How to avoid burnout as a solopreneur online

In this insightful conversation, Sydnea, a brand and web strategist and yoga teacher, shares her expertise on building a sustainable freelance business without burnout. She discusses the importance of self-awareness, mindfulness, and intentional planning, offering practical tips like breaking down goals into smaller steps, creating systems, and building a supportive community. Sydnea also emphasizes the value of regular check-ins with yourself and starting small to build consistency. Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or just need a fresh perspective, this chat provides actionable advice and relatable insights to help you navigate the challenges of freelancing with balance and clarity.

Most Valuable Lesson or Insight

The most valuable lesson from this conversation is that preventing burnout and building a sustainable business requires self-awareness, mindfulness, and intentional planning. Sydnea emphasizes the importance of checking in with yourself regularly, breaking down overwhelming tasks into smaller, actionable steps, and creating systems to reduce mental load. She also highlights the need for community and honest self-reflection to maintain balance and avoid overextending yourself.

Top 5 Between-the-Lines Lessons

  1. Burnout Looks Different for Everyone: Recognizing the signs of burnout—whether it’s physical exhaustion, sleep disturbances, or mental overwhelm—is the first step to addressing it. Self-awareness is key.

  2. Small, Consistent Actions Lead to Big Results: Breaking down goals into bite-sized, actionable steps makes them more manageable and less overwhelming, helping you stay consistent and avoid procrastination.

  3. Community is Crucial for Freelancers: Connecting with other freelancers and creatives helps you realize you’re not alone in your struggles and provides support, inspiration, and collaboration opportunities.

  4. Systems and Checklists Reduce Mental Load: Creating systems, checklists, and routines for your business tasks eliminates the need to reinvent the wheel and frees up mental space for creativity and problem-solving.

  5. Success is About Balance, Not Perfection: Success isn’t about achieving everything at once but finding a balance between personal well-being, business growth, and meaningful connections with others.

5 Actionable Steps

  1. Conduct Regular Check-Ins with Yourself: Set aside time daily, weekly, or monthly to reflect on what’s working, what’s not, and how you’re feeling. Use journaling or mindfulness practices to stay connected to your needs.

  2. Break Down Goals into Smaller Steps: Instead of focusing on large, overwhelming goals, identify the next actionable step. For example, if your goal is to write a blog, start by simply opening a document and writing the title.

  3. Create Systems and Checklists: Document your processes for recurring tasks (e.g., client onboarding, project management) to reduce mental load and make it easier to delegate or scale in the future.

  4. Build a Supportive Community: Join networking events, online groups, or masterminds to connect with other freelancers and creatives. Share your struggles and learn from others’ experiences.

  5. Start Small and Build Consistency: Focus on one goal or habit at a time. For example, if you want to establish a morning routine, start with just one activity (e.g., drinking water) and gradually add more as you build consistency.

Transcript:

[Speaker 1]

Welcome to tonight's business chat. What's happening with my language? Tonight we're going to talk with Sydnea.

She needs to tell me if I'm butchering her name or not. As usually happens, I can never do the thing and talk at the same time, so I'm sorry. But she's joining in a second.

Hi, I think I just sent you the invite, hopefully. I really need this talk because I feel like I'm on the edge of just going crazy with the holidays and work and the client work. It's always very difficult.

[Speaker 2]

So she is, okay, here you are. I'm accepting your request and I'm also sending your request, but it doesn't seem to work. I don't know what's happening.

The internet gods don't like me today. Hey, hola. Oh, it says you cannot join.

I don't know why. Let's see.

[Speaker 1]

And this is the type of talk that we really need to have. So I just sent you the invite again. She is a creative freelance coach and a yoga teacher.

So how are you? How are you doing? I'm great.

It's amazing that you managed to join. I don't know what I'm doing with this Instagram life. I'm sorry.

You usually hate me, right? So please tell me and tell everyone that joined the live and is going to be watching this later who you are and what it is that you do. Yeah.

So I'm, my name is Sine Lewis. I am a brand and web strategist. I'm also a yoga teacher.

So lots of mindfulness. And so what I do, I combine both of those and I teach creative freelancers how to build their business without burnout. Right.

So teach me, please. I got you. I got you.

I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm like on the edge right now. So I think this is such an interesting topic.

