If You’ve Been Feeling Off, Exhausted, and Unmotivated Lately… Listen to This

If you feel like you’re doing everything right—but you’re exhausted, overwhelmed, and starting to lose motivation… this episode is for you.

In today’s episode, I’m breaking down the burnout cycle I see in so many high-achieving women (and honestly, something I just caught myself slipping back into again).

Because here’s the truth:
It’s not that you need more discipline.
It’s not that you’re lazy.
And it’s definitely not that you’re “not doing enough.”

You’re likely doing too much… without the right structure, recovery, and awareness.

We’re talking about:

• The early warning signs of burnout most women ignore
• What burnout actually does to your body (hormones, fat loss, muscle, energy)
• Why “pushing harder” makes everything worse
• The all-or-nothing mindset that keeps you stuck in this cycle
• How to stay ambitious WITHOUT running yourself into the ground
• The exact shifts you need to keep progressing while actually feeling good

If you’re someone who:
– Has big goals
– Loves working hard
– But constantly feels overwhelmed, tired, or like you’re falling behind

This episode will help you understand what’s really going on—and how to fix it.

Because you don’t need to stop being driven…
You just need to learn how to work with your body instead of against it.

—

If this episode helped you, share it with a friend who needs to hear it 💛
And if you’re struggling with burnout, hormones, or feeling stuck in your progress, send me a message on Instagram @lainijojo — I’d love to help point you in the right direction.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey ladies, welcome back to Her Revival. I'm Lainey if you're new here, and today is a topic that I need as much as you need to, because I literally just caught myself doing this again. I've had a lot of experience with this, so we got a lot to talk about here. It's this pattern that I see in myself and so many women that either women that I've worked with or just have been friends with who, especially if they really value maybe like fitness goals, or especially if it's like with work, uh, their career, or maybe they're also building a business, an entrepreneur, uh, maybe they also have like a family, they just have a lot of things on their plate and big goals. And they're just this high achieving, big goals, high standard. Like you want a lot out of your life. And because of that, you know, this tendency to just go all in. Like once you decide you want something, you're like, okay, let's go. And you just start stacking everything on your plate, like running full steam ahead towards that goal. Like just a full-on freaking sprint. Like very much. I've also noticed for myself I have a bit of an addictive personality, kind of all or nothing. Just very like, I want something, like I'm going for it. And it serves us in a lot of ways, but we just have to learn how to manage it better, is what I found. So I'd be doing more and adding more and trying to optimize everything and just being productive as heck in every second of my day because I had so many things that I was trying to do. And like you feel like you're kind of making progress because you're so busy and you're doing all the things and you're like hustling and pushing. But then there's a point when that kind of just it just kind of flips a little bit. And you, I literally just caught myself getting to that point again. But because I've gone through it and just struggled so bad with it before, which I'll talk about later, I was able to catch it earlier. Like I was starting to recognize that I was doing it, and then the physical signs started coming up, and I was able to be like, okay, we need to, we need to change, we need to shift gears here because I'm not going back to where I was before. That was literal hell. It was so bad. Um, I had so many things, though, that I was trying to do so many things that I wanted to like focus on, improve, and I just kept adding more. And whether that was like with fitness or with work or some other things that I'm doing back end and helping my husband with business and my other endeavors and just then other stuff out, a lot of other things, you guys. Like I just always envision it, you know, like the like when someone's like spinning plates or like juggling balls, it's like I had way too many things I was trying to go, and I was like, I'm about to start dropping things left and right because I just can't keep up with all of this. And I started noticing that I was not sleeping as much. Like I was not getting as much sleep because I was kind of shortening those hours. My body was waking me up. My body didn't want to sleep, and I was having to stay up late to do work or to even just spend time with my husband, honestly, because I was working so late and I'd still get up early and was feeling pretty tired, and then I was relying on a little bit more caffeine. I have gone through phases of this and I was not as bad as I was before. I did have a phase where I was using about a gram of caffeine every day. And just like for context, it's like energy drinks and coffee is in milligrams. So if it's like a hundred milligrams of caffeine or two, like a gram is a thousand milligrams. Like that's not okay. So if anyone's doing close to that, please don't. Like your body's not happy with you. Um, but I wasn't sleeping as much, I was using a more caffeine. I wasn't able to be consistent with my workouts just because my recovery was not good from all of that. And if I did have a workout, like I just didn't feel good because I wasn't recovered and I didn't have energy. And I wasn't making time for just like connections and people because I had so many other like things I was trying to juggle and make time for. I like I didn't, I wasn't texting people back. Like, I don't know if you guys do, but I'm just like, you can't reach me. I'm like just trying to, I'm drowning in all my things right now, and I'm losing energy and losing scene. Because for a little bit, like I can do all of it. Like I can juggle all the balls, I can spin all the plays. And then some of them start to drop or just spin a little bit slower. And motivation starts to drip, like drift down a little bit. And you're like, I had this drive and this passion, and now I'm like, I don't know if I even want to do anything at all. Like, why am I doing any of this? And that's not normal for me to like not want to be motivated and driven and like super ambitious. Like, that's like my biggest red flag, honestly, which is like I notice the physical symptoms now or like before, uh, whereas before I was just kind of pushed through. But like now, the biggest thing that I notice where I'm like, I need to absolutely hit the brakes here and like just figure out a different path, is when my motivation starts to drop. Whether it's my motivation for training, my motivation for work, um, or me wanting to like actually go be social and go do things. And there are definitely seasons, I will say, where especially if you own your own business or just like anything with work or stuff too, like you have a season where maybe your focus and your priorities are work or something. So you're not doing as many social things. Like I think that's absolutely okay. Like there's seasons for it. But if it's like a I wouldn't let myself at all, and it's just kind of getting to that point, then I can tell, like, okay, I'm really secluding myself because I'm not giving myself time or capacity for anything outside of just these goals. And I think there needs to be a little bit more of a balance because you do get to that burnout point. Like if you can tell that that's where it's getting to, um, being able, like, I want to