Is it Holiday Burnout or Regular Burnout? (PT 2)
We answered this question in our last post. And now that we know the answer is probably both, what can you do about it?
One thing we like to remind people to do is to work less hard. We are all programmed to overdeliver. We compete from an early age in the school system and within our own families in order to stand out and be seen, often based upon achievements rather than the inherent worth in merely existing.
Our culture has gone so far in the direction of ‘give everything 100%’ that we don’t know how to pull back.
doing less is a muscle you don’t use
Doing less starts with a practice of working less hard that can feel foreign to most of us. Instead of the ingrained behavior of overproducing, what if you said, ‘I can be okay with doing fine.’
Does even reading that phrase set off alarm bells in your mind or body? If so, that’s a pretty good indicator that you could use some practice in reigning in the overdeliver mentality.
““Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, So what. That’s one of my favorite things to say. So what.””
Getting something done rather than seeking perfection is an idea we’ve proposed here before. You might be able to apply it to most facets of your life, abandoning the burdensome and unrealistic goal of productivity like a through-line down your to-do list.
That might feel impossible. And if so, try selecting a few tasks that need to be done rather than perfect: cleaning the house, your fitness regimen, mundane tasks at work.
You also might schedule some small sessions of slowness and intentional stillness throughout your week. Times when the expectation is to get nothing done. These will feel more restorative and less like a crash if you add mindfulness into this time. We have a buffet of self-care rituals that help support your foray into the art of doing nothing, from self-care snacks in the form of bundles to more encompassing carebox themes.
If stillness it itself sounds horrible to you, make these increments extremely small. Three to five minutes of breathing, of a restorative posture, bullet journaling. You can find journaling prompts on our Instagram page, many of them just poking around at what your rest relationship looks like.
IdylHour co-founder (and yoga teacher) Alexis is hosting a Yoga for Burnout workshop on Saturday, December 17. You can sign up here. And, everyone who makes an IdylHour purchase this week will receive a code to attend the workshop for FREE.