I need to know everything about it. But before we dive into this amazing, amazing concept, I do need to ask you if you find, if you think of yourself as successful. I do.

I do. Awesome. I love that.

You show people are like, no, not really. I still have a lot to do. I mean, we all have a lot.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]

So I do have a lot to do, but I, there's certain milestones that I like set for myself throughout the years. And every time I meet them, like, oh, I'm here. So what did you define as success?

So success for me is being happy in what I'm doing and being able to reach other people, being able to help other people. And in a way that's not draining me. Right.

And avoiding burnout. Even in the burnout, like recognizing how I can pivot for myself, like, you know, and being able to do that. A lot of times we can recognize there's a change that needs to happen, but we're stuck in where we're at, you know, instead of not able to.

So I feel like I'm in a place where I can recognize things, I can help people, and I can also help myself. So, yeah. Amazing.

So what are the first steps or the key things that we need to consider to be able to pinpoint what it is that is happening that we need to change and see that burnout is coming and it's right there? I think first is, it's getting connected with yourself. Right.

Burnout looks different for different people. It looks different for not only different people, but different times. Right.

So I know when I was younger, you know, maybe like 10 years ago, my burnout was like my body would shut down. Right. If I'm overworked.

And I'm like, yeah, I'll get sick. But now what I realized is like when I am doing a little bit more than I need to do, then my body, I can't sleep. My sleep patterns are going to throw up.

Right. Which is okay. I'm like up thinking or I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm like, okay, so the good thing for us, what we need to do is just recognize it.

And then, okay, so maybe what do we need to do to change this? So if I'm in a place where I'm not sleeping, what is causing this? Right.

So maybe it is, let me put down something. Let me stop doing something. But it always starts first with being honest with yourself.

A lot of times we're like, oh, I can do all the things, but we are a community of people and we're supposed to be in community. And it's really easy for us to feel like I'm going to get everything on my shoulders. And that's like how we essentially start with the burnout.

Right. And start feeling that overwhelmed and that stress that I can do everything. You know, sometimes we don't have to.

Yeah. And especially as a freelancer online, you're working alone. Most of the times you're working from home and you'll have no one to talk about.

Like it's every time I do networking events or that kind of thing where freelancers meet in the real wild world and we start to share the struggles and say like, okay, this is happening. I'm worried about this. I'm stressed about that.

We realize that we have all of that in common. Everyone is going through the same concerns, the same stress. So you feel less alone because at home you're feeling like, oh, this is all on me.

Like I'm the one that has no idea what is happening or what to do or how to handle this. But then you come together in any community that you are a part of and you realize, oh, okay, I'm not alone. And maybe we can come up with ideas on how to help each other figure this out.

Right. Exactly. And that's actually, I had, yesterday I joined in, got out of my house and I joined in and went to some other content creators, like a little mixer where we spent five, six hours just like recording video and talking to each other about what we're up to, you know, and just kind of getting feedback.

And it's like, it's so nice to be able to, again, remember I'm not alone. A lot of things that I felt that I was like, oh, I can be better at this or what I didn't come up with, I was able to get that help, you know, and just, it's nice to be again in community. And I think like what you said, as freelancers or those business owners, you do a lot by yourself, right?

I don't know if you've seen like the name where it's like, oh, you're the content, you are the manager, you're the, you know, business manager, you're the CEO, like you're every single thing. But what is it that you can do for yourself so that it's not too, too much, you know, work. Sure.

So how do you recommend people get started? Because it's easy to lose yourself in the stress of every single day and in trying to make the business work and all of this. So how do you recommend to link and connect with yourself and try to figure out if you're close to burnout?

And so, like I said, first, it's setting up connection with yourself. So maybe just setting up a time to, setting up a time to just be with yourself, right? And that doesn't mean like, you got to sit in a corner and meditate.

That could be, I'm going to go for a walk, something that you have a routine for yourself. I was talking about this the other day, about like where routine can literally just be a five minute check in with yourself. So essentially, just like you have, you know, checking with your clients, treat yourself like a client.

We share, I feel like sometimes we treat our clients better than we treat ourselves, right? We go above and beyond for them, but like, can we show that same thing, same compassion for ourselves? So first check in with yourself, see what is working, see what isn't working.