help you guys kind of see some of these warning signs and like how to navigate it differently. Cause I want to talk about like what burnout actually feels like because a lot of people, I don't think a lot of people fully understand burnt out. Like you'll you'll kind of feel like, oh, I'm kind of burnt out. But like you can feel like kind of burnt out, like kind of just like meh, or you can have like physical, like literal burnout, where it's like, I don't even want to want to know if they could call it clinical burnout, but it's like like physically, your body is burnt out, not just like I mentally feel like I need a weekend off or a vacation or something. So it's not just like I'm kind of tired kind of thing. Your body and your brain just straight up, they're just like giving you the middle finger. They're like, I you've been pushing me way too hard, way too long. I have not gotten time to actually rest and recover. I literally cannot keep going at this speed. Like I'm done. Like I'm giving out on you right now. So your sleep is off. Your digestion, at least for me, if you got a sensitive digestion system, I'm so sorry if you get to this point. Bro, your digestive system is not okay. Um, you're so inflamed, your recovery sucks, you've got no energy, you're not building muscle the same, your body composition can even start to feel worse. And mentally, you are just for ride. Like, you don't have the same drive, you feel so overwhelmed, so anxious, so stressed. Yeah, you kind of lose for me at least. I kind of lose the vision of like what I was even going for in the first place of where, like what I was so motivated for. I'm like, I don't even like, I can't even see that vision anymore. Where it just gone. And you're just absolutely exhausted. Like physically and mentally, you're just like, I just don't have anything to give right here. And then you start putting, or at least for me, putting more pressure because you're like, what's wrong with me? I just need to be more disciplined. I just need to push harder. I just need to figure out a different schedule to be more productive or work longer because I'm not being as productive in the hours that I'm doing. I'm just not doing enough. I need to be more disciplined. Oh my gosh, if I had a dollar for every time I ever said that about myself, or I've had a client who she's told me that, and I can tell she's at this point. Like, that is so common for us high-achieving people. We're like, I just need more, I need to be more disciplined, I need to be more productive, I just need to like work harder, work longer, whatever it is. But like that just makes it worse. Like, that's not what our body needs right now. And that's what I'm saying. Like, it's a great thing that we have big goals and big ambitions, and we're like so high achieving, but we just gotta learn how to like wrangle that in a little bit and use it to our advantage. Because if we don't, it just continues running forward and it's just like dragging us by the ears because we we couldn't we couldn't get it to slow down when we needed it to and like control it a little bit better. And a lot of this comes from that like all in personality. Like, you don't do things halfway. Your default is always like do more, push harder, keep going, like be productive, keep working hard, like hustle, and like because there's a lot of pleasure that comes from working hard for a goal. Like, I don't know about you guys, but like I love working hard. I love having a plan, I love making progress, I love checking things off. Like, it feels good to know that like you put in this effort and like something came out of it. Like that that feels amazing. I don't like to not be like doing things and going forward. Like this is part of my personality. And I think there's also an identity piece to it. Like being productive, being disciplined, being someone who goes after things, that's a part of who you are. Like, at least for me, like I was always like from a young kid, I was always told like I'm so hardworking, um, I'm so like disciplined, like I'm so like I just always have these big goals. Like I've been told that I was like that too. So like I feel like I'm like that, and I was praised for being like that. So that is so wrapped up in my identity. And I don't think that those are bad things. But if I can't do anything else, because I'm like, I'm only this, that's where it's a problem. Like I think they're great traits, but they can't be your only traits when you have to know when to like flip them off sometimes. Like they can't be always running the show where they kind of run you ragged. So slowing down when you're like that, I don't know if you guys can relate this, but slowing down feels really uncomfortable. Like I was talking with my mom about this on the phone because she's the same way. Like, I definitely get it from her. Where like her just sitting down is like she would never do that. I would remember when we were young, she wasn't an elementary principal. And I don't know if you guys like know a lot about that, but like she was just, she was phenomenal, like everybody loved her, but just from the minute she woke up, she's like going, gets to school, like does all the things for everybody, and like she was phenomenal at her job and just so much on her plate. She like didn't have other assistant principals to help her out. So like she's she's doing the most at work, very demanding physically and mentally with what she's doing. And then she gets home and she's got three kids, and she's doing stuff for us. She's like cleaning up and cooking and doing whatever and all the things. And finally, by the end of the night, I would remember I would see her. She'd finally sit down on her chair and she'd eat something with her magazine and like watch TV. And that was her one time to like actually just sit and relax during the day. And so I say all of that because like I feel like that's a great example of even if you're not into doing it like with fitness or you're not doing it with building a business or whatever, like just even like doing stuff for your family, doing stuff with like where you work at, like pushing yourself so hard, but doing stuff for everybody and not like really letting yourself rest. Like that wasn't it was it would be kind of weird if I would see her just kind of chill and rest and like not be doing all of the things. And now she's finally like, I'll let myself just sit and relax at times. Um, now that she's like, I actually can chill a little bit here. And I think it's also helpful that us kids aren't at home anymore and um all that, but I digress. So I kind of saw that example of just push and go and hustle and like just take charge and like do all the things, girl boss, whatever. And again, I think it's amazing and I'm so grateful to have that example, but I think none of us are really taught how to balance this. So I actually let myself rest because it feels so uncomfortable to let ourselves rest because our identity is in working hard and achieving and being successful and being helpful to others and all those kinds of things. And the slowing down is like not a part of that identity. It like goes against that, takes away time from doing those. And we're like, no, like it feels like you're doing something wrong. And then the thing is, though, is like mentally it our brain is gonna trick us and say, like, you need to keep pushing and hustling and like you don't have time to just rest or relax, like you got to keep going. But your body, it doesn't care about your goals like that. Your body doesn't care what your brain is gonna try to tell you to do, your body just responds to stress. And if you keep stacking stress, like especially training and work and lack