My thoughts on ambition, burnout, and learning that not every moment needs to be productive.
There’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, both in my personal life and in my work as a naturopathic doctor.
How do we learn to live a little softer in a world that constantly rewards us for doing more?
Much of my clinical practice focuses on women’s health, and one of the things I find myself reflecting on is just how much women carry.
I work with women who are mothers, caregivers, partners, executives, entrepreneurs, and often some combination of all of the above. They’re managing households, raising children, caring for aging parents, maintaining relationships, and navigating demanding careers.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, they’re also trying to take care of themselves.
For many, their health has slowly slipped down the priority list. Not necessarily because they don’t care about it, but because there always seems to be something or someone that needs their attention more urgently.
Sometimes I meet these women when they’re navigating perimenopause or menopause, dealing with persistent fatigue, struggling with sleep, or trying to understand why their bodies suddenly feel so different. Others are managing autoimmune conditions, digestive issues, or hormonal changes that have developed over time.
Of course, these conditions are complex, and I would never suggest that stress or neglecting self-care is the only reason someone develops a health condition. But chronic stress, inadequate recovery, and years of putting our own needs last can influence how we feel, how we cope, and how well we manage the health challenges that arise.
And when I take a step back and look at the bigger picture, I can’t help but recognize some of these same patterns in myself.
When Your Self-Worth Gets Tied to Productivity:
I grew up very hustle culture. I was always working 2, sometimes 3 jobs to pay for my tuition in school. I rewarded myself, or felt better about myself, the more accomplishments I had. Somewhere along the way, I think I started tying my productivity to my self-worth.
This is something I’m still struggling with. Everything I achieve, I’m happy about in the moment, but then I’m always ready to move on to the next. Being a highly ambitious person can be a really good trait (it’s helped me build a career I love), but it can also really wear you down.
I feel a lot of guilt when I don’t use my time as efficiently as possible. Even though I’m not a full entrepreneur, my job is very entrepreneurial, and there’s always more work to be done. There’s always things I could be doing on the weekend, or before bed at 11pm, and I feel guilty if I’m not capitalizing on all that time. I’m slowly realizing that just because I can fill every hour of my day doesn’t mean I should.
I don’t even have children, and I can only imagine what that must be like on top of this workload.
What I’ve learned from both my patients and my own life is that we can be incredibly capable, high-functioning women and still be running ourselves into the ground. I see how that manifests on a physical level for so many of my patients after years and years of living their lives this way, so I’m slowly trying to rewire those thought processes.
Slowing Down Without Losing My Ambition:
I want to keep working hard and growing my career, and focusing on my personal goals. But I also want to enjoy the life I’m working so hard to build, without every quiet moment feeling like a missed opportunity.
So here are a few things that have helped me switch from a go, go, go lifestyle to a slower-paced life, while still being an ambitious woman wearing many hats. It’s still a work in progress, and it’s definitely not perfect. These are the things I do to calm my nervous system, reground myself and separate the stress that really doesn’t matter at the end of the day, to bring me back to real life.
1. Washing Away the Workday:
After work, I almost always take a shower. Metaphorically, I feel like I’m washing away the day. The hot steam also helps relax my tense muscles, especially in my back, since I’m sitting in a chair all day.
Something about that ritual really helps calm my nervous system back out of fight or flight mode. My job isn’t overly stressful, and I love what I do, but I find even just talking to people all day shifts my nervous system into a more stressed state, and I take on other people’s energy. So this is me washing away the energy of others and regrounding myself.
I almost think of it as the opposite of a morning shower. Instead of preparing myself to take on the day, I’m starting the second portion of my day, and giving myself permission to switch off.
2. Workouts in the Morning, Yin in the Evening:
Sometimes my workouts are in the middle of the day between patients, or worst-case scenario late in the evening, but I prefer to start my day with them because I know I’m going to have way more energy in the morning. I also feel like I show up as a better version of myself when I have my blood flowing to my brain after a workout.
I feel really recharged and energized, and I’d rather have that energy before a workday than before bed, because I want my brain to be turned off before bed.
So in the evenings, I prefer more of a yin-style movement. I go for a nice long walk with my dog, which gets me outside, away from screens and out of my own head for a little while. I also try to do at least 1 to 2 nourishing yoga classes or sauna sessions a week. Not a hot power yoga that feels like another workout. I like yin, candlelit or slow flow- something that really stretches and relaxes my muscles and calms my nervous system.
