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5 Tips to Avoid RC Burnout.

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Just watched this, and I can certainly relate to most of it. Anyone else?

 

 

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I do relate to some of it, yes! Not just in RC but in other hobbies too. Interesting video actually.

Now... watching it with the image will make you want a boat, and airplane, a nitro buggy, etc lol

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More isn't better.  (Says me who is about to order yet another one.)

But seriously, I can remember building the Grasshopper like yesterday. Even the wrist cramp from too much screw drivering (is that a word?).  That was 1 out of 1 experience.  After 3 dozen, the share of the new experience is 1/37th.  The portion that's "new" gets smaller every time.  So for the people people who are new to the hobby, I'd say, I envy you. Savor the first few. 

 

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I really enjoyed that :) 

I've been close to burnout several times, Lockdown 1.0 allowed me to find what I really loved about the hobby (custom builds and being creative with new ideas), but I missed the social aspect of just going out and bashing around.

But in 2021 I'm feeling the burnout already of committing to too many events.  Already this year I've done 2 Tamiya Junkies meets and a round of the Iconic Cup at Carlisle - that's a huge amount of motoring, fuel costs, hotel costs and all the time spent getting the cars ready.  I've still got 3 more Iconic Cup rounds and the Iconic Revival, and no matter how much time I spent prepping my cars, they're still hard to drive and prone to break after less than a heat's distance.  So yeah, I'm really feeling the pressure of having taken on so much.  It's a form of burn-out I never thought I'd experience.

I've already promised myself that I'll take a step back from RC in 2022.  I'll still do my favourite things - Revival, if I can get a place, maybe a Junkies or two, the G6 and Scaler Nationals if they go ahead, but otherwise I'll limit my events to local crawls, stop racing and do at least one non-RC road trip, funds permitting, to see the parts of the country that I've skimmed past on my way to races.

There are plans to streamline my RC experience next year, as well as spend more time on my other hobbies, which have fallen by the wayside this year.  It's time to decide what I want the rest of my life to be about.

I'd say I'm having a mid-life crisis, but as I didn't have the opportunity to start a family until later in life, I can't really afford to have one :lol:

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Ironically I’ve been using rc to help me through burnout from work, but that’s just run ups debt, not huge but enough that it wears on my mind. Wasn’t a focus whilst I was in the midst of the project, but now it’s done it’s sitting there nagging away. 
 

I do want to take on the TD4 later in the year, but may need to operate on a one in one out basis to keep things sensible. 
 

all of that said it’s been a benefit for me these past few months, so I don’t want to burnout on this too. 

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I think I've experienced every one of those at some point. I guess I'm lucky that I experienced it early on, in my late teens, when I first gave up the hobby/sport (?) ,sold all my race cars and bought a 'real' car. Studied engineering in college, then trained as a car mechanic. I was only doing that a matter of weeks, before I realised the 'joy' of working /modifying my 1275GT had gone, so got a job doing something else, and went back to enjoying working on my 1275GT.

I know I've said on a few posts, joining a club is the best thing anyone can do, yeah they'll maybe be one or two you don't gell with, but most are total RC people, and love to talk RC, whether it's a lunchbox or a Laydown2.

 

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I'm guilty of a few of these. #2 is a big one for me relating to painting bodies. "Instead of feeling joy, you feel dread" pretty much sums up painting bodies, especially hard bodies, which is why I have a big stack to do. This leads to #3, in which I do treat painting like a job and not a hobby. I have to force myself to do anything other than a simple one-color lexan body paint job. I did stumble onto #4 at least which is why new stuff, outside of re-res, are not allowed in my house. New stuff, while technically interesting, is dead to me in operation. Aside from some Traxxas stuff (although technically, my Stampede and Bandit are very old designs) its the "old way" or the highway. As for #5, well, for the most part, I'm very alone aside from you guys. I'm pretty reclusive (the pandemic and lockdowns didn't really affect me. I haven't been anywhere in public except my work since March 2020) but I should interact with other RC folks. Of course, 1. being into RC, 2. being into vintage RC and 3. being mainly into Tamiya means that narrows downs compatible RC enthusiast here in the US  by a large margin. But its all good because I spend the vast majority of my time with my daughter anyway.