And again, being honest, you know, and then after that, I think for me, the biggest thing that changed in my business was when I started setting up my systems, right? And really just putting, putting some paper and that's over the course of your last couple of years, putting the paper, what am I doing, right? So that I'm not, I don't have to keep reinventing the wheel over and over.

So it's actually making myself more work for myself. So I got it took so long to understand that I didn't have to do everything from scratch and reinvent the freaking wheel. It took me way too long to understand.

There's a bunch of tools available online, especially, and there's a lot of people that you can reach out for help. If you run out of ideas on how to make this easier, you don't have to make it difficult for yours. Like it's not supposed to be so complicated.

You don't have to make it difficult. And even though I know people may think about like, Oh, I can't afford this. I can't afford that.

It can be as simple as what are, what's your own process, right? So writing it down. And that actually was something that, cause I went the route of getting the help first.

And then I'm like, why does it feel so hard for me? And so I started writing it down. I'm like, what am I doing so that I know that the next project is going to be, okay, I'm going to do this next time.

Right. The same thing, you know, and of course we have our differences in each project, but the structure in the skeleton is the same. So automatically that's a little overwhelmed.

That's off my plate. That's something that I don't have to worry about because, Oh, it's, it's going to be done. So that when I'm ready to scale and bring people in and get help, I can just hand that over to them, you know.

And even if you don't want to, if you don't want to hire someone, just taking that mental load off, you know, you already have a task list for a project and you don't have to think about what it is that you're forgetting about. You just go see the list, go through it. And you don't even have to think like it.

And the reason I'm really big on like doing that check-in with yourself and checking with your business is because of course it evolves, right. The first time I did my checklist for my, for my, my business, I, it was very basic, right. Very basic.

And then like over the, over the years and even like up until like this year, I've finally gotten it down and say, okay, for each, each phase or each part, this is what actually happens. This is what I want to make sure that I don't forget, you know? So again, that mental load is, it's gone.

I don't have to worry about it. It's just, I'm working on a project. It's here.

I need to make sure if I'm onboarding a client, I need to give them this information. So it's not, Oh no, I forgot this. I got stressed out over this.

No, it's, it's okay. It's here. And then maybe next year it might, it might evolve again.

I might realize, Oh, maybe I don't need to do this. But like I, again, going back to that check-in with myself, I can be in the honest with myself. It's just really working and it's not been okay.

What do you need to change? Yeah. And journaling helps a lot in the beginning.

You're not used to having that internal sort of talk conversation with yourself about what's happening, what it is that you need to do. Just write it down and just ask if you're talking to someone else, what's happening with your business, if you're telling the story, and that really helps to gain some clarity to see what it is that is making you freak out. I call my, I have my journal.

So like I keep looking and I call it my like Einstein or my Da Vinci or all the journals I can write. And it's so funny because like, I'm really big on paper and like, you know, happy painting and all these other things. But at this point, I've got a wrist good of all the extra.

I keep a regular journal. I just want a new one for the new year. And like all my notes, I date it so I can go back and see.

And like, it's for me, it's been a game changer this year, you know, all in one place, not no frills, nothing. It's just a very simple thing. I write it down what's going on.

And it's really great. So then I can go back and even today I was on a flight today. So I came home and I'm like looking through my journal to see, okay, this is what I need to work on for this week.

You know, what's going on for next week? How do I want to finish up the year? You know, what can I shift?

And I have it all written down from like the last month or so. So yeah, it's Have you ever looked back on that journal and be like, Oh my god, I was being a little bit too complicating things without the need of doing it. I was being a little bit too dramatic.

I need to relax. Yeah, my old my old journals. Like I said, when I was my first started like using like journaling and paper and whatnot.

I went to the to the max I wanted to get like the best things and the stickers and the colors and everything. And which now I'm trying to get rid of all this you were doing the most and just distracting yourself from actually doing the stuff. And you're wondering why?

[Speaker 2]

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]

Okay. No. So avoiding doing the work.

Make it look pretty. That's that's not universal. I think like I have like a million markers, every single color under the sun and just to make it pretty because yeah.

Yeah. But I think also in that like, I keep going back to this check in because when you can recognize, okay, I'm, I'm procrastinating, you know, you know, what am I procrastinating on? And I would also say another thing that really helped me is when I'm procrastinating.

