How to Stop Burning Out: The Key to Balancing Productivity and Rest

Oct 20

I absolutely loved my college days at Penn State. Some of my fondest memories are from my time in marching band and wind symphony, which filled my days with playing music, laughter and fun, adrenaline rushes from performing in a stadium in front of 100,000 people, and forming some of my closest friendships. There are specific memories that are still incredibly vivid, like snapshots in my brain, that I will cherish forever. I was incredibly lucky and privileged to have amazing opportunities during those four years, and my heart was consistently full as a result.

At the same time, I did WAY too much.

Over the course of those four years, I juggled 20+ credit hours each semester, worked in a research lab 10 hours a week, completed a music minor in addition to my psychology major, actively participated in my music fraternity, and either volunteered or participated in THON, a massive dance marathon to raise money for kids with cancer. Marching band was a 20 hour commitment each week, while wind symphony was another 5 hours a week. There were days that I left my apartment at 8:00am and didn’t get home until 10:00pm.

Because I’ve always been a person who needs a lot of rest and sleep, pushing myself like that meant that I was constantly sick and slow to recover when I did get sick. When I look back at pictures of myself during my senior year in particular, it’s obvious that I wasn’t healthy.

When I graduated from my time at Penn State, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to do that to myself again. That I would take the time that I needed to rest and recover, particularly as I headed to grad school. And for the most part, I accomplished that. Graduate school was just as fun and rewarding, and I was also much healthier and rested during my time there.

But over the years, it has still been easy to fall into old habits and push myself more than is healthy for me. And now having been in this profession for over ten years, I know that I’m in no way alone.

Especially for my type-A, high-achieving types, it’s all too easy in the pursuit of achievement to push past limits, to the extent where mental, emotional, or physical health starts to take a toll. Which is often when folks end up in my office.

Why We Push Ourselves Too Hard

So why do we do this? Why do we push ourselves so hard when it’s clearly taking a toll?

Fear of missing out.
Particularly when you’re considering activities that are genuinely enjoyable and meaningful to you, it can be hard to say no, knowing that you’re passing on something that would bring you joy. And when we get older and life starts feeling shorter, these decisions can start to feel more and more important.
Time versus energy.
We also tend to choose what we say yes or no to based on the time that we have, rather than our energy levels. Time often feels scarce, so we pack it full, trying to take advantage of every minute of every day. But even if we have the time, that doesn’t mean that we have the energy. And saying yes when we don’t have the energy can lead to a rough cycle, where we’re dragging through tasks, performing at a mediocre level, and then beating ourselves up for not doing a good job, when in reality, we set ourselves up to fail from the start.
Self-worth and achievement.
For many of us, our self-worth and identity can also get tied up in our achievements and accomplishments, so when we take time off, we label it as being lazy or unproductive, rather than giving ourselves the rest that our bodies and brains need. So instead of resting feeling normal, it creates an emotional rollercoaster, making us feel like we’re losing our sense of self any time we ease up on the gas pedal.
Perfectionism.
And if you identify as a perfectionist, this can feel particularly difficult. According to Katherine Morgan Schafler, a perfectionist is someone who is always aware of the gap between reality and the ideal. She goes on to say that this can essentially be either a superpower, or complete torture, depending on you relate to this part of yourself.
If you’re self-compassionate and use your awareness of the ideal to motivate yourself and strive towards your goals, it can be a wonderful thing. But if you beat yourself up for constantly falling short of the ideal, you’ll feel miserable. For the perfectionists I’ve worked with, they often fall into the latter category, which means they’re constantly doing more and more, and burning themselves out in the process, as they try to achieve the ideal.

Finding Balance Through Pacing Yourself

So how do we find balance? How do we challenge ourselves and strive for accomplishment and achievement, while also tending to our mental, emotional, and physical health at the same time?

The answer is pacing.

Long distance- runners know exactly what this means. They might be able to sprint at high speeds for short distances (let’s say an 8:00 minute mile), but if they’re doing a long run, they’re going to intentionally run at a slower pace, maybe closer to a 10:00 mile. That’s because they know that they wouldn’t be able to sustain the 8:00 minute mile for very long, and they would burn themselves out quickly, making it impossible to finish the run.

As cheesy as this sounds, life is the ultimate marathon. We’re in it until death. And yet we often go through life sprinting, rather than pacing ourselves for the marathon that we’re actually in. Learning to pace isn’t about slowing down - it’s about knowing how to distribute your effort in a way that’s sustainable.

Marathon runners also take time to fuel and hydrate, because they know that if they don’t, they risk injury, exhaustion, and the possibility of not finishing the race. Yet we often go through life skipping these basic essentials like eating, hydrating, sleeping, and resting, in the pursuit of achievement.

The bottom line: Whether you’re aiming to finish or win, running the race requires intentional pacing and self-care.

How to Pace Yourself and Prevent Burnout

So how do you do this? How do you start pacing yourself and balance your well-being with still striving for achievement?

