Why It’s So Hard to Take Breaks

Hello World,

I had the most amazing weekend camping with my bestie.

I am back home now and ready to get to work! I feel refreshed and relaxed.

Of course the being in nature and not being able to use my phone played a big part.

But even more significant was that… I didn’t exhaust myself by beating myself up.

I know that in the past I would give myself “rest time”, but really, it was more “stressed time”.

I would take a break because I needed one,

But I felt so guilty and would constantly berate myself the whole time:

“You can’t rest, you have a million things to do!”

“Oh my god, Alana, really? You think you deserve to have fun when you’re so lazy?”

And at the end of the “rest” I would be even more depleted than before I started.

Because instead of resting what I was doing was beating myself up. 

Which is exhausting.

We think that beating ourselves up will get us to work.

But think about it: imagine you had a boss who never recognized any of the work you actually accomplished and instead only saw all the areas you were lacking in.

And then imagine that despite that you still tried and they would:

• yell at you, 

• call you names, 

• tell you you couldn’t do it

When our boss has no care for our wellbeing, we start checking out.

That doesn’t make us bad or lazy,

that makes us normal.

So it totally makes sense why we don’t perform at our best:

we are being shitty bosses to ourselves.

And if your brain is anything like mine, at this point, the temptation is to start beating yourself up for…beating yourself up.

But again, this model doesn’t work.

So here’s an alternative:

Choose compassion.

Compassion looks like being an amazing boss to yourself.

What if you were your most valued, most loved employee. How would you treat them? How do you think they would act if they were treated this way?

If you beat yourself up, here’s the good news: you are a normal human with a normal brain. You’ve probably practiced doing it a lot, which is why you are so good at it. But you can practice compassion and get good at that instead. You are amazing and you deserve to enjoy your breaks and your life. And as always, if you need help, I am here for you.