Burnout Guilt + Setting the Ground Rules for My Trip to LA

By the time you’re reading this I’ll most likely already be in LA. YAYYY!!

I got my new sparkly shoes on. A chai latte in hand. And I’m readyyyyyy for some LA vibes.

If you can’t tell I’m so. freaking. excited. As I’ve spoke about recently, the past few months have been a lot. Constantly running around from 5:30AM to 9PM finally caught up to me. I realized I was experiencing the pangs of burnout. Once I acknowledged this I did what I could to lighten my workload and daily physical output which meant leaving CorePower Yoga. I challenged myself to find more space in my every day life. And I booked this trip to LA as both something to look forward to and a chance to reset for a full week.

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Yesterday I felt like a giddy kid about to go to Disney [oh wait, I am a kid that’s about to go to Disney.] At first I thought “Hmmm, why am I so anxious” and then I realized that wasn’t anxiety I was feeling. It was pure excitement. Excitement for a little mini escape. And to have a few consecutive days off.

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I’ve been feeling a lot of guilt surrounding this feeling of burnout. Feeling like I don’t have the right to feel this way. There are people juggling a lot more than me. Grueling 60+ hour a week jobs. The delicate balancing act of family and work. People who are under a lot more and pressure stress than I am.

The truth is I feel guilty for complaining. Or for admitting that I needed help. Because my job isn’t traditional. Because I’m not working 40 hours a week in a literal office.

With that being said, those of us following these non-traditional paths have to cut ourselves some slack. Sometimes I take a step back and remind myself Girl, you taught 15 classes this week between Y7 and Bar Method. That night not be 40 hours of literal work, but it does require commuting to each and every class [sometimes to Hoboken, sometimes to Darien, Connecticut.] It requires being fully ON during that hour I’m teaching. Otherwise I’ll mess royally mess up my sequence. Or my rights and lefts. It also requires prep time for playlists and memorizing my sequence. Those little things add up.

And of course there’s my own little business on the side. Sometimes I feel like I spend hours doing behind the scenes work — writing emails back and forth negotiating contracts. Tweaking graphics. Updating old blog posts. I’ll feel like I have nothing to show for it if there’s not new content live on the blog.

I had to give myself permission to feel what it is that I’m feeling. To no longer feel guilty about being so dang exhausted and uncreative. And I had to remind myself that waking up before 6AM 3 times a week does catch-up to you. Even if you think you’re a super human that doesn’t need sleep.

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I feel like every time I go to LA I have to lay down these ground rules for myself and give myself permission to do less. To actually treat my vacation like a vacation. I think its especially tough for me in LA because I’m plopping myself down into my friend’s every day life. And it’s not like I’m on some exotic island where the wifi is spotty.

At first I had these big plans for this trip. Plans to really dig deep on my e-book. To really dig deep on some big picture business planning for Kayla in the City.

But then I reminded myself this is your vacation. Your break. If the inspiration hits you and you want to journal about future plans, do it. But don’t force it and make yourself miserable. If you want to spend your plane ride watching all of Mrs. Maisel again rather than getting shit done, do it.

So here is me saying this for accountability: I will treat this vacation like a vacation.