Ep 5: [NUDGE] Your to-do list lied. Rest is not a reward.

When was the last time you genuinely felt sharp? Not caffeinated sharp — actually sharp? In this Nudge episode, Annmarie digs into why rest is not an earned reward, but a vital input -- and why play might be the most underrated form of rest there is.

Show links: https://annmarieboyle.com/the-wonder-project/

www.annmarieboyle.com

Music from Uppbeat (https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/to-the-top), License code BC9SEN3G6PMABOA

Transcript

Speaker 0:01

So I've had several mornings lately that I've woken up tired, and not just a little bit tired, but bone-deep, makes a person want to cry tired. And as someone who's lived with chronic illness for over 35 years now, I do know what I should do on those types of days. I should move slowly, give myself some grace, pick projects that take less energy. But do I generally do those things? No. Most often I push myself to get up and get going, to go to my office and get busy, like I haven't proven time and time again that days like these are not simply mind over matter. In fairness, some days pushing through is exactly what I need. But most days I end up alternating between staring at the wall and staring out the window. Not what anyone would call productive. Now, the question you're probably asking yourself right now is, why is she talking about being tired on a podcast about play and creativity and joy? Well, because I've been giving it some thought, and I started wondering if for some of us it's not so much that we've lost our fun selves or stopped being creative, but that it's nearly impossible to be fun or creative or even joyful because we are deeply tired. So today we're gonna talk about how rest is not the opposite of fun adventures or creative work, but rather how it's an essential part of those things Welcome to I Used to Be Fun, the podcast about remembering who you were before life got so serious. I'm Annmarie Boyle, author, creativity instigator, and recovering overachiever, and each week we explore how reconnecting to creativity and play helps us feel more alive, inspired, and like ourselves again. So set down the to-do list, grab a cup of coffee, and let's go find some fun I've started to think of these solo episodes as little nudges, so you'll likely hear me refer to them as that, and today's nudge is a question for you to consider. When was the last time you felt genuinely sharp? Like I am on this and nobody's gonna stop me sharp. And caffeinated sharp doesn't count. It needs to be a time when your thoughts connected easily, you made good decisions without second or third guessing yourself, and your conversations flowed with ease. For a lot of us, including me, it's been a minute. And when most people are asked why they feel foggy or flat, they almost always point to something external, like they have too much going on, or it's been a stressful week, or their to-do list is five-alarm fire ridiculous. Almost no one says, "I'm tired because I haven't let myself rest in so long that my brain is running on fumes," or fumes of fumes. But that's exactly what's usually happening, and we all know, even if we ignore that knowing, that we cannot run indefinitely on empty and expect to perform at a high or even a medium level. So why do we keep trying? I think it's because somewhere along the way, we were convinced that rest is something we have to earn. You push through, you finish all the things, and then, then you get to rest. Rest is the reward you get when the responsible things are done. I mean, I struggle with this continually, and I'm guessing that maybe you recognize it too. My brain's common response to my body's request for rest are things like, "We can rest when this project is over," or, "I can't take a break right now, there's too much to do." Or my personal favorite, "I'll just do one more thing." Any of those sound familiar? Maybe you're like me. When I'm working on something and I hit a wall, my instinct is just to push harder, give it a little more time or a little more effort, or just don't stop until it's done. I don't wanna lose the momentum. And I wanna be clear here, there's nothing wrong with commitment. There is absolutely nothing wrong with caring about things enough to dig in, but that's not what I'm describing. What I'm describing is the version where I can feel that I'm exhausted. I can feel that I'm starting to make decisions that don't feel quite right, or I can feel the quality of my thinking going a little mushy. But I keep going anyway because stopping feels like quitting, so I push through. And here's what happens every single time. I will go back the next day after pushing through, and for me, maybe it's pages that I wrote when I should have stopped. Pages that are ultimately probably gonna get deleted, or they represent hours of work that I did it in the wrong direction. Hours that I would've saved if I had walked away, had I just rested. So it turns out rest is not unserious. Knowing when to stop is not laziness. It's actually one of the most strategic, efficient things we can do And here's what I think is actually happening when we rest. Have you ever noticed that your best ideas show up in the shower or at three AM or on that walk you almost didn't take? That's not a coincidence. That's your brain finally getting the space to do its background work, the connecting, the solving, the synthesizing that it absolutely cannot do when you're demanding something of it every waking minute. You weren't being unproductive in the shower. You were just finally getting out of your own way. So rest is not a reward. Rest is input, vital input. It's what goes in so that something useful can come out. And right now, if you're feeling like you're eavesdropping on me giving myself a lecture, yeah, I think that's likely what's happening. But I also hope you're hearing that your brain needs space to do the work it does in the background, and that your nervous system can't exist in a state of constant activation. So when you feel the quality of your thinking dip, when something that should be easy suddenly feels hard, or when you're staring at that same paragraph or the same problem or the same email and it's not going anywhere, try stopping for twenty minutes before pushing through. Let your brain do its background thing, and then come back. Go outside if you can. Please don't scroll on your phone. Do something that doesn't demand much of you. Fold laundry, take a walk, make coffee, or play. Maybe make a practice out of playing. And I wanna stay on play for a second, because I think it might be the most underrated form of rest there is. We tend to think of rest as stopping, right? Lying down, doing nothing, and sometimes that's exactly what we need. But there's also a risk of our brains starting to make lists, or worrying, or replaying the thing we just did wrong. And we all know that's not rest. That's just horizontal anxiety. Play is different. When you're genuinely playing, not productively playing, not playing toward a goal, just playing, your brain gets absorbed in a way that quiets the noise without shutting everything down. It's engaged, but it's not strained. It's present, but not pressured. And that low stakes, high attention state is good for you in a way that grinding never is. Think about the last time you lost track of time doing something that had absolutely no point, something you had zero stakes in. You weren't producing anything. You weren't performing for anyone. You were just in it. That absorption is restorative in a way that, say, scrolling for forty-five minutes will never be. So when I say make a practice out of play, I don't mean schedule a fun hour on your calendar. Though honestly, no judgment if that's what it takes. I mean, give yourself permission to do the thing with no purpose. The thing you used to do just because you liked it. Maybe the thing you'd be slightly embarrassed to admit that takes up your Sunday afternoons. That thing, that's not wasted time. That's input. You were fun once, and I'd argue you still are. But maybe all you need to get back there is just to realize you might be running a little low on input right now. Remember, you can get started playing, creating, and noticing wonder by subscribing to my free four-week email series, The Wonder Project. You can find out all about that at my website at annmarieboyle.com/thewonderproject. And last, before you go, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And you know, normally I end the podcast by saying, "Now go play," but today I'm gonna say, "Now go rest." Or maybe even better, go rest by playing. See you in a week.