of sleep and pounding caffeine and not having time to like fuel your body properly, or just turn your brain off sometimes and let your body just relax sometimes. At some point, your body's gonna push back. So, what happens is you go all in, you push and push and push, and you ignore the signals of what your body's giving you, and then you burn out, and then you're forced to stop. And now you are feeling kind of anxious because you feel like you're behind and you feel like you're not doing enough. So as soon as you start to feel a little better, you go right back into doing everything again, and then you just keep repeating that cycle. And the problem is it doesn't actually get you to your goals any faster because when you're in that state, you don't feel good or function like that version of you that you want to be, to do the things as best as you could, because you're not performing well, you're not thinking clearly, you're not executing at a high level, and you're physically your body's not in a spot to respond the way that you want it to. So, like if you've got body composition goals like building muscle, losing body fat, staying lean, being super stressed and under-recovered and running on caffeine or not getting enough sleep or not managing your stress and the anxiety that comes from all that, that is a terrible environment for your body to give a crap about building muscle or losing body fat or any of those things. Because your body is sensing stress. Your body doesn't know a difference between if it's stress because you are overworking yourself or you're not allowing yourself to take rest days, whether that's from work or from working out, or if you have a freaking tiger chasing you. Think back to like caveman hunter-gatherer days, and the stress is like the thing chasing you, and your body's like, holy crap, we don't know if we can survive right now. And we can't focus on anything other than survival. It doesn't care about anything other than that. So everything else is kind of put on pause. But the thing is with that, that was short term. You hopefully got away from that tiger chasing you or whatever the stressor was back then, and your body could rest and come back to baseline and recuperate and keep going forward. But when we do this to ourselves and we husher, hustle and put pressure and grind and go and go and go and go and force and don't let ourselves rest, at some point our body's like, holy shit, we've been so stressed for so long. Like, we we got all this stuff. It doesn't care about good digestion. So when you're super stressed, because that is a stress on your body, you're not letting it rest. You're like, we need to keep going because it is a threat for us to stop. It is an absolute threat if we slow down right now and we need to keep going. Like it is not okay. That's why it feels so uncomfortable and just not okay to stop. Like we don't let ourselves do it because we're perceiving it as this threat. So what happens then is our body's in that threat mode, just like the thing chasing you, but it can't come back down because you don't let it come back down. You don't give it those signals that it's like, hey, we're actually okay now. Like it's gone. We can catch our breath, we can relax, like we can just live our life a little bit, like we're okay. So we have that stress. You guys know your stress hormone is cortisol. Cortisol is chronically elevated, it is up. That is being produced by your adrenal glands, which are these cute little things that sit on top of your kidneys and they produce that cortisol in response to stress. And that's normal. It's supposed to have that response, but it's not supposed to all the time. So, what can happen is if you keep forcing it to go, that cortisol, it's supposed to be this like normal curve throughout this day. So um, you can look up, like if you want to see a visual, I'm very visual. So look up a visual of like cortisol, melatonin, uh circadian rhythm, like curve or something like that. Some some kind of verbiage of that, like that's gonna pop up, show some photos and show that. So cortisol, your stress hormone, and then melatonin, which is also a hormone if you don't know that. So if you're abusing and taking a bunch of that before bed, you're pumping your body full of hormones and you're screwing yourself up. Don't do that. Um, but I digress. So those are hormones and they work inversely. So when you go to wake up in the day, that's when cortisol starts to rise. That's natural. We want your cortisol to rise a little bit because cortisol makes you feel awake and alert. So that's what helps your body wake up and we feel alert. It's gonna be peak at about 90 minutes after waking up, and it's gonna slowly start to come down during the day because we don't want to feel like alert later in the day, like before bed. So it's starting to come down and then it's at its lowest while we're sleeping, and then it'll start to rise right before we wake up and it'll kind of go through that cycle. Melatonin's the opposite, so it's down when we wake up and it comes up as we're going to bed. This is not about the circadian rhythm, cestal cell and that, but that's like a normal uh cortisol curve of what a cortisol awakening response that we're supposed to have. But if we are chronically stressed, we're telling our body, you need to keep pumping cortisol. We need to be alert, we need to be awake, we need to go, we need to handle the stress, we need like all hands on deck, like super crazy focus, right? And energy. That's what you're telling yourself when you're super like go, go, go stressed. So your body's like, okay, cool. Instead of going up when we wake up and then coming down throughout that day, the cortisol stays up. Like it stays high all the time. At some point, though, you're a poor little adrenal. Those tiny little glands on top of your kidneys, they're like, girlfriend, I can't keep doing this anymore. Like, I actually like I'm not meant to go, go, go all the time. I'm that I need to rest a little bit. Um, just like this is the weirdest analogy that just came to mind. So pardon, pardon me. Um, but if you're like, let's say you you got your partner, like you got your husband, whatever it is, and you're practicing making babies, right? You can't keep doing that all the time. At some point you're like, bro, I gotta rest. Like I just, I just need a second. Maybe later, but like, I need a second right here. And if you keep going, eventually you're just like, I just, I can't, I can't. Nothing's gonna happen at this point anymore. I just need, I need a bit of time to rest. The weird analogy, but just yeah, you guys get what I'm going with that. Your your adrenals are similar to that. They need a second to just like recuperate. If you are constantly telling them go, go, go, you're not letting them do that. So at some point, they give out on you. They are like, we're done. Uh, we, we, we, we are just gonna dysfunction at this point. So instead of being up and awake and alert when we wake up and then coming down throughout that day, the second phase was it's always up. And now it's at a point where it's low at the beginning of the day. So you are exhausted when you try to wake up, but then you're like tired but wired and anxious throughout that day, and you're having a hard time sleeping because it was flipped and now it's high later at night, which is not good for sleep. And then we feel more exhausted in the morning and it perpetuates that cycle. And then at some point, when you're just like so freaking burnout, it's just flatlined. There's like no cortisol at all. It's like super freaking low because your body's like, I actually just could not make any more. So, like, you just need to like fully pull back on