Hey there, First name / friend!
Around this time two years ago, my burnout reached a fever pitch. The people pleaser in me continued to say yes to work and projects that were well within my wheelhouse, but the timelines and compensation were unreasonable.
I remember being so frustrated with myself for being in the same feeling of being overworked and depleted again, just a little over a year after being in a similar situation. I thought I had learned my lesson at the beginning of 2021 when I set a series of new boundaries around communication and increased my rates in an attempt to stave off the same impending burnout. And yet… I faced critical junctures again in both the spring of 2021 and 2022 needing to make serious changes.
And I did — for the most part.
I’m quite proud that over the past two years, I have structured work in a way that feels manageable and honors my need for time flexibility. If I don’t want to run an exploitative business, that includes not exploiting myself and my resources. Tangibly, that includes practices like only checking my emails during designated times, communicating with my team and clients to set expectations around my capacity, and adjusting deadlines so they accommodate both my work and my body. The changes aren’t exactly radical ideas, but they have a sizable impact for my well-being and my ability to devote myself to my work, the people I love, and the causes that are important to me.
The thing is, no matter how many practices you have in place for exchanging your time and energy, the dialogue with your capacity and your resources is continual. That’s why each time I’ve felt more aligned in my business than ever, I’ve still had to face lessons I “thought I was done with.” That’s OK. We’re not meant to push ourselves to burnout, but we’re also not meant to reach some ultimate point of understanding. The lessons keep coming, but we reach for the values that guide us sooner in the process, so we can come back to our tools sooner, so we end the cycle of self-exploitation sooner.
How the work feels at each stage tells me most of what I need to know about my capacity and desire to do the work, and whether the exchange is right. The number one way I gut-check my work processes to make sure they’re aligned with my values is by using my joy and resentment as one of my most important metrics in my business.
Even though I really do enjoy this work and would do it for free if I didn’t need money to survive, I’ve learned how to truly value myself and the expertise I provide, feeling more confident in my pricing and processes than ever before. It feels easy for me to lean into my value of
Radical Generosity when thinking about what I can give to others, which is deeply connected to a sense of joy for me. It’s been a continual growth edge for me to flip that script and ensure that the Radical Generosity flows in both directions so that I am a beneficiary, too.
This spring, I’ve had to yet again take stock of the opportunities presenting themselves to ensure that the yeses I give come from a place of values alignment (and not scarcity). Each time I’ve met burnout, I’ve spent considerable time reflecting on what exactly it was about each scenario that tipped the scale. Because of that time spent in reflection, I now intimately know my personal recipe for burnout. When I see the ingredients