How to avoid burnout and be grateful/not complacent?

Strewth.

When we become teens, we enter the idiot stage. Start doing really stupid things. We have intelligence, but we cannot use it. Somewhere in our late teens, when we are alone in the dark, the inner demon starts torturing us. Every stupid thing we do, the demon plays that scene over and over in our mind. So, we drink heavy. We overeat. We do drugs. We try to keep our mind occupied with tv or video games or music. But the demo is always there waiting to escape, and when the demon escapes, we lose it.

One day in the gym, I looked into a mirror and saw the demon. He looked like a version of me with all of my strengths and none of my weaknesses (impatient and quick tempered and hotheaded, stupid and shy around girls).

“The demon replays my Fups in hopes that I learn what the heck I am doing wrong. You have to figure out what you are doing wrong in order to fix ANY issues. Perhaps I should listen instead of attempting to drown him out. What is it that I am supposed to learn?”

Self-Control through self discipline. It’s like unlocking a cheat code in a video game or dyno tuning your mind for maximum performance and efficiency.

If someone can piss you off, they can control you. Negative people are actually trying to control you. Fear mongers do the same. And then every third commercial on the TV or radio is about food. Don’t get me wrong, I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE me some home cooked food, but not to the point to where food controls me.

Bathe. Put on fresh clothes. Dress nicely. It helps tremendously to put you in a positive light. You will notice every time you see your reflection.

 

I don’t do any social media
Not face space not Twitter not Instagram not Reddit not anything except industry forums like this or forums for the antique cars I own.

i also do NOT watch or listen to any news on the radio tv or internet .

it’s all bad news and designed to upset you so you will click the link or watch the screen just a few seconds longer , and since the internet has made it possible for division and disagreement to be monetized and made profitable , every news story is slanted to make you upset or just be an echo chamber .
Oh and Dennis Prager is a great guy and has lots of interesting pods and YouTube’s

the easiest way to help yourself feel grateful is to help someone who is a lot worse off than you are .

find a family or recent legal immigrants from another country and help them someway. When you realize how poor they are and how terrible the conditions were that made them want to leave their home country , you will feel more grateful .
And as the others have said
Don’t let your job rule your entire life .
While it’s true we all have to do something to earn a living , you shouldn’t work a job you don’t like and don’t find any fulfillment and enjoyment in doing .

 

Well, I have policies for my drivers to follow, a few work to their advantage even though most hate them, I’ll list a couple.

first and most important is your license is a license to learn, don’t take it for granted. If you want to make more money you are to learn more and be more of an asset to the carrier and to the customer so take time out to work at learning to be more professional and better driver/business manager.

the second and almost as important is get good habits through routines. Routines are easy to create habits for your brain to go use. I learned from a old time (prop) cargo pilot why there were check lists and he taught me how to apply that to my life (life hack?), make a list and use it for at least two weeks on a specific task build a habit, never do the task without one. This builds your habit to the point that you follow that routine easier and tend not to forget things.

third is really something that is a pia, take time off. That means no matter what you are doing, you could be on a winning streak and making so much money, you don’t want to stop, YOU HAVE TO STOP, get away from the truck and do something not related to the truck or business is a must. This allows your mind to reset, to regain a sanatorium you need in order to avoid burnout, and burnout can destroy a good thing.

 

Perfect.

 

You won't worry about feeling entitled after you get out here, especially in the city if you do P&D. Here's what you will deal with. Finding a spot to put your pallet jack on a 14 stop liftgate. Mine is turned on its side between two pallets.

Next you will be getting into very difficult spots that aren't meant for a truck. Blindsiding around dropped trailers, dumpsters, etc with a 48 or 53 footer


Or you may drive thru a parking lot of cars and have to back thru a maze and back around a building..

Then there is the sketchy freight you will be delivering and trying not to get hurt. Here are two supersacks of mulch, 4100 lbs and you have to get it off the truck using your liftgate and pallet jack with no help.

Ever imagine yourself parked in the middle of the street downtown with a 53 foot trailer breaking down a skid? You will.

Or maybe parked on the side of a two lane highway delivering residential on a 53 footer? Yep, you will do that too.


And you will learn to ask other drivers if your customers have a dock or not so you can put certain frieght on the tail end so a forklift can get to it. Otherwise you will be bringing it back to rework your whole trailer because you can't work around it.


I'm not discounting what other people have said, but this is the reality of your coming job. And I am just scratching the surface. You will be earning every dollar you make so the entitlement feeling will fade quickly.

Your best advice will come from the city drivers you work with, they know what you are dealing with every day.

 

@High Stepper didn't mention all this may have to be completed in sweltering temperatures.

After 8 years at ODFL, team with my wife mainly, but I ran solo a few weeks, I learned a few things.

The husband and wife teams kept to themselves mostly - and had little interaction with terminal gossip - we were simply gone working and rarely crossed paths with others.

The city/P&D guys were the most cheerful, problem solver, hustle without whining workers.

The meet and turn guys - those on a very set schedule, were the odd ones out. If anything was slightly off that day, late leaving the yard, mechanical issue etc - it would RUIN their day. I guessed it was because of the repetition of the job, same roads, same time, same people day in, day out. They were the most butthurt about seniority and who got time off , and everybody else business.

The one guy that I went out to 'orientate' with when we first worked there had the right attitude. Woody was his name. He turned up, absolutely DID NOT waste any time with idle chatter, got the job done and left. Always cheerful, but no room in his head for negativity or anything that prevented him getting back every day and going home.

He also won the company weight loss challenge, not that he was a big guy - by running, fasting and dieting - so he was a pretty focused dude.

If you're going to be like anyone - be like Woody.

P.S. - Look at it was a stepping stone, we left and I bought a truck, and never looked back. Great company, but the mentality, being a number, watching how poorly they treated females in the operation - don't miss being an employee.

It was cemented on our last run. People we'd known for 8 years, and they barely looked up or were interested as we told them it'd be the last time we'd see them.

Make the most of it for YOU.

 

What's a DDC program??

 

Dock to driver training program. You go out with a trainer, doing lots of driving on a pad, backing into coned spots, going through cities and getting on some tough docks, putting doubles together and pulling sets around.

Upon graduation you ultimately start in the city on P&D with another trainer unless a road spot is open running terminal to terminal or meet ups. etc