In October, I left my corporate career to run my coaching practice full-time. I dreamt about this stage of my life for years and, about 3 weeks into it, I was having trouble getting out of bed. It was painful finding motivation to exercise, taking calls, or even keeping my eyes open after lunch. 

Something was off and my inner critic was sounding the alarms. 

“You need to push through if you want your business to succeed”

“You just got started! How could you hold back now? Are you lazy?” 

I explained to my coach that I felt exhausted and out of energy. I feared that my behavior was a sign that I wasn’t going to succeed as a business owner. My inner dialogue was only making me feel guilty and more unmotivated.

We speculated that I may have been enduring some latent burnout from my previous job. Even though I desperately wanted to be making more progress with my business, I decided to prioritize my physical well-being and take a one-week break.

My husband, dog and I had a staycation. I continued to see my clients but relinquished myself from any other business responsibilities. I slept in every day and took naps when I felt like it. We relaxed at the beach, took walks around the neighborhood, and tried new lunch spots. We had dinner at this paella restaurant I had been wanting to try and celebrated my husband’s new job and my growing business. 

It felt good to give myself a little reprieve. At the end of that week, I had plans to drive down to LA to celebrate my best friend’s birthday. She was having a gathering at a gastropub downtown. Out of extra precaution before heading out to enjoy libations with my friends, I took a pregnancy test fully expecting it to be negative. We had been trying on and off for a year with no luck and I was somewhat convinced that I had fertility issues. To my utter surprise, there were two pink lines on the strip.

After about 24 hours of shock, excitement, joy, and disbelief, I started putting the pieces together. That ‘latent burnout’ was actually classic first trimester symptoms of fatigue. My body was in the beginning stages of growing a baby!

I’m so grateful I slowed down and allowed myself to rest that week. From this experience, I garnered three takeaways.

1. There is a difference between needing rest vs. being avoidant. 

I remember feigning illness as a little kid as a way to get out of going to school when I had procrastinated on a book report. This never turned out well. Usually, it resulted in a high stress frenzy to get the work done and disappointing others and myself. At a young age, I lost trust in myself to discern between not feeling well and feeling avoidant. Fast forward to last October, I thought more objectively about what I was experiencing. My eyes were constantly heavy. I was moving around sluggishly. Sitting on the couch felt heavenly. My body was screaming that it needed to rest. I just had to trust what I was feeling and give myself permission to slow down.

2. Answer the questions your brain throws at you.

I was worried that the exhaustion wasn’t real and that I was just avoiding working on my business. My coach picked out one of my inner critic’s questions “Are you lazy?” and asked me to answer it. There have been moments that I’ve felt lazy and avoidant, but this was different. The past couple years leading up to that point, I was working full-time, often overtime, while going to coaching school and building my practice on evenings and weekends. If anything, my inclinations were to exert energy even when I didn’t feel like it. The answer to the question was ‘no.’ I wasn’t being lazy; I just needed rest.

3. Rest is productive.

In retrospect, it’s scary to think about what may have happened if I pushed through the exhaustion and physically and mentally exerted myself. It was important that I rest because my body was producing the major body organs and systems of my unborn child. My body needed to recover from the hard work it was putting in. Rest was productive for my business too. My mind is my most valuable asset. Rest meant I got to sleep and optimize my brain performance for my client calls. Ultimately, I returned to working on my business the next week with more energy and in a much better headspace.   

How do you treat yourself when you’re feeling exhausted?