“Today’s the day!” Or So You Thought…Why you’re still flirting with burnout

Does this sound familiar?

Today was supposed to be your day. Buuuuut…..

you woke up later than you meant to because you went to bed late and didn’t sleep well, and the “5 more minutes” snooze turned into 30, and then getting out the door with the kids and the partner was hectic, so even though you’re leaving on time, you’re stressed, and you didn’t get to have breakfast, thank God for coffee tumblers. You figure you’ll grab something on the way but then traffic is a bear. 

By the time you get to work, there’s no time for breakfast, so you refill your coffee, dump some cream and sugar in to make the office coffee taste somewhat tolerable, and are determined to work out at lunch. But then there are constant interruptions, and the next thing you know it’s after 2, you forgot to eat lunch, forgot to workout, you feel like you’ve gotten nothing done, the hangry monster is taking over, and between the work stress and the hunger and the dehydration, your back is hurting, your head is hurting, and you’re really not sure how the day got away from you.

Why is there never enough time? 

You go to the bathroom to splash some water on your face, and that’s when you see them. Eye bags the size of the cell phone you’re tethered to. And your, “You’ve gotta be kidding me” face is stuck that way because those lines don’t bounce back the way they used to. When did you get so old?

Now you feel even more tired and are frankly a little pissed at yourself. It’s too late for lunch and too early for dinner, so you grab the healthiest option from the vending machine and go back to the computer determined to salvage the day.

But it’s hard to really focus, you don’t have the brain power to be uber productive, and somehow one meme a friend sends turns into 30 minutes of mindless scrolling between meetings and phone calls and emails upon emails, and you’re finally leaving the office starving and exhausted at 8 pm when the kids are getting ready for bed.

So you hit the drive-thru on the way home, because might as well, and shove it down while inching down the freeway, and get home just in time to kiss the kids goodnight and have a “discussion” with your partner, and at last, you get to veg out “just a little” which turns into 3 hour-long episodes of some show Netflix said you would like, and then you finally fall into bed…late…again…thinking tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow is your day. 

Only it’s not because you didn’t hire me to coach you through the BS of the daily grind so that your personal and professional lives can thrive together. Because I am guessing that you didn’t wait your entire life to become an adult to meet the person you fell in love with and have the kids you adore only to never see them because you feel trapped in a 9-9 job that at this point does nothing more than age you prematurely while covering basic medical expenses, giving you just enough salary to get by, and a few days vacations that you never can seem to use because you have too much work and not enough money to really go anywhere anyway. 

You aren’t alone, but you know that. No one can solve this rat race by themselves. You need a masterful coach to guide you through the process of stepping back, getting clarity, and helping you figure out what you really want, how to have time for it, and why you matter enough in the first place to make it happen.