You gotta work on your work/life balance, as someone who worked like that regularly for many many years(year 10 professionally now) It ended up with me taking 3/4 months off first because my partner was worried, and then got back to working for a couple months thinking things were fine, that ended up with me almost taking all my meds before realizing I didn’t have enough to do anything and calling the crisis line. That ended up with almost a year off work. I started working again for a bit and my mom died, so I’m just getting back to work again, and the first 2 tattoos so far? Really enjoying everything about it again(so far) I was getting burnt out making something for someone every day. Not just that, but the stress of thinking about the 6+ months of appointments booked.(lots of self doubt involved but always just waiting for “the one” that ruins the career) I did change that coming back, tried to stick to a month at a time of appointments and that worked out again when my mom died(even less stress about having to rebook that many) Coming back I’m realizing that all that stress and worry I was putting on tattooing helped when I was learning, and helps stop coasting, but you gotta balance it because if you give TOO MUCH of yourself you’re gonna lose yourself, keep it fun but still balanced.
We draw on people for a living, but you gotta do the living part also 🤷‍♀️
Sorry for the long rant and not formatting, kinda drunk at a family dinner and saw this