everything if you'd like me to try to recover from this. So that's like when you get to like literal just full burnout, like everything is done, like that's where you get to. So, like you can see this on if you get normal blood work, you can see like your cortisol, but that's gonna vary a bit. So, what's really helpful if you think you're actually there, if you talk with like a functional health practitioner or like I'll have clients do this sometimes. I don't do as much of like the functional anymore, but uh you can do something called a Dutch test. So with the Dutch test, you're able, it's like a saliva test, and you're able to see your you can do it with like hormones, and you can also do it with the cortisol curve to see where that is at. And if everything again is flatlined or dysregulated, then you're able to support those as you need to. But either way, even without the testing, like you can tell like you're it you're just not okay. Like you're just not okay. So you need to relax and rest anyway. Sometimes we can have a little bit more like supplements or things to be able to support, but I digress. Um, so we get to that point, and that's like what the cortisol is what I'm talking about. Like that's just the one part of it. But like you're you're not gonna feel alert and have energy and then good sleep and then be able to wind down at night and feel good in the morning and focus and work. If that's all messed up, like that's an extreme, that's part of your circadian rhythm. Like that's extremely important that that is functioning normal. So you can feel like a normal functioning human and do all the big things that you want to be able to do in your life and through your work. But let's say, okay, we're at that state where the cortisol is really high. Maybe you're not at that full-on burnout yet, but you're like super like stressed and exhausted and tired but wired, you're probably super puffy because, or even if um your cortisol is flat lined too, because cortisol modulates inflammation, like it kind of helps control inflammation. It's like Goldilocks. So if you have not enough cortisol, because we need some, or if you have too much, then your inflammation is gonna get a little bit out of control. So you'll see that a lot like in your face or your midsection, your Body just gonna be like really puffy. Uh, it can really impact your hormones because if your body's really stressed, your body's like, well, we can't make a baby right now. Like, we're not gonna be able to keep it alive and like bring it into the world. The world is not safe because of whatever stressor you were telling me is going on. So we can't make a baby. So you might lose your cycle, or it could be irregular. Um, hormones could become imbalanced. We could have issues with those as well. Um, and then when we're chronically having that elevated cortisol, cortisol is very catabolic. So if you've never heard that term, there's either catabolic or there's anabolic. Anabolic, you've probably heard of with like anabolic steroids, is where people usually say it. Anabolic just means like building, like muscle building. Catabolic is the opposite, like it's breaking down. And I like to think of it, think of like a cat, like I have two cats and they're always shredding our couches or our chairs, like they scratch things and they ruin it and they break it down. Catabolic is breaking down. So if we have really high cortisol, our body's chronically in this catabolic state, this like muscle breakdown state. So if your goal is to try to build muscle or maintain muscle, it's making it harder. And then when we have chronically elevated stress, your body's gonna store more body fat in your midsection as that stress response. So now you're in the sleep is off, so recovery is off. So we're not recovering and we're puffy and we're having a hard time building muscle and keeping it, and it's easier to gain body fat, especially in the midsection. Like all of these physical goals that we're trying to have, they they ain't working too well when our body's like struggling too much with this. Because again, your body doesn't give a crap about that. Your body's like, we're under stress for this long. We got to deal with the stress. Who cares about what you look like right now? We don't give a shit about that. Um, and then, like I said, digestion can get really off because when cortisol is really elevated, when we're really stressed, that can suppress your stomach acid. So your stomach's not as acidic, so we can't digest as properly. Um, we can have a lot of bloating go on. Uh, the sleep being off or like abusing caffeine can cause issues with the digestion too. Like that can become a mess, especially if you're like myself and you have a sensitive digestive system. My body's very, very sensitive to those. So that always causes such an issue uh for myself. And then maybe you're either not eating because you're stressed, or you're maybe stress-eating, so you're not making big good choices with that. And both of those can mess with your uh digestion and your body composition and all those kinds of things. So, like, do you hope you're starting it's like your body's working against you at this point. And then if we're not sleeping and we're really stressed, when you're really stressed, you've got a different part of your brain that's taking over, like that stress part of your brain. So it's only seeing problems, it's only seeing stress, it's only seeing issues, it can't see the big picture, it can't see all the goals you're trying to do and all of that. Like it's so narrow, only seeing like the the problem and the issues and stuff. So especially if this is with uh like for myself, like with work or like content or anything like that, when I'm in this state, like I can't, I can't create. I don't know. I I'm I lose the vision, I lose the focus. Like I really am good for nothing at this point, like at that point. Like I'm not, I can't do, I just feel like I can't function. I kind of joke, like I just felt like a little vegetable sometimes because everything crashed for myself. Like my hormones crashed, my adrenals crashed, my thyroid crashed, my gut freaked out. So if you guys have heard me talk about like the like the crazy health stuff that I had go on a couple years ago, and my body's still kind of recovering from that, like that's what that was. Like I did a mock bodybuilding prep. So I pushed my body really hard from that. Um, and then I also was just doing a lot as far as like with work and all those kinds of things, and I wasn't, I was pushing past these signs because I've done this before. I've done it previously, and this time my body was like, We're we really are giving out on you at this point now. Like that was the worst it's ever been. And that was where I was like, okay, something's gotta change here because I started getting to that point when things have come. Like I'm noticing, but I still kind of do that. I'm not perfect, I'm still human, but I notice it now, so I don't get to that point, is what I'm saying. So, like the reason I wanted to share all of that is number one, like again, like we can be really stressed and we can push through and like get through, and like that's like a thing. It's just it's just gotta be how it is sometimes. Like, especially, I always think about I don't have a kid yet, but just the awe that I have for women that have children, especially if they're I mean, just alone taking care of the newborn baby. Oh my goodness, like, do you understand how incredible that you are? Because you just grew a child, you pushed out a child or got cut open to get the child out, and then your body is like unwell, let's just call it what it is, recovering from all of that. And you have a