News Flash: You’re not a productivity app

Last week, I narrowly escaped spending three hours on my couch, face-deep in a bag of whatever my husband hadn't hidden from me, binge-watching cold-case documentaries, wondering how I'd gone from "crushing it" to "crushed by it" in the span of 47 minutes. 

I'd nearly fallen into my well-inhabited work-like-a-maniac trap. Today I'm talking about what no one wants to admit: 

We've turned exhaustion into a virtue. 

 I used to wear my busyness like Prada, announcing how "swamped" I was, as if my cortisol levels were proof of my importance, and my body believed me. 

Urgency has become our drug of choice. Everything's a fire. Everything needs our attention RIGHT NOW.  

But here's what I've learned: Most of the urgency we feel is anxiety dressed up as productivity, strutting around our nervous system like it owns the place.

I realized this a couple of years ago when I found myself checking email every 3.7 seconds, convinced the world would implode if I didn't respond immediately. 

Then it hit me: According to whom? On whose timeline? Most of this manufactured crisis mode is our minds mistaking stress for importance.

Your energy isn't unlimited, and pretending it is will bite you in the fanny.

Think about it this way: You wouldn't blow your entire paycheck on one Amazon scroll (okay, maybe you would, but stay with me). So why do we treat our energy like it's an endless resource?

I know we've been programmed to think we should be harvesting 24/7, but that's not how anything in nature works. Even the most badass farmers know soil needs to rest, or it becomes depleted and grows nothing but weeds and regret. 

There are times when you're meant to push, expand, and take on the world. Then there are times when you're meant to sit your ass down, integrate what you've learned, and let your soul catch up with your ambitions.

I used to beat myself senseless during those periods when I couldn't think straight, when creativity felt as foreign as speaking Mandarin. What I know now is that it was my body saying, "Hey genius, this isn't your producing season—this is your processing season."

When I listen to my natural rhythm, my creative burst comes through me like lightning. When I don't, I get half-baked ideas throwing their weight around like a scantily clad pre-teen caught sneaking out of the house.

If you are picking up what I'm putting down, try this:

ALIGNMENT: Get brutally honest about your deeper why. Not the pretty version you tell at networking events—the visceral, can't-ignore-it reason you do what you do. When you're aligned with this, work stops feeling like you're pushing a boulder uphill in stilettos.

RHYTHM: Stop trying to be productive in ways that make you want to hide under your desk. Are you a morning person or do you come alive at night? Do you recharge by talking to people or by hiding in a closet with a good book? Work WITH your wiring, not against it.

RECOVERY: Whatever fills your tank—do that without apology. Maybe it's hiking, maybe it's cooking, maybe it's staring at Netflix until your eyes bleed – it doesn't matter. Your personality parts need what they need, and fighting that is like trying to convince your lungs they don't need oxygen.

 Here's your homework: Pick one area where you've been white-knuckling it and ask yourself, "How can I approach this without feeling like I'm about to have a nervous breakdown?"

 You don't have to choose between being ambitious and being sane. The world needs what you have to offer, but it needs you to be alive and present while you're offering it, not running on fumes and spite.