Comment by shoo
Jennifer Senior wrote a great piece back in 2006 about burnout [1] titled "Can’t Get No Satisfaction". It's worth reading the whole thing. Here are some fragments that stuck with me:
> we think of burnout as the gap between expectations and rewards
> happiness equals reality divided by expectations
> level of caring couldn’t be sustained in the absence of results
How have you been framing your side project? Is your side project intended to be a business? If so, what outputs is the business achieving (revenue, profit, your effective hourly wage as the owner operator)? Dispassionately, is it doing well enough commercially that it makes sense to continue to pursue this business?
In the case where this side project has not been achieving sufficient commercial results, and has been falling short of your expectations and the goals you set yourself, is it possible that your resistance to continuing working on the side project is because subconsciously your body has decided it is not a good use of additional time and energy?
It could be beneficial and healthy if you could give yourself a long break from thinking and focusing on your side project, to get your brain out of this habit of focusing on the side project and give it the opportunity to think and focus on some new things, or just to rest.
From my experience (not with side projects but with job related burnout) consider taking a holiday from it, get lots of sunlight and exercise, spend time with friends and family, pick up a new hobby or resume an old hobby that gives you some immediate enjoyment in the moment. It may take months for your habitual thinking patterns to adjust, but once your thinking patterns change you may have a very different perspective on the situation.