newborn baby who's not really sleeping and needing to be best friend. Like you're a freaking superwoman. How do you do it? And then, especially if you've got like other kids or other things that you gotta do, like I don't understand how incredible like a woman is that she can do all of those. So, what I'm saying is there's points where you just gotta push through and it's just you gotta survive and you gotta get through. But then at some point it lets up a little bit, and you have some kind of help or something to get through that. So, like, we can deal with stress. That's what it's not that like we need to be like a little freaking fairy and like not doing the week. We're built to deal with stress, but not insane amounts for extended periods of time and never letting yourself just like rest or relax or anything. Like, we don't need to not have any stress ever or not push ourselves or not try to reach big goals, but we need to understand the signs so we understand how I can pull back. But even more than that, when you're doing it, you need to be smart about how you go through that so you don't get yourself to that point because you can hustle and you can push and you can work hard and you can put in a lot of time and effort, but you you can be smart about it. So you're not just doing more, like you're smarter about how you're doing all of that. Because otherwise, you're working harder, but you're getting less return. And again, I've done this when it's come to work, when it's come to my fitness. Um, and I'm really sacrificing especially like my sleep or like just time for myself or self-care or time to not be productive. God forbid, I'm like not productive for like an hour or even a day. Like the thought of that before would I would not allow myself to not be productive for a day. And I will say it is hard to have a day blocked out where I don't need to be quote unquote productive with things, but I actually I genuinely want that and try to create that for myself versus like avoid it for the plague at this, uh, like the plague at this point because I understand I don't need to just work harder and more. I can be smarter. And if I let myself rest, I feel better and recharged. So I can actually do more and I can be more productive with what I'm doing. And so I want to talk about just some shifts that we can make with our approach. Because if you've never been at that state of like any of those like health things with burnt out, I pray that you never get to that point. And this helps you if you have a tendency to kind of do the things that I'm like talking about here, that you can learn from this and implement this so you don't get to that point. But if you have been there, my heart goes out to you. And if you're there right now, like again, my heart goes out to you. And you can come out of this. Like I said, I've had so many women that I've worked with and like they're so high achieving and they have big goals and they work hard and they're so ambitious. And I love them for that. But we've had to undo some of this burnout that they've been in. Or I noticed these tendencies of how they they say or want to do these things. And I'm like, bro, we just got you out of that. Like, we're not trying to get back to that point. That is not the way. There's other ways here. So I want to talk about the ways like shifting this approach. Um, so the first thing that I will say is like, we need to make sure that we have like a real plan and we have some clarity here. Like, you need to be clear on what actually moves the needle with what you're trying to do. Now, especially, especially in a fitness context, a lot of people want to restrict more or do more cardio or sacrifice sleep to do extra workouts. And like if your schedule's only allowing you to do like three workouts a week or not as much, like we can be productive with that. We can have a good plan to be like, you don't need to do more. Like, more is not better here. Um, and then especially if like if it's work or something, like for myself, like I don't need to do more, like I don't need to add more stuff to my plate because there's this thing called the Parietal principle. And it's that of all like the all the stuff that you do, the hundred percent of the results that you get is coming from only 20% of the inputs that you are making. So it means 80% of the things that you're doing are doing jack crap. I'm trying not to swear anymore, guys. I'm so sorry for the words that I've said here, the friends that I've used. Um, they're not doing anything for you, they're not moving the needle forward, they're just you being busy because you need to be busy, or you haven't taken a second to get clear about what your actual plan is and what's actually moving the needle. Because most of the time you don't need to be doing all of the things. More is not better, better is better. So a small per if a small percentage of what you're doing is actually driving results, take that step back and look at what is actually driving results, what is extra things that I just don't need to have on my plate right now. Because the rest is just frankly, extra stress. And it's taking away from you being able to do the other things better or actually rest and recharge. So then you feel better to do those other things better. So, this is like I said, for fitness, I have some clients where we will bring them down to three workouts a week where they will maybe we're doing like five or six before. We're doing three workouts a week. We are really pulling back on a lot of things and they see far better progress because they can actually get more out of those sessions because they can recover more now. And maybe we're pulling their cardio weight down and we're maybe doing some steps because it's a stress, and we're integrating that throughout that day, and their body changes so fast, they drop the inflammation, they can actually build muscle and lose fat because their body's no longer stressed and being run ragged into the ground. We're doing less, but we're doing it better. As far as like with bit business, like I was saying for myself, like I have so many things that I want to be able to accomplish and want to be able to do, and I just get so excited. And I'm like, I just I just want to share this knowledge, I want to help people, I want to build this, I want to do this, oh, whatever. So I had too many things on my plate, and then I'm like, okay, half of this stuff isn't getting me anywhere. Like I maybe I can do it eventually, but right now, because I'm barely able to juggle all the other things right now, and some of these things are actually getting me results and the other ones aren't yet. So I need to focus on these things so these ones don't slip, and I'm just way too stressed. I'm not having time, but half of this stuff isn't doing anything for me right now. So let me get rid of the junk and let me just focus on the things that I want to do that are getting me results. And I actually have more energy, more clarity, more vision with those, more creativity because I'm not spreading myself so thin with doing a million things. I'm just being productive with those couple. And I will say that's really hard to figure out. So to anybody else in a stimulous situation, I feel you, I'm still trying to figure out all that too, but I can just recognize that I'm trying to add too many things and I can at least take something off my plate for the time being. Um, and then with life, like if you're someone who you want to you you care about your fitness and your health, I'm assuming you do if you listen to this podcast. You care about your career, you care about obviously like your family and your friends and these hobbies and this and that, and you want to do all