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BURNOUT and BUSYNESS are two peas in a pod. You can’t have one without the other! 

This is the conundrum of burnout—we feel terrible, but we’re too damn busy to do anything about it. 🫠

When I’m stressed, I like to fantasize about throwing my credit card at a quick-fix solution that’ll solve my problems without adding another item to my to-do list. 

My favorite place to indulge this fantasy is in the bathtub. 

I don’t use social media for work, but I have an Instagram for purely dissociative purposes. At the end of a long day, I love slipping into a hot bath, sipping on a glass of chilled bubbly rosé, and scrolling through my curated feed of chubby puppies and sassy Reductress memes.

Despite trying to keep my feed wholesome, I’m inundated with ads. 

I open Instagram intending to veg out on mindless content but end up karate-chopping my way through a jungle of products, courses, and services, all promising to relieve my discomfort in exchange for my credit card information. 

It doesn’t stop on Instagram! Look around; solutions are being sold to us everywhere. 

Billboards, commercials, magazines, emails, and Zoom calls you think are about connecting with a new friend but mysteriously turn into a sales pitch. Everyone wants our money!

To be clear, I like buying things. I’m not anti-selling or anti-purchasing. 

But I am anti-preying on people’s vulnerabilities when they’re burned out.

As you know, burnout is intense. It drains our internal resources, leaving us feeling like exposed nerves. Everything hurts, and we just want the suffering to stop. 

We start scanning the world for solutions to solve our problems quickly, effectively, and with as little effort as possible. “I might not have time,” I say to myself, “but I have a credit card!”

Then, when you see an ad that promises “6 Weeks to 6-Figures of Passive Income!” you pull out your credit card without thinking twice about the reality of the promise.

Sadly, most things we buy only make things worse. 

They give us more tasks to do, require spending more money on things we didn’t know we needed, and keep us locked in our thinking brains, where we cannot access the intuitive wisdom of our bodies. 

You cannot buy your way out of burnout. 

Over the years, I’ve spent thousands of dollars buying things I believed would give me a shortcut to making more money, working fewer hours, building my audience, healing my back pain, etc. 

Many dollars later, I’ve discovered zero shortcuts to creating profitable and sustainable businesses—and no magic cures for burnout. 

Capitalism has conditioned us to purchase solutions to our problems. 

Whenever we pull out our credit cards to make an impulse purchase, we’re abdicating our power and authority to the people selling things. It’s the equivalent of saying, “I don’t know how to meet my own needs—but I bet those people can meet them for me!”

You are the only one who knows what you need to recover from burnout. 

No one can tell you what to do to feel better—including me! 

You have everything you need to recover from burnout. You just have to learn to ask yourself the right questions and listen to your answers. No credit card required!

Throughout the day, look around and notice when you’re being sold to. 

Here are some questions to take your exploration deeper:

• How was I feeling when I saw the ad? 
• What problem does this thing promise to solve? 
• Did I feel an impulse to purchase the thing? 
• How do I think this thing will make me feel better? 
• Am I suffering from FOMO thinking about not buying the thing? 

And then, take a deep breath, and shake that shit off. 

Instead of buying something to solve your problems, take a moment to be with yourself. 

See what sensations you can feel in your body. Get curious about your big sighs.  

Ask yourself, “What do I actually need to feel better in this moment?” 

Write down your answer, and then move on with your day. 

There are no shortcuts out of burnout. It took you years to get here, so it’s going to take a minute to work yourself out. That isn’t a problem; it’s just the process.