Its all ebb and flow for me so I'm not concerned with burnout. I know if I avoid the hobby room for 2 weeks that I'll be back at, full bore, soon enough. I don't like not being "into it" as thinking constantly about RC is my "safe place" where I go every spare minute. I'm very much "in my head" many times and like to have a subject there to "play around with" so to speak. I think I'm more concerned about the future to be honest. Kit prices are going up and US wages always seem to lag behind inflation. I've heard of some concept called a "cost of living" increase in pay, but I'll be darned if I've ever seen this in the wild. Tamiya has spat out just about every re-re that would interest me. Replacement parts can be an issue. Kyosho may be teetering. New items don't entice me because many aren't kits (though the SMT10 kit was a nice exception). Folks seem to want stupid amounts of money for restoration candidates on fleabay. All in all, I'm not sure how to proceed so I just play with the stock pile I've got, which isn't bad considering I'm running out of room anyway.

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I like the wood/metal display AMain uses with the glass shelf.   Very nice presentation.  I should get something like that for my home RC shop (display) down the road.  

I was also amazed at how many RTR kits are sold at a "hobby store".. boxes upon boxes of RTR.   You can tell I've not been to a real brick and mortar hobby shop in decades.  Quite has changed since I started back in the late 70's/early 80's.  RTR's were mostly sold at ToysR Us.

As for burning out, I don't 'burn out', but have different hobbies so I switch things around on occasion when I feel like it. 

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Can relate to this. I’ve been in and out the hobby a few times over the last quarter of a century.  This time round I was too busy messing with finding hop ups and trying to make that perfect car, probably wasted money buying and selling however, now I have way more fun using my time running them and finding bits/spares/hop ups as I go.  I reckon that because when I was younger theres was all those fancy kits I wanted that I couldn’t afford and no way my parents would be able to either, where as now moneys not really an issue regarding buying whatever whenever (10 year old pocket money v now decent salary) I think my next build I will ad hop ups as I go will make me more likely not to get fed up.  Each to their own I guess? 

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Being back to the hobby again, I've decided to try and stay focussed, and not order of a ton of old junkers to fix up/restore.

 

I'm making a list of all my current fleet, and what each one needs to get back to a running state, rather than having half dismantled bits arl ower.

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17 hours ago, Willy iine said:

I was also amazed at how many RTR kits are sold at a "hobby store".. boxes upon boxes of RTR.   You can tell I've not been to a real brick and mortar hobby shop in decades.  Quite has changed since I started back in the late 70's/early 80's.  RTR's were mostly sold at ToysR Us.

Agreed. It seemed completely unlike the hobby shops I knew. Aside from something like the Traxxas Cat, everything in  a hobby shop was a kit. Those kits were usually mounted on a wall or shelf behind the counter, not stacked like cordwood on the floor in various "islands". 

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I'm feeling this, having dived in head first (admittedly to budget RC cars like Radio shack and Tandy etc). The issue I have is the more you buy, the less special each one is. You end up with a huge list of projects, which either take up too much space, or would take much more £££ than they are worth to make work. As each car is pretty cheap (£5 - 20 for me) it's easy to add more.

Like many hobbies the advertisement and the push is buying more, not using what you have. You imagine that if only you had XXX then it'd be really amazing, but in reality the same happens again. There's always something shinier, better, more unique or rare.

The one good thing is that I've lost of a lot of that self consciousness of driving in the park - cars are noisy and take space, so I wouldn't do it on a  busy weekend, but these days I give much less of a ****.

Just need to cut down and give away a few things, so I've got a reasonable collection - nephews and nieces now have too many too.

Still, it's saved me from just watching TV in lockdown.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Seanster43 said:

 I reckon that because when I was younger theres was all those fancy kits I wanted that I couldn’t afford and no way my parents would be able to either, where as now moneys not really an issue regarding buying whatever whenever (10 year old pocket money v now decent salary) I think my next build I will ad hop ups as I go will make me more likely not to get fed up.  Each to their own I guess? 

I think you've hit on something here.

Most of us can now afford cars and a collection we could only dream of as kids. When you are used to having something once a Christmas or something the temptation to just buy and buy is high - especially as eBay has made finding new and used gear so easy.

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5 hours ago, Seanster43 said:

Can relate to this. I’ve been in and out the hobby a few times over the last quarter of a century.  This time round I was too busy messing with finding hop ups and trying to make that perfect car, probably wasted money buying and selling however, now I have way more fun using my time running them and finding bits/spares/hop ups as I go.  I reckon that because when I was younger theres was all those fancy kits I wanted that I couldn’t afford and no way my parents would be able to either, where as now moneys not really an issue regarding buying whatever whenever (10 year old pocket money v now decent salary) I think my next build I will ad hop ups as I go will make me more likely not to get fed up.  Each to their own I guess? 

 

3 hours ago, Nikko85 said:

I think you've hit on something here.

Most of us can now afford cars and a collection we could only dream of as kids. When you are used to having something once a Christmas or something the temptation to just buy and buy is high - especially as eBay has made finding new and used gear so easy.