the things. And again, I can relate to that too because I got like social things and groups I want to be a part of, and I want to do this thing and this hobby, and I really want to learn about this and have time to do here, and I want to do yoga, and I want to whatever. And I'm like, I actually just don't have time in my schedule for all these things, or at least not every single day. So I need to be clear of like in this phase of my life, this season, what am I actually gonna focus on? Because that's the other thing here is like your capacity matters. You need to look at what your actual capacity is right now. What can you realistically handle right now, based off of your schedule, based off of the non-negotiable things that you need to do, based off of your stress, based off of your sleep, based off of what's actually the most important to you in this season right now? Like what are you valuing? What are you focusing on? Because it's not that you can't do all the things, but you can't do all the things all the time. And in my opinion, at least for me, I don't want to do a million things like half-ass them because they're not really getting me anywhere. I'd rather pick a couple. While that sucks to put a few things aside for a little bit, I'd rather pick a couple and do good at those because that's what I have the capacity to actually do those well, finish them, get them up and running, and now I can add something else. Because if you're trying to operate at a hundred percent in every area all the time, that is not sustainable. And that's like what I'm saying. Like, I was trying to do what we're doing now with business, do some other stuff with that, other business endeavors, other content on multiple platforms and stuff with my faith and just like have more time for friendships and more time for like yoga and meditation. And I want to learn about this thing and that thing and this project and that project and this hobby and whatever and all the and we're we were trying to travel and like do all these in-person stuff and whatever. And I just literally got to the point where I was like, I can't do all of this. Like my brain has so many, I have so many things I'm passionate about and that I want to be able to do, but I get ahead of myself and I add them all to my plate, or I try to, and then I pretty quickly realize I can't do all of these, and I'm better now about the self-talk. And that's the other thing I will say. I'm not a failure. It's not that I can't do anything, it's that I just wasn't being realistic with what my capacity was at that phase of life. Like that just frankly wasn't realistic. I'm not a robot, I'm a human. I only have so much capacity. Sometimes I get tired, I need to sleep, and I only have so many hours in my day and my week. And I just needed to be real about like what can I actually fit right now? What do I want to prioritize? And when we're in this phase, though, of because sometimes, especially when you get to that like full burnout, you have a period where you just pull back on everything. Like you just can't do all of the things. Um, but in order to not get to that point, you number one need to be have a clear plan. You need to be realistic of what your capacity is. But with all of that, too, when you're in this kind of push phase when you're doing all the things, because whether you're just you want to have all the things that you're doing, or maybe you're kind of in a sprint to finish something up. Like for myself, I'm kind of like a little sprint to finish something, if you will. So there's seasons in your life where you do need to push more, but you need to support your body more through that because you're asking more of your body, you're pushing more to support it more. So you need to be on top of your sleep, as much sleep as you can fit into your schedule. And I mean like literally look at your schedule and like, is it like a I don't really want to, but like I technically could sleep more, or like I physically am unable to with what my schedule is like, I get no control of it, I can't sleep more. That's a different story, but I feel like for a lot of us we can actually, but it's a matter of I'm not setting better boundaries so I can get to bed on time. Or I'm uh that's usually where it is. Like if we can get to bed on time, um, or if we're waking up super early to like, I don't know, I used to do that to do extra cardio in the morning. I was like, girlfriend, you don't need to do extra cardio. Like, we need to drop that. Or I was trying to do a bunch of other things in the morning before the day started, and I was like, I can't do all these hobbies or all these things right now because it's cutting into my sleep time because I couldn't get to bed early enough. So if we set better boundaries at night of like, okay, work goes away at this time, phone goes away at this time. I I just do my nighttime wine-none routine at this time. This is, and then this is the time that I get into bed, and this is the time I'm asleep by. So that admittedly for me has been really challenging since and it's hard if actually, no, I will say, if you live by yourself, way easier. When I lived by myself, I could do whatever I wanted. I'm a morning person, I go to bed early. We're beautiful. But my husband, he's not a morning person yet. He's wanting to switch, so I'm gonna support him with that, y'all. Uh, put some good vibes out, pray for us. Hopefully we get we get there earlier uh at some point soon. Uh because we're working on it, but he he wants to. Because my point is he sleeps in because he stays up late. Because that's just kind of how he's always been. He's a night owl. But he wants to start waking up early, and I've always wanted to wake up early. So we're kind of at this phase where like I wake up early now, but I'm, or this is what I was doing. I would wake up early like I usually do, and I used to, because I'm like a 5 a.m. girly. My body just wants to wake up at that point. But I would make myself sleep in later because I was going to bed later, because we would stay up to hang out, because I either didn't have good work boundaries, so I was working really late, and then we would want to hang out a little bit because we couldn't really see each other, and then it'd be late at night, and then we'd finally be getting in bed, then finally fall asleep, and then I'm waking up early. So you see where this is an issue with the sleep, and everything else comes from that. Because if we're not sleeping, we're not thinking, we're not building muscle, we're not recovering, like all the things are just not a good spot. So I was really struggling with that. And I realized, okay, something's gonna change here. So we were able to have a conversation of realistically, like, can we adjust? Can we meet each other in the middle? Um, how do we now navigate this? So I was able to kind of figure, okay, he's gonna wake up a little bit earlier, I'll stay up a little bit later. Um, I wasn't gonna try to do as many things in the morning so I could sleep it a little bit more, and then I wasn't gonna try to work quite as late. I was gonna have some better boundaries with that so I could protect that sleep. So that was always a big thing for myself. Like, I don't know about if you guys do the same thing, but I sleep was always a thing to go. Uh, you know, when people say like, I'll sleep when I'm dead, and then you realize I'm gonna die a lot sooner if I don't sleep. So I need to prioritize this. So that's like one of the big things uh supporting your body. You also need to make sure you're nourishing your body with food. So that means not under-eating, but also I'm gonna affectionately call it like eating like an asshole, like just treating your body like