When you're not taking time away from the thing you love, you don't really realize how important it is in your life. So in Bangladesh, we have this funny saying. Okay, so it goes something like this. If I translate this in English, it basically means distance makes the heart grow fonder. Has anyone heard of this term in English? So this is actually true. When you spend time away from something, that's when you realize how important that is for you. That's when you start missing it. That's when you realize, yes, you need to spend more time doing this and this is really important for you. So how will you realize that you need to take a break? How will you realize that you're getting a burnout? Normally, we don't really realize that we're getting tired until we hit rock bottom. So here are some symptoms of a burnout. See if you can relate to any of this. The first is you'll be feeling very low of energy. You'll be so tired that even just looking at the WordPress dashboard will make you feel really frustrated. It could happen. It happened to me. I'm speaking from a personal experience. So this is one symptom of a burnout. This happened to me back in 2019. So back then, I was just a student, just like many of you. I was in my final year and I was working on my WordPress website where I write about book blogs. So back then, I had a lot of pressure on me because I was a final year student. Keep that in mind. So that means I had to work on my final exam. I had to prepare for my final exam. I had to prepare for my thesis report. I had to look for jobs, which is really stressful. And at the same time, I also had to prepare an entire month of website content all at once. Keep in mind that this was my personal book blog, so I didn't have anyone helping me. I was doing everything all on my own. So at that time, at one point, I got so tired that I almost gave up on my WordPress website because I had to prioritize. Do I prioritize my homework? Do I prioritize my CGPA? Do I prioritize searching for jobs? Or do I prioritize my WordPress website? Which one do I do? So at one point, I nearly gave up on my WordPress website. I don't want you guys to face that kind of situation, especially because you're also enthusiastic about WordPress. I've been here the whole day, and I'm seeing so many of you attending each session with so much enthusiasm. So we're all here to learn from each other. So what I want you to know and to keep in mind is that no matter what happens, always remember to prioritize yourself first. When you're feeling the first symptoms of a burnout, when you start feeling really tired, when you're working with WordPress and you're feeling really tired, or maybe feeling very uninspired, that's the first time that you need to take a break. So there are other symptoms of a burnout. Is there anyone here who's interested in website design or writing? So yeah, so I see a lot of hands. So you guys will probably know that web designing and content writing, these require creativity, right? How are you going to find new ideas if you're too tired to work? That's a good question, right? So this is why self-care is so important because if you're not taking care of yourself, if you're not noticing the symptoms of a burnout, then you won't come up with new innovative ideas to work on your next project. And that's not all. The physical symptoms of a burnout can happen as well. So some of the physical symptoms of a burnout can include headaches, lack of appetite, even back pain or body pain. These are all signs from your body and brain telling you to stop and take a break. So when these things are happening, that's when you know that you need to take a break, you need to step away. And what are you going to do when you're going to take a break? What does taking a break look like for you? Do you like to travel? Anyone here? Do we like to travel? Okay, so here's the thing. Yeah, exactly. When we need to take a break from WordPress, that's what we need to do. We need to focus on travelling, on doing things that bring us joy. If we don't do this, we're going to suffer from the long-term impacts of a burnout. And what are the long-term impacts of a burnout? When you're feeling frustrated for a very long time, you will forget what made you enthusiastic about WordPress. Okay, contributing to the WordPress project, it's supposed to be fun. Creating a new website from scratch, that's supposed to be fun. Writing blogs, these are all supposed to be fun. But if you're not taking a break and if you're not prioritizing self-care, then you're going to forget how to enjoy the job that you're doing and you're going to wish that you did something else instead. And that negativity, it will spread to all parts of your life. What can we do to prevent this? First of all, yes, there are lots of people here who like to travel, but maybe for some of us, especially those of us who are doing full-time jobs, taking a long break isn't possible. So what can we do? We can take a mini-vacation, just take a mini-vacation to unplug and just unwind. Or we can, you know, even if we cannot take a vacation, we can just take a few days off from work to read a book, watch those movies that we've been meaning to watch and just relax at home. That's also another option. Another thing that we can do is fight all the negative thoughts we have by recalling our biggest achievements. So how do we do that? In my experience, when I'm feeling very demotivated and uninspired, what I do is that I think of all the times when I did something really good, when I accomplished something really big. I think of those memories and I tell myself, I did that. I was able to do that. So you should do the same. When you're feeling really demotivated and tired and upset, that's when you should remember your biggest achievements. Remember those moments and tell yourself that you were at the top of the world, that you're a winner. When you have that mindset, you can overcome anything. If that doesn't work, you can try working in a new and interesting location or you can spend extra time with the people who believe in you. Having cheerleaders in your life is super important. When we want to do something good, there's always somebody who's the first on our speed dial. They're the first person we want to call and we want to tell them, we did this, did you know? So we all have that cheerleader in our life. For me, my cheerleader is my sister. She's actually here with us today. So whenever I do something good or whenever I need somebody to motivate me, I turn to my sister. The first thing I do is I call her and she supports me and spending time with her is what keeps me moving forward. And I want you guys to do the same. Life can get very stressful at times. But that's when you need somebody to motivate you from the sidelines. You need somebody to cheer you on from the sidelines. And finally, the last and final tip I have for you to recover from any frustration or burnout is to remember why you fell in love with WordPress in the first place. When you remember that moment when you made your first WordPress website that excitement you felt, when you can remember the why behind your WordPress experience, that's when you will be able to continue working again. So these are the tips how you can recover from a burnout when working with WordPress. Before I go near to the end of my speech I want to make something very clear. We all live in a culture where we are constantly being pressured to achieve good things all the time. We're constantly being pressured to go above and beyond. I think students face this the most. In a very competitive environment you see your friends doing so many good things and you want to be just as good as them. You want to get that job that they're getting. You want to rise up the corporate ladder. But you also want to be innovative. You want to be creative. You want to make a difference. And that's all great. It's great to have big dreams. But it's also important that in this hustle culture your work-life balance should be your first priority. You should remember to always put your mental health, your peace and happiness first. At the end of the day life is really short and we should be spending every moment doing things that we enjoy. And so I would like to end my session by focusing on this. No matter what happens, make work-life balance your priority. Thank you everyone.