The wake-up call
See if this sounds familiar. Your days always seem too short for the amount of work you set out to complete. To keep from falling behind, you constantly feel like you’re spending extra time trying to catch up. The time, however, winds up being less than productive, so now you’re right back where you started. Your creative energy is sapped, and your tank is empty. All the training you’ve ever had tells you to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep going. “You need to suck it up and keep going,” your inner voice commands. “Power on by whatever means necessary."
This is precisely what I did for years until, one day, I couldn’t anymore. My mind and body simply said, no. Unfortunately, I had absolutely no capacity for self-care in those days, and like a lot of other people, it seemed I was slowly and unproductively working myself to death. My body told me I needed to find another way, but unfortunately, my mind still refused to listen.
I’ll sleep when I’m dead
Like millions of others, I was taught that being busy was a virtue. What I wasn’t taught was what to do when physical, emotional, or mental burnout comes knocking. I’m a people pleaser, and what do people pleasers do? They work hard, often way harder than they should. True people-pleasers aren’t happy until everyone around them is happy first. So, while the right kind of busy is fine, too much is not because the one thing people pleasers rarely do is please themselves.