Chief Delphi, I’m in need of advice.
With the coming build season, I’m about enter my ninth year of FRC, and sixth year of mentoring.
Over the past few years, I have found that my exhaustion at the end of build season has increased steadily, to what I think is a likely unhealthy level. Let me summarize briefly:
Three years ago was my first time mentoring two teams and taking classes at the same time. It was tiring, but my role on both teams was limited and I came out of the end of competition season feeling tired but satisfied, intending to do more the next year.
Two years ago, my mentoring role on one of the teams increased greatly, and I took more classes. By the end of build season, I was thoroughly exhausted. At the end of spring break (all of which I spent working on a practice bot), I essentially spent three days in bed. At the end of competition season, I wanted to see/hear/do nothing related to robotics for the better part of two months. Somehow, miraculously, my grades were alright despite doing essentially no homework and missing lots of class. I resolved never to do that again, and not to increase my mentoring responsibilities moving forward.
Last year, despite my best efforts, my mentoring role on both teams increased (again). I did not take classes during the spring semester, because it might have killed me. The “I am saturated and do not want to see/hear/do robotics for a long while” point was reached about halfway through competition season. I was just as tired at the end of the whole thing as I was the year before, despite not having taken any classes. I shudder at the thought of what would have happened if I had.
Now, I’ve graduated, and another build season is almost here. Next year, I will likely not be doing FRC - at least, not with these teams, since I will be in grad school and won’t be here.
I suppose what I want to ask, after all of that, is how one decides what a healthy amount of involvement is and how one feasibly sticks to such a limit. I do not want to repeat the mental and physical toll of my last two years of mentoring. I also do not want to stop entirely, because I love FRC and care a lot about the teams that I mentor. Presently, I feel like I have no idea how to actually reduce my involvement. I show up to meetings, I see things that look like they won’t be done if I do not invest myself in them, and I feel obligated to do so. I can’t be the only one who struggles with this, and hopefully some other mentors who have dealt with similar issues can weigh in.
I feel reasonably certain that if I do not do something, the trend will continue and I’ll burn out even earlier this year.
Any and all advice is welcome.