Knowing When To Take A Break
As an extremely all-or-nothing person, finding balance has always been quite elusive. I tend to be more “pedal to the metal”, full speed ahead, and then burn out before I even realize I’m overwhelmed. Despite that being my natural inclination, I’ve accepted that I need to work on noticing when I need to rest, take my foot off the gas, and hit the break.
Even if you aren’t an all-or-nothing person like me, I’m fairly confident everyone has moments when life gets too stressful and a break is necessary. I know for me I often lie to myself and act like there isn’t any time for a break so I couldn’t possibly take one. Somehow I always forget that the break is going to come whether I plan for it or not. My body will shut down and force a break eventually. In a perfect world I would pay closer attention to how stressed and overwhelmed I am getting so that I can give myself breaks long before I completely burn out. While I’m trying to work on that mindset shift, these shifts take time, and I need a backup plan in the meantime. Having a full-blown mental breakdown every time I push myself too hard is clearly not working, so I need an alternative.
I have to give credit where credit is due, my boyfriend came up with the idea that I now exclusively use as my backup plan. I was insanely stressed out one night and told him about all of the things on my to-do list that I needed to do and he told me that there was only one thing I needed to do, sleep. It’s such a simple concept but he couldn’t be more right (even if it’s hard to think that way with a mile-long to-do list). If I’m burnt out and overwhelmed to the point of barely functioning, I focus on just one thing, basic functions. I’m talking really, really basic, like eating and sleeping.
One of my favorite authors, Brené Brown, describes how we cannot function when we are in a state of overwhelm. First, we have to escape the overwhelmed state before we can go back to normal function. She also mentions that the only way to break out of that state is to stop what you are doing and take a break. It is somewhat impossible to stop doing everything in adult life. There are some non-negotiables and those will be different for everyone. The concept is to find the bare minimum, non-negotiable, basic functions and stick to just those until the overwhelm dissipates.
Again, my goal is to get better at taking breaks in a more timely fashion to avoid falling into the black hole of burnout and overwhelm. Until I’ve mastered that though, I will focus on working, eating, and sleeping in the moments when that is all I can manage. Do you have any tools that work for you when you are burnt out? What do you do to make sure you are taking the breaks you need? I’d love to hear your advice!