I am very mindful of this across all my hobbies. When I was young buying a computer game or an RC car was a huge deal. If it turned out to be a turkey I made the most of it and played with it or played it to death. Now I can buy what ever I want I stick to "keeping it real" and playing with it to death or moving it on. I do have too many things but not "too too many".

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Yeah, 100% of the computer game thing. I remember playing Sonic 3 and completing with all characters, then all characters as two player. It was about a year's worth of gaming. Now I play one, and if it's doesn't grab me I just get another, or go back to New Vegas and Elder Scrolls!

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I didn't actually watch the video; just scrolled through and read the title cards. I don't need to watch an eight-minute ad for A Main Hobbies to tell me stuff I already know... except the "alone" thing. My enjoyment drops by orders of magnitude when I have to drive with other people, I have found. Other people's mileage may vary, but I greatly prefer when it's just me and my car.

And is anyone else irrationally angered by the use of "R/C" as a verb?

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i got 2 bodies for my TT02 to paint and cut. i cant seem to find the energy to trim and paint the body.  the Manta body also needs paint but i have a useful excuse that i only paint when the body post placement is confirmed. even reinforcing all my bodies with fiber tape and shoe goo is a chore. even the lunchbox has that useful excuse for painting.

i dont mind some mileage to bring my RC but if there is no useful area to run it then im less likely to do it again.

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Biggest thing that worked for me, getting fired from the LHS I worked for over a 15 year period and getting into the customer service side of a call center job, then spending the last 15mo getting to do that from home. Also worked for my plastic model habit too!

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16 hours ago, markbt73 said:

I didn't actually watch the video; just scrolled through and read the title cards. I don't need to watch an eight-minute ad for A Main Hobbies to tell me stuff I already know... except the "alone" thing. My enjoyment drops by orders of magnitude when I have to drive with other people, I have found. Other people's mileage may vary, but I greatly prefer when it's just me and my car.

It's completely the opposite for me (bit I get your point).  Quite often I'll throw some crawlers into the van and drive out to the woods (even now I'm getting excited about the thought of running my CFX-W at lunch) but it's the same every time - I get there, turn on the car, run about 5 minutes and get bored.  I really need a) a challenging track and 2) some good conversation to make a crawling trip worthwhile.  I've neglected ad-hoc local crawls in favour of national vintage race events this year and I think that's contributing to my burnout.

Likewise, driving cars around my garden gets old after 2 minutes, unless my daughter is chasing them around.  I built some ramps specifically to run my own one-man monster truck race championship during lockdown but a combination of wet weather, unfinished cars and lack of motivation meant I never set up the track.

16 hours ago, markbt73 said:

And is anyone else irrationally angered by the use of "R/C" as a verb?

Everything is getting verbed these days.  It seems verbing is the next direction for the language.  Even verb has been verbed.

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Nothing new here, but it's nice to hear others have the same experience I do. It always amazes me how I can visit my LHS and see the same people, regardless of the season. How do they not burn out?!

In the winter I race indoor carpet off-road (buggy, stadium truck, short course, I've got them all). If I start in November, I'm tired of the routine by ~March. By then I switch back to my "daily drivers" (Blackfoot re-release, Bruiser, and TXT-1) and just drive for fun outdoors when I'm not hoarding resto-projects.

For the last 4 years my collection went from ~5-6 cars total, to around 60 - with 50 of them being shelf-queen restorations or re-releases. Initially it was a ton of fun to re-discover cars I drooled over as a kid (Hilux Monster Racer, King Blackfoot, Dirt Thrasher, Kyosho Hi-Rider 2, Tracker, etc), but now I find myself scrolling through ebay thinking: "Hm, I don't have one of those yet" which is a very different feeling than "OMG I ALWAYS WANTED ONE OF THOSE!"

At this moment, I have a Super Saber to finish and a Super-G Grasshopper 2 to restore, but when they're done - I think I might take a break from the collecting. Take more walks, do more grilling, sit on the deck and have more quiet moments than rushing home from work to tinker because "I want to bang this one out."

Mix it up, add variety, and remember that the moment you stop looking forward to the journey and start looking to the destination - it's time to make a change. The excitement will come back, and the projects will be there when you're ready.

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It's like anything - too much of it creates boredom.  Some people can do the same thing over and over and never get bored.

I have too many hobbies which is a good thing, I never get bored of them.  I just rotate to whatever I'm feeling.

-80s BMX

-R/C

-Bonsai Trees

-Photography

-Traveling

-DJing

-Computers

-Pour over coffee 

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