The week that completely broke me
How week 20 fell apart and taught me something real.
By Wednesday, I was in pain.
I hadn’t slept well for days. My tooth hurt like hell. My energy was gone.
I started gaming for hours to distract myself. For days, I made zero progress.
It scared me how fast I went from momentum to emptiness.
The mid-week breakdown
From Wednesday to Saturday, I hit one of my lowest points in the past six months.
After school, whatever little energy I had left just faded away. It wasn’t only physical — it was a mix of pressure, self-doubt, and exhaustion.
I couldn’t even touch the Daily Learner AI this week. Literally zero progression.
The only bright spot was Substack: From Zero to Stack passed 60 subscribers, which blows my mind — you guys are awesome for showing up even when I can’t.
I also had some smaller breakthroughs on my Discord project, Potential Hub (I made a working bot with little to no experience!), but I had to delay the launch.
These days made me realize:
Even the best systems collapse when the person behind them breaks.
Then I found my reset button
On Sunday, I finally had my first deep work session in days (I wrote my previous post). By then, I felt noticeably better, and control slowly started to return.
I made 2 key decisions to avoid future burnouts like this:
Power naps. I’d been skipping them for weeks, but now I treat them as a legit task, part of my day (not the scrolling kind — actual rest)
About gaming. I set some clear rules: no more mindless sessions. Just a few times during school breaks or free classes, 10-20 minutes max. per day.
These are small rules, but they’ll be my new way to protect focus and energy.
What I learned from this setback
This week didn’t bring growth, but it brought clarity.
It showed me what breaks me, and ways to prevent it next time.
If you remember one thing from this post, let it be this:
Pain reveals the weak spots you need to fix before you can grow.
If you’ve ever had a week like this, share it. Let’s normalize rebuilding from burnouts.
This week didn’t push me forward, but it made me stronger for the next one.
See you then,
— Zoli
I’ve been there too — and it broke me down for a full week.
Back in my early Substack days, everything felt slow. My growth flatlined, I was losing followers on X, and mentally I was drained.
The truth? I was burned out.
Barely sleeping.
Losing focus.
Nothing I created felt good enough, and I couldn’t do anything meaningful online.
But that week forced clarity.
I finally understood why things weren’t working the way they did before. I had to push myself to do what mattered, when it mattered. I had to upgrade my “operating system” — cut procrastination and take action again.
Because at the end of the day, the effort is worth it.
Share this is really strong, Zoli. I can see that you’ve got a lot of potential. I wanna wish you good luck on your journey! And, from time to time I would like to connect as well.