What to Do When We Feel Burned Out

REACHING MY PERSONAL LIMIT

Heads up: You may begin to notice I’ll be quieter here. Why? Well, I’ve made the intentional decision to scale back to posting a blog once a month instead of once a week, along with cancelling my Paring Down subscription membership on Instagram because of our big move to Alaska.

This will come as a shock to no one, but I need more margin in my schedule. As you can imagine, I’m juggling approximately 4 million balls with the logistics of the whole upending-my-family-and-relocating-4000-miles-away-to-a-remote-island thing. And it’s not worth running myself into the ground…not to mention that would be a wee bit hypocritical given all that I share about slowing down and decluttering not only our homes, but our schedules.

What will I be keeping? A weekly podcast episode & newsletter, along with content on social media. The goal is just to prioritize the essentials, and let go or scale back the rest!

Adjust your output and your input

We all go through seasons where our capacity—whether it’s emotional, mental, or physical—is stretched thin. And when that happens, we have to make choices about what’s worth our energy and what’s not. We may even have to scale back things we’re passionate about, and trust that we can rev back up when the tides once again shift in our favor.

Sometimes, that even means adjusting our capacity to take in information or be productive.

For example, I recently tried to read Onyx Storm, a heavy book about warfare and dragons. Is the premise a bit ridiculous? Well, yes – but that doesn’t mean it’s not a lot. Normally, that type of fantasy would captivate me, but about 100 pages in, I realized I was forcing myself to get through it…and why? Seems silly for my leisure activity of reading to be a slog.

At first, I blamed myself, like I wasn’t prioritizing well, or was getting too distracted by my phone. But then I realized that because my mental load is heavier right now, my brain was simply saying, “Can we go for something a little easier?”

So, I picked up The Rom Commers instead. And you know what? It’s giving me exactly what I need: lightness, relaxation, and an escape that feels easy rather than effortful. I’m traveling this week and instead of bringing one of the non-fiction books in my TBR pile or planning on listening to podcasts on the plane, I went to the library and checked out another rom-com. Because my brain needs less information right now – and that’s okay!

THERE’S WISDOM IN SCALING BACK

All of this is to say, I hope you enjoy the blog posts that will be coming out once a month. But more importantly, let this be your sign to slow down however you need to, too.

Scaling back isn’t a failure. It’s wisdom. And I hope to keep setting that example here.