For someone who naturally leans toward intensity and achievement, it’s been really valuable to do something where the goal isn’t to push harder. Sometimes the most nourishing thing I can do for my body is choose less intensity, not more.
3. Protecting My Social Energy:
Honestly, this means being less social. I used to be the type of person that would say yes to every possible plan. If I had an opening in my schedule, I felt like I should fill it.
Protecting my energy and my space, and devoting 1 day of my weekend (usually my Sunday) to just catching up on life and living more slowly, has been really helpful.
I’m kind of an extroverted introvert. I love people, but my battery recharges alone. So this may not be the best move if you’re a true extrovert, as social connection may be exactly what helps you recharge. But for me, I show up better for my people when I’ve had that time.
4. Starting My Day With Breath Work and Intention:
I’m trying to remember to do breath work for 15 minutes a day. I prefer it in the morning because I like to pair it with a meditation and some intentions.
If I do this at the end of my day, my brain is usually ruminating on so many things: things I’ve talked about at work, things in my personal life, sometimes even taxes and bills pop into my head. Before I know it, my meditation has turned into a mental to-do list.
Starting my day when my mind is fresh is a really nice way to set an intention and calm things down from the get-go. Slow breathing can help shift your body toward a more relaxed state, so I’m not immediately reacting to everything that needs to get done.
The biggest lesson for me here is not turning this into another task I need to do perfectly. The last thing I want is for my attempt to live softer to become another thing I feel guilty about.
5. Keeping My Phone Away From My Bed:
I’m trying to get off my phone more and not start my day looking right at it. I heard this advice from Mel Robbins: keep your phone as far away from your bed as possible.
First, when you wake up, your alarm forces you to get up. But you also then have the conscious decision of whether you want to open social media, read all your text messages, emails, etc. Or you can separate that and save it for a little bit later, so you start your day on a calm note.
Maybe that’s doing your meditation and breath work, having a nice cup of coffee and just relaxing, or reading a book, instead of being bombarded by other people’s energies, needs and demands, plus the stress of constant algorithm negativity and toxicity.
The emails will still be there. The messages can wait. I want to start my mornings responding to my own needs before everyone else’s.
6. Changing My Media Diet:
Similar to the phone, I’ve been changing up my podcasts and the mood that’s set by the media I take in.
I like to stay up to date on geopolitics, economics and world issues, and I think being informed is important. But with it constantly in our face on social media, I find it cripplingly overwhelming and depressing, and it can completely throw off my mindset around opportunities in the future (as a stressed out millennial).
I love Diary of a CEO and other very informative podcasts, but I’ve realized I need to limit them because they’re getting quite doom and gloom for me. Not every moment of my free time needs to be spent absorbing serious information. Sometimes I just need to laugh.
So I’m listening to more things that just uplift me. One I’m listening to now that I find really positive, happy and hilarious is Amy Poehler’s Good Hang. If you haven’t seen the episode with Marcello Hernández, it’s hilarious. Please watch!
I’m learning that I can care about what’s happening in the world without needing to take in all of it, all the time.
Living Softer Is Still a Work in Progress:
Living softer is still a work in progress for me, and it’s definitely not perfect. I’m still an ambitious woman wearing many hats, and there are still weekends where I feel guilty for not doing more. But I see how years and years of go, go, go shows up in the body for so many of my patients, so I’m choosing to slowly rewire those habits now.
My patients are often asking me for cortisol tests, or supplements to lower their cortisol. While these can help, and a test can give us some data, I find the lifestyle changes are really where we see the biggest impact (there is no supplement that can out-perform high stress or lack of sleep). Of course, these are the hardest changes to make, and there are many ways to approach this. But for me, these are my top 6 that really seem to help. It’s individual, and finding what works for you is personal.
You don’t need to overhaul your whole life to start. Perhaps you start with just 1 of these, whether that’s a hot shower after work or leaving your phone across the room tonight. Aim to do one thing a day that calms your nervous system.
Consistency over intensity is something I talk about a lot with my patients when it comes to nutrition and exercise, and I’m learning the same is true for rest. 15 minutes of breath work most mornings is worth so much more than a perfect wellness routine you give up on after a week. Missed a day? That’s okay. Our bodies are remarkable. They are designed to heal when given the right conditions, and rest is one of those conditions. Remember YOU deserve that softness too.
You have so many hats to wear, and your stress may be showing up in your body? If you’re looking for support calming your nervous system and getting to the root of what your body is telling you, I can see you for 1 on 1 naturopathic support.
