Suggestions on how to mitigate/push through burnout
I'm in the process of taking as many auditions as I can afford, but time is limited due to work and life. I'm already exhausted when I start practicing, but getting any work done after hours 4-5 is futile.
Working life means I need practical strategies to keep total collapse at bay, but to not take time off altogether. Sleep hacks, diet routines, time management strategies are welcome.
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Typically the only candidates who can “afford” to take every audition are graduate students, recent grads turned freelancers, training orchestra fellows, etc. These are people who have no family obligations, no day job - they are basically full-time auditioners, and it’s no accident that they tend to win most of the jobs available. Everyone struggles with time and energy management, but it sounds like you are not in this boat if your “work” is such a major time and energy drain on you. If you are already exhausted when you start practicing, you are probably engraining bad habits in your technique and not improving steadily because your attention and focus are so sapped.
If you can’t afford to drastically cut back on any work and other obligations that are not vitally necessary to your survival, then you probably cannot (and should not) try to take every audition. You should be much more selective, prepare for only one at a time, and use a much more elongated preparation period (maybe 4 months instead of 2). This means you might only take a max of 3 or 4 auditions in a year. This means fewer opportunities to win one, but it should also mean you will be fresher and better prepared for the ones you do take. All the folks I know who won big jobs later in life managed to navigate this.
You can either be a full-time auditioner, working the bare minimum to pay bills and practicing the rest of the day, or you can be a worker who is a part-time auditioner. Success is possible in either scenario, but you can’t be both.