Here are my top strategies for pacing yourself:

1) Check in with your “battery” level, and adjust your activity level accordingly.

We often treat our phones with more respect and kindness than we do our own bodies. If we notice that our battery is dropping, then we take the time to charge it and put it aside for a while. It’s important to do the same with our bodies. You can do this informally by checking in with yourself throughout the day and asking yourself what percentage of battery you’re at. Or you can do it more formally by setting alarms at certain times of the day to check in with yourself.

Awareness is half the battle. Once you start getting into the habit of paying attention to this, then the other important part is doing something with this information. If you had a bad night’s sleep and wake up at only 40% battery, then give yourself permission to adjust your plans based on this. If you were planning on doing an intense cardio workout that morning, then maybe swap out this workout for a walk or some light stretching. If you wake up at 100%, then take advantage of these times to complete tasks or activities that use more of your energy. Maybe use this time to have the difficult conversation with a friend, catch up on work, or go for that hike that you’ve been wanting to take. The more you align your activity with your energy, the more sustainable your pace becomes.

2) Focus on activities that actually recharge you.

Often my clients will come to session telling me that they took time off of work, but that it didn’t help - that they walked away from their time off feeling just as tired and burned out. When this happens, what I often find is that it’s because their time “off” was still spent in activities that were draining rather than restorative.

We often operate on autopilot when we have downtime, and we choose activities that continue to deplete our batteries. Social media is a great example of this - if you take a break from work because you’re overstimulated, but then hop on an app that bombards you with more stimulation, you probably just drained your battery even further.

So it’s important to figure out what actually increases your battery level. Sometimes it takes some trial and error in order to learn what is truly restorative and recharging for you. It also might vary depending on the day. There might be times where going outside for a walk feels restorative, while on another day, maybe it’s crafting or cooking. Either way though, it requires paying attention to how you’re feeling and noticing whether the activities that you’re choosing are draining or energizing you. Rest is only restorative if it truly refuels you.

3) Learn to distinguish between pushing yourself in a healthy way versus an unhealthy way.

Think of a bell curve when it comes to pushing yourself - too little, and you won’t experience much growth or learning, but too much, and you’ll risk wearing yourself down so much that growth will either be very slow or impossible. There’s a happy medium when it comes to pushing yourself in order to accomplish your goals.

Figuring out that sweet spot also requires paying attention to how YOU respond, since everyone’s signs that they’ve pushed themselves too far are different. For me, I start getting sick more often. For others, they might have trouble sleeping, develop headaches or gastrointentional symptoms, or feel more depressed or anxious. And if you hit this point, it’s important to slow down and take a step back to recover, knowing that you can move forward again once your body is in a place to handle the challenge. The key is learning your body’s signals early, so you can intervene before you crash.

4) Identify your priorities.

The reality is that we all get the same 24 hours in a day. Some of us are genetically lucky and are gifted with more energy and the need for less sleep. Others of us have to work with lower energy levels and a higher need for sleep. Regardless of which category you fit into though, we all have limits. If we ignore these limits, then our bodies and brains will often decide for us when we’re going to shut down, which can happen at really inconvenient times. However, if we acknowledge these limits and work with these, we ultimately have more control over our time and energy.

So think of your life as a pie chart, and divide it up into the areas that feel like priorities to you. Notice that the more areas you include, the less you’re able to give to each. This way of looking at it forces you to really think about where you want to give your time and energy the most, and what you’re most comfortable taking a step back from.

5) Pay attention to your language.

When I talk about self-compassion, clients often think that I’m referring to toxic positivity. They think that I want them to tell themselves that they’re awesome and wonderful. Even if they are awesome and wonderful, that’s not what I’m talking about.

Self-compassion means allowing room for both your strengths and your weaknesses, and it means talking about your weaknesses in a way that’s not mean.

Let’s say that you’ve been procrastinating on an important task. Being mean to yourself would mean saying something like, “I’m so lazy. I need to do this thing and I just keep NOT doing it.” Self-compassionate language looks something like, “I need to do this something and yet something is obviously getting in the way of me doing it. Let’s look at what that might be.”

Being mean to yourself typically means attributing your flaws to personality traits that you can’t change, like laziness, which only makes you feel paralyzed and shut down. Being self-compassionate means being curious about your experiences and exploring the blocks that might be getting in the way of you achieving your goals, which allows room to make changes and grow as a person.

People often think that being kind to themselves is going to slow them down and prevent them from accomplishing their goals when it’s actually the opposite. When you’re able to identify your strengths, it builds a foundation of confidence to work off of, which then makes it easier to acknowledge and work on growth areas, as well as to rest and recover when needed.

Final Thoughts: Progress, Not Perfection

Pacing is something that almost everyone struggles with to some extent, and ultimately it’s not about doing it perfectly - it’s about recognizing when we’ve moved out of balance, and allowing ourselves to shift back into balance, as many times as we need to.

If you’re struggling with pacing and would like the support of a therapist in this, then please feel free to reach out - I’m happy to help.