A lot of times it's because I have a project, like that I'm working on. But on my to do list, I have the name of the project itself, not any task, but just like, okay, so like my client name, I'll put my client on my to do list. I'm like, that's not exactly what I'm doing.

So what is it that I actually need to do that's that's so small that makes sense for me to just go ahead and get it done? And if I don't get it done, it's like, now you're just wasting time, you know, so it's like starting to do something on a on a blank page. Yeah.

It's overwhelming. You need to figure out what's the first step and what's the beginning and then go from there. And sometimes the first step for a blank page is to get a pen.

Right? As simple as that. You know, and that's the thing doesn't have to be complicated.

And so I heard it is called the next actionable step. What's the very next thing that you need to to do? You know, not the bigger thing.

And it makes it again makes it so much easier. It allows you to choose smaller pieces at a time versus having the whole big project of a whole assignment or whatever it is in front of you. And that's gonna be applied to anything that you're doing in life, you know, whether it's work or personal life or even, even like your home.

What is the one thing that you can do that doesn't feel so overwhelming? And sometimes, you know, it's like, write it down. And then after you write it down, okay, so now we need to go to the store, you know, maybe put it on my calendar to go to the store to get something, you know, and eventually you'll find you've done all these smaller steps and you completed the project in a way that is not like, I've stressed myself out because, you know, it just feels like it's so gigantic.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. I couldn't agree more.

And actually, then I was looking yesterday, I have, I have like 10 notebooks that I use just whenever I feel like having this kind of paper, I grabbed this one and, you know, procrastinating. I just write down things here and there. And then yesterday, I was organizing, and I found this one with the goals of 2023.

Right. And I'm like, Oh, this is fantastic. Like it's December, perfect time to pack if I accomplish any of this.

And then I totally forgot. I wrote this big, big, huge goal for myself and for the business. And then I realized I didn't do anything.

And I was like, super bummed. Oh my god, I stuck. This is horrible.

I was just beating myself up. And then I was like, wait, stop. You didn't break it down.

You just wrote, I don't know, make this amount of money, have work with this many clients. And it's like, how are you going to accomplish that? Did you ever reach out to the clients, the dream clients that you were thinking about when you wrote this?

Did you actually went to the networking events and connect and do this and do that? You didn't. So why are you beating yourself up right now, if you actually didn't break it down and just worked on it?

Yeah, it's fine. We can do it this year. It's okay.

It didn't happen. What's the lesson from that? So what do we mean if you just said like, I did not plan it.

So we know next year, going into next year, we have the goal, we need to do each quarter or each month or each day for it, you know, so that it's more bite size to be able to get done. And just, that's another thing. Usually when we begin the year, we want to do it all.

It's the exercising, it's the mental health, it's business, it's family, it's everything all at once. And then of course, we cannot accomplish it by the end of January. We're disappointed in ourselves and we quit and we don't do anything.

That's perfect. I think we need to just name, give a word for each month and focus on each one goal per month. Give it time.

You're only human. And then just go a little bit at a time. To go to the gym, just, you know, pick out the outfit and then put the outfit on.

Just go. Yeah. Yeah.

One step at a time. I had a post a couple of weeks ago about the morning routine. I love a good morning routine.

I've done very different variations of them. And my post kind of just ended with, it's whatever you can do consistently, but more. If a good morning routine is one thing a day, that's fine.

You know, it's two things. That's cool. Or maybe it's just, I have five minutes for myself.

I'm going to do every day something different, you know, and to speak. And sometimes you just need one day for yourself. Sometimes it's just a break.

So, and that's perfectly okay. Yeah. And then bring that to your calendar.

For the 2024, the goals. Yeah. We try and we start so many things, you know, and it's like, okay, we're going to go so strong in 2024 or in January.

My ear. If we can start with one, get consistent, then add on. Yeah.

So like for me, I, I did this earlier. I'm just doing my quarter, like so 12 weeks. And so for each of the four weeks, I have one goal for each week or each, each month.

And so like, you know, to be consistent. So for first month, it'll be one thing and we get 30 days of that. And then how, if it's going well, the next month I'll add on another one, you know, that's great.

That's a good idea. And so then starting small, I'm doing this because so my, the way that my dad says it, it's like, how do you eat an elephant? You know, one bite at a time.

