How to Give Yourself Permission to Take a Break

Sunglasses, sun hat, passport, and shirt

Do you ever find yourself caught in a cycle of overwork, having to choose between self-care and being of service to your clients and community, and constantly feeling as if you’re on the edge of burnout? Maybe you’ve even been receiving physical and mental health reminders lately telling you to slow down, but every time you think about taking a break, you’re wracked with guilt and worry?

“It took me a long time to realize that we don’t actually have to do everything at once—and that when we do that, we have a tendency to dilute everything that we’re doing. So instead of picking one thing and doing it really well, we’re giving a certain percentage of our energy to a bunch of little things.” – Emily Williams

Being a busy and booked woman in business (or climbing the career ladder) is no easy feat. Whilst we work hard to increase both our income and our impact, many of us have a tendency to overdo it on the giving scale—to always be hustling towards the next shiny thing, pursuing new projects, or creating something new without pausing for breath. We worry that if we take a much-needed break, we’ll lose the momentum we’ve been working so hard towards building… that our stats will flounder and that the world will forget about us. So instead of listening to our intuition and taking a step back, we tend to keep piling things on our plate until they topple over.

But here’s the thing… if your energy stores are depleted, it’s your responsibility (and yours alone) to replenish them. Not only does this serve you, but also the people you love, and the people relying on you at work. So whatever it is that you need—creativity, drive, motivation, or that elusive spark that steered you in the direction of starting a business in the first place—taking a step back might be just what you need to encourage it to come out of hiding.

And because we like to lead by example, we’re taking a break, too! As you might know, 2021 has been a transformative year for us here at I Heart My Life. If you’ve been following along with our rebrand, you’ll know that we’ve been busy setting the foundations for massive growth behind the scenes. That’s why we’ve decided to press pause on new podcast episodes for a while, and allow ourselves the space to soak up new inspiration—so that we can come back better than ever, and with lots of surprises up our sleeves.

In this episode of the I Heart My Life Show (our last one for a while!), Emily shares the lessons she’s learned about content, creativity, and balancing being of service to both yourself and to others. If you’re busy juggling work, business, family, and all the other responsibilities that keep piling up on your plate, consider this a loving reminder that it’s okay to step back and take a breather, too. Trust us, your big mission (or your community) is not going anywhere.

And don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere either. There are over 230 episodes in our archives for you to dive into while we’re on hiatus, so you can listen and learn whenever you like. We’ll see you soon!

In This Episode:

Why we shouldn’t neglect our health reminders and warning signs
The benefits of building out systems and structures that support your growth
Is hard work equivalent to hustle, or is there a better (and more balanced) way to achieve sustained success?
The different seasons we move through in business
Why Emily has never believed in the idea of making do with what you’ve got
A lesson we can learn from the feeling of relief
Making the shift from a state of urgency and scarcity to one of ease and flow
What to do if you’ve got a tendency to overgive and overdeliver
Why we’re giving ourselves permission to repurpose valuable content (and you should, too)
And finally, why the IHML Show is going on hiatus for a little while!

Quotes:

“I believe a pivot is about letting things go and really deciding what you’re going to put your attention and focus on in order to get the results that you want.” – Emily Williams

“Hindsight is 20/20. Of course, hard work is one of the things that got me where I am today. But at this stage in the game, I started to see that it was time for me to take a break. It was time for me to figure out a different way of living and being, without being so obsessed with being involved in every element of my company, without feeling like I needed to fill all of my space and time with another project, without continuing to pile things on my plate.” – Emily Williams

“I’m very focused on my mission and I know what I want to accomplish. This work is so important to me. And so the question for me became: ‘What is it that I want to give my attention to in order to carve out more space?’ Because I do believe that we can have it all, but I don’t believe we can have it all at the exact same time.” – Emily Williams

“First and foremost, figure out what this chapter is about for you. What season are you actually in, in your business?” – Emily Williams

“If you are building a business or starting a new career right now, keep moving forward. When a plane takes off, that’s when it uses the majority of its fuel. That’s where you are right now—so maybe this period you’re in is about hustle and about showing up. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t take care of yourself while you’re going through that.” – Emily Williams

“It took me a long time to realize that we don’t actually have to do everything at once—and that when we do that, we have a tendency to dilute everything that we’re doing. So instead of picking one thing and doing it really well, we’re giving a certain percentage of our energy to a bunch of little things.” – Emily Williams

“Relief is one of those underestimated emotions. If you feel relief when you take something off your plate, it’s telling you that you weren’t in alignment.” – Emily Williams

“What if we got better at repurposing? What if we got better at making sure that as many eyes or ears got on the content as we possibly could instead of rushing onto the next? That’s what sometimes happens, especially with things like podcasts or emails, we’re cranking out so much content, and yet we’re spending very little time, energy and resources, actually making sure that what we create gets into the hands and the eyes and the ears of people who need it.” – Emily Williams

“I can serve and I can take a break. It’s possible to do both.” – Emily Williams

“Put your focus on the things that are going to move the needle, the things you’re excited about, the things that drive you and fuel you, the things your community wants. And make a plan for the other stuff—no, that doesn’t mean you toss it.” – Emily Williams