Feeling burnt out and demotivated.

I have a clear vision on the sort of career I want, and a good strategy to achieve it but I'm feeling burnt out right now and finding it harder to push myself. I am working two jobs (one for a salary and a voluntary one for work experience), exercising 5 times a week, watching what I eat, spending my free time applying for internship and working on essay competitions, and helping my siblings with their study/career goals.

This weekend something unexpected happened, so I lost most of my Saturday trying to sort it out. Ever since then I have been feeling burnt out. Today I didn't go in for volunteering and don't feel like going to my part-time job, but have to for the money. How do you pick yourself up and feel motivated again? I had been at this for 3 months.

No wonder you're feeling burnt out, you're putting 150% into achieving your goals, and seemingly leaving very little time to unwind and de-stress. It sounds like you are a generally motivated person, and we all experience speedbumps and sometimes get the blues.

Give yourself a week to focus on chilling out a bit. Obviously continue going to work and applying for internships and so forth, but perhaps go and get a pizza, have a glass of wine and veg out watching some crappy TV. Talk to some friends on the phone or meet up and do something fun.

Give yourself a few days off from the constant exercise and obsessing over your career goals, and allow yourself to rest and repose. After all, you're no good to anyone if you work so hard that you burn out. So chill out a bit, relax, de-stress and do something that allows you to switch off for a bit.

After a couple of days your motivation will be back and you'll be chafing at the bit to get stuck into it again.

I have a clear vision on the sort of career I want, and a good strategy to achieve it but I'm feeling burnt out right now and finding it harder to push myself. I am working two jobs (one for a salary and a voluntary one for work experience), exercising 5 times a week, watching what I eat, spending my free time applying for internship and working on essay competitions, and helping my siblings with their study/career goals.

This weekend something unexpected happened, so I lost most of my Saturday trying to sort it out. Ever since then I have been feeling burnt out. Today I didn't go in for volunteering and don't feel like going to my part-time job, but have to for the money. How do you pick yourself up and feel motivated again? I had been at this for 3 months.

Ignore people saying chill for a while to get it together. With that kind of workload/business, if you stop for too long you're never going to get back into it. Hit it, and hit it hard, you'll get back into your rhythm, and all will be well.

Maybe I will cut back on the exercise and do 4 days a week instead of 5. I used to have cheat days, but those aren't good as they turn into bad habits so they don't happen anymore. A nice meal once a week can't do much harm though.

Is the volunteering really worth it?

If you aren't actually monitoring calorie intake versus expenditure, then the above is pretty much moot.

I count calories like crazy. My daily intake is 1200, but if I had a nice, home-cooked dinner like lasagna once a week, I would take in 1500 to 1600 on that one day. Doesn't sound so bad.