So yeah, so just essentially starting small is, and I think that is one of the biggest things that can help you grow, help you get to feel like you're more stable in a space where in a world that's like constantly throwing so much at you, you get that good foundation, right? Other things that you're doing, then it's less, it's less likely that when burnout happens or when it, when you get whatever comes up, it's like, okay, no, what would I actually know to be true? What is working for me?

What can I always fall back on here? Do I have my lips? But again, we went back to that check-in, right?

Being honest with yourself to make sure that what am I doing? Is it really working? You know?

Yeah. Sometimes the list is wrong too. Like you made the list.

You can edit it at any point. You don't have to follow it step by step. I've made some wrong list.

I made a list that was one, one, one month. It was like, I'm gonna wake up at five o'clock every morning. That's fine.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You just need to figure it out.

Like, I think that's important. You need to check in with yourself. It's great to have these crazy goals and go for it with all of the energy that you got, but also be mindful of what it is that you need, because it's not all about your business, your family, or everyone else.

You, like, if you cannot deal with life, then how the hell are you going to do the whole list? So I understand that you have a freebie coming up. Yes.

Can you tell me a little bit about it? What can we expect on that amazing freebie that you're getting? So it'll be similar to what we were talking about, like some, I love a good checklist.

So a checklist of how, like, how do we really, how do we check in with ourselves, right? What is that we need to do, like, on a, like a monthly or even weekly, you know, that really works for us, you know? So you, you'll be able to, like, kind of outline, you know, your own essential check-in meeting for yourself in a mindful way, where you can be honest with yourself, and you can set yourself up for the next, what's coming up, right?

So you can start thinking about being more intentional in what we're thinking about. So we have that, and also have a, that applies for your personal, as well as your business, right? In any, essentially any aspect that you want to apply for.

That's amazing. I also, I also have a, I'm excited about that.

[Speaker 2]

Yay!

[Speaker 1]

Yes. So that's coming, where I'll be talking to other creatives who are, and how they build their business. We'll talk about burnout, we'll talk about mindfulness, like, what's actually happening.

But also just having the raw conversations about, like, the good, the bad, the ups and downs of, you know, the essence in itself, and what it's like to be, because I feel like for us as creatives, as freelancers, it's a different type of business, right? Because we are, we are the product. We are, you know, at all times have to be on, like, like, we got to do this work, you know?

Yep, personal brand, 100% of the time. And then, but what does it look like when you have those months where it's like, I'm working on other clients, other clients, the products are going with it too longer, so I can't take on new clients who have their money, like, a little low, right? Or then, but what it's like when you have a really great, great months and having that balance in between, so really having real conversations with other people and other business owners, so that we can, like, share that and be transparent with other, other people who want to be in the business.

So I'm really excited about it. Yeah, I'm excited for you. This is gonna be amazing.

Do you have a date or not yet? So my tentative date is my birthday, January 21st, so that's like my gift to the world, you know? January 21st, exactly in one month.

Yes, it's the 21st, exactly one month. Yay, that's amazing. This is meant to be, meant to be talked about today.

Perfect. I love that. Well, listen, I really hope you let me know when everything is out.

I will be more than happy to share because I feel like this is gonna help so many people to understand they're not alone. And like, we're not alone. And yeah, you're definitely invited to the podcast.

Can we talk? Anytime. Yes.

Oh, I have so many stories. So many. So we're gonna need like a month of podcast.

It's gonna be a marathon, but yeah, we can do it. Well, listen, it's been amazing to have you. I'm so happy that you joined this crazy idea that I just had a couple of weeks ago.

It's been so much fun. And I'm so, so looking forward to hearing about all of these lunches and everything that you're gonna put out and in 2024. My pleasure.

So I will be in touch. See you soon.

Sydnea Lewis

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Sydnea

Multifaceted + Multi-passionate = Just doing and teaching what I love Without the Hustle and Burnout

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I’m a brand and web designer with a passion for impactful, clean and timeless design.

Copyright © 2025 Patricia Órdoñez | Rara Design. All Rights Reserved

I’m a brand and web designer with a passion for impactful, clean and timeless design.

Copyright © 2025 Patricia Órdoñez | Rara Design. All Rights Reserved

I’m a brand and web designer with a passion for impactful, clean and timeless design.

Copyright © 2025 Patricia Órdoñez | Rara Design. All Rights Reserved