a dumpster, of not being intentional with the types of foods and you're using food to cope with stress and um just not taking the time to actually nourish your body. Because if you're asking a lot of your body and your brain, you need to put some good fuel in your body for that. Your body's going to think and feel and function way differently depending on the fuel that you put in your body. So being intentional with that. So for myself, when I'm in these like kind of push phases or I'm really busy, that's why I love bulk prepping. That's why I love planning my days out and eating similar meals for the week because I already planned it. I know exactly that my body's getting what it needs, and I have time within my schedule to be able to go and eat. I make sure I give myself at least five, 10 minutes. I like to take longer, but sometimes that's all it is, or I eat while I work. Again, not ideal, but like it is what it is. But I'm at least getting some good food into my system consistently, the quality and like the quantity is like appropriate for what my body needs because that is the fuel. But then we also need to make sure that we are managing our stress. So if you are waking up and checking your phone right away, or waking up and jumping right into work and not taking time in the morning to kind of drain your stress bucket, pour into your own cup, you're gonna feel so stressed going into that day. And if you don't allow yourself time to just like relax or like a de-output time, like stop getting stimulus, stop trying to be productive, stop trying to do things, and you're like your stress is gonna keep piling up. Like you need to allow yourself that time. I like to think of stress as a bucket. And for so long, I would just keep letting that bucket fill up and just overflow. And then it gets to the point where if you can picture like a bucket full of water, it's spilling all over everything. It's really hard to carry that when your stress is unmanaged. But if you especially start your day with pouring out some of your stress bucket so you're able to drain some of it out, now when stress comes, you can handle it a little bit better. Or just throughout your day or when stress happens, finding tools that help you manage that stress. So for myself, breath work, I used to say like breath work, it doesn't do anything. Meditation, I can't do it. It was just because I was so stressed. I literally wasn't letting myself do the very tools that have so much science to show that it does help. So those have been incredible for myself, or going for a walk outside. Because if you guys didn't know this, if you go for a walk outside or a run outside, like if you're moving forward outside, your brain is able to like kind of scan the horizons. And there's this part of your brain called the amygdala that's sort of like lights up with like when you're stressed. That's like the stress part of your brain. So instead of your prefrontal cortex, which is the front part of your brain, and that's like where your logical like thinking and problem solving and like higher cognitive faculties like are happening there, that gets kind of turned off and we go to the stress part. And we don't want that to like live our life because we can't be creative and think clearly and good decisions and like manage ourselves and like all those kind of things. But if you're going for a walk outside or a run outside, and I used to do this and not know the science, this is the science. Your brain is able to kind of scan the horizon, scanning for threats, and it doesn't see any threats. There's no tiger chasing you, there's no bear, there's no fire, there's no whatever. So your brain's able to say, ah, we can turn that amygdala off. It don't need to be on. There's no threats, we're good. So your amygdala can calm down and you can go back into the prefrontal cortex, just like the calmer part of your brain. And what that's how they came up with EMDR therapy is the lady was like going for a walk and she like realized that's what's happening. Um, and I used to do this for years that I'd get like stressed or upset or whatever, usually stressed, and I would go for a walk or I'd go for a run. And partially was like releasing the energy or getting out of the space, but it actually changes your brain. So for me to help manage my stress, like that's a massive tool that I will use. Um, those are a couple, couple of them, there's so many. And I have podcasts all about stress that you guys can go back and listen to. Um, but like managing your stress is so important because otherwise that stress bucket overflows, and at some point your body's like, I can't do this anymore. Um, like we cannot just run yourself into the ground. So you have to support your body and support your brain during this push phase. Otherwise, you are borrowing energy that you are going to have to pay back later. Like your body needs to be taken care of. If you've got like a nice high-performance sports car, you're like driving your car all the time, like you need to get it serviced more often. You need to fill it up with gas more often. You need to clean it more often. Like, you need to take care of that thing if you're gonna use it more, or shit's gonna break down and it's gonna be expensive to be able to fix it. Um, it's gonna take longer than you want to versus that little bit to like to service it, take care of it. Now, hopefully, you guys make sense. Like your body is very, very important to take care of here. Um, you also need to play in the pullback here. This is the part that most people miss. You Need to know when you are gonna pull back. Not wait until you crash and your body forces you to. Because if you don't pull back, your body will make you. And I guarantee if you make yourself pull back, you can just like little pit stop, you're good, get going forward. If your body makes you pull back, you're gonna be out a lot longer. And it is gonna feel a lot worse to be able to get through that. And I'm speaking from experience. Um, like you need to actually build in time to recover and reset. Because if you just go from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next with no break, your body never catches up. So let's say you are in a little bit of a sprint, you're in a phase where it's just a lot. Number one, is there anything we can get off of your plate right now? So you don't have as much. What are you doing to support your body? But after this, is there a clear endpoint? Don't keep adding things right there. Let yourself have time to pull back. Like I remember I used to have this client and I loved her. I love her so dearly. Not I loved, she's still alive. We just, she doesn't need coaching anymore. She's good on her own. Um, and that's always the goal with the people I work with. But she would just add so many things onto her plate, um, like other things that she would volunteer for or help with or do outside of work. And she was like, I'm like so stressed all the time. I'm stress eating, I'm not getting workouts in, like, I'm not recovering, I can't sleep. And she just kept adding all this stuff. And finally, maybe her schedule would clear up a little bit and she'd like be good for a second. And then more stuff would come back up. I was like, girl, you need time to just relax. And then when she would finally have time where she had a couple months where she wouldn't have anything, she was like, Oh my gosh, this feels amazing. I feel like myself again. And now when she goes back into the busy season, she can handle it because she had that time to pull back before she went forward. And the analogy that I like to picture with this, I kind of talked about the car here, but it's like running your car on empty over and over again. Like eventually it's not just, oh, I need some gas. It's that something actually breaks, and now you're forced to stop way longer and probably pay more money to fix what you broke with your car because you did not treat it well. Your car, like the check engine light was on, it was saying you needed gas, it had all these things going on, and you did not care. You kept pushing because you thought you were just gonna defy how the freaking body works or how the car works, and you are gonna be the special snowflake and you are gonna be fine. And no, all of our bodies do that at some point. Like it just they always do that. So we gotta be able to, if your, you know, the light figate gas comes on, pull over, let yourself fill up with gas, take two seconds, and then you get back on the road and you're good and you're fine and you keep going. Like you, you gotta just take that little bit of time to recharge, and then you can go full seam ahead, like you're good. And I hope that that analogy makes sense because I uh partially the car comes, I think it's just easy. My husband also loves cars, so we talk about cars a lot. But if you think of it like that, like it just logically makes sense. You're like, it's not like you're on a long road trip. It's not bad that you had to stop and fill up for gas or you had to stop and like sleep or something. You're like, that's just part of it. Like I needed to rest, I needed to refuel, I needed to take a second, and then I could get back on the road and accomplish what I needed to. I could stay awake and alert and not get in an accident or have anything bad happen and actually get to where I wanted to go. So it took a little bit longer to rest, but we were able to safely, healthily actually get to that point and have it be enjoyable versus feeling like awful and worrying if something was gonna go bad the entire time. Hopefully that analogy makes sense. Um, but again, I think that this is where a lot of people get it wrong. Like they think that they need to just do more. And we put so much pressure on ourselves to do more and more and hustle and grind and push, and we compare ourselves to other people on like social media or like just Joe Schmo that we see in our circle or wherever. And we see these people, and we're like, oh, I need to be where they're at. So I need to keep going and hustling and like to get there to catch up or to surpass them. It's like you don't even know where they're actually at, first and foremost. Like we just see a little, little bits and pieces, but their journey is completely different than your journey. And what they're doing is completely different than what you need to be doing. And I think that's a big thing of where this comes too is like not just being present of I accept this is where I'm at in my process, and like this is just how I need to get forward to get to my own personal goal. I'm in my own bubble, my blinders are on. I think that really helps with this. Um, but it's you, you need to be able to do less of the things that don't matter, because then you have more time for the things that do actually matter. And then you have more time to do the things that takes to take care of yourself while you keep showing up. Because the goal isn't to like just have this burst of energy and then just burn out and then have to restart again or push through that burnout. With the goal, especially if you are a high achiever, like I can't imagine that's gonna change. Like you're just you're just like that, like later, like it or not. That's how you're programmed, which I I like that. I just we can just learn how to manage it. It's way easier than learning how to be a motivated driven person if you're just not like that. So we just gotta learn how to manage it because the goal is to be able to keep showing up consistently, keep moving the ball forward, keep moving that needle forward, like still feel good in the process and actually get forward over time. Because you can still be ambitious and go after big goals. You just have to do it in a way that your body can actually keep up with. And I would also argue, and this was something that was kind of a foreign concept to me, and I guess I'll end on this note that you can enjoy the process of building it, because a lot of the time is spent in the process of getting there, of building the business, of building the career, of raising the family, of reaching the fitness goals. Like you have time to relish in that, but then you usually want to keep going from there, like you keep raising the bar. So the time is spent doing the work. If you want to enjoy during the work, but if you're hustling, grinding, and putting pressure on yourself and feel awful, and you're as you're just pushing forward, thinking you're gonna get there sooner, like you're not gonna get there sooner. You're not gonna enjoy the work, and it's gonna be really hard to maintain where you're at because you're so freaking burnt out and your body's like, girl, what? What do you think we're gonna do at this point now? It's like you should be able to enjoy it. And that's being smart about what we focus on, that's being able to take care of yourself as you go, and that's allowing yourself to rest because while rest can be productive, we don't need to always be productive. So rest can just be rest, rest can be enjoyable because you recognize that you deserve it, and it's gonna make you show up better when you get back to work to actually get to that goal. So I feel like I'm gonna just talk in circles if I keep going from here. So I I hope that this was helpful. You guys can't tell. I'm very passionate about this. I think I say that in a lot of episodes. I'm just very passionate about all the things I talk about here. Because I know that they make a difference. They make a difference for me and they make a difference for the clients that I work with and the women that I talk to. So I just want to share that with this with other people. So if this was helpful, um please if you know anybody else in your life, please share it with them. We need to support more women with this. Like we want to support each other with our big goals, but make sure we feel good and don't burn out on the process of it. If there's anything along all this, especially if it's like the health stuff that I kind of talked about, you guys, and you're like, I think I'm kind of having some of these issues, or I'm kind of worried I'm getting there and I don't really know what to do. I would love to just give any just kind of advice or guidance and point you in a direction as I possibly can. So feel free to shoot me a message on Instagram. I'll link my handle in the description below. I always do, but it's just at Lainey Jojo, L-A-I-N-I-J-O-J-O. And I'd love to just be able to support you through that because if you guys can kind of tell with the way I was talking about it, like it really is no joke when you are getting to that burnout, like it messes your body up. And I will probably forever have to be really mindful of stress because of all the things that have happened to it when I did that, and I just didn't really learn from it until this point. So I am very serious about this. Like, we need to, we need to be like, I can joke a little bit, but like for real, please take care of yourselves, ladies. Like, you have so much light, you have so much to do in this world, and I want to make sure that you can take care of yourself so you can actually do that. So, on that note, I love you all. I hope that you have an amazing rest of your day, whenever it is for you. And please go do something for your future self that she will thank you for. And if it's to go like take a walk or just breathe a little bit or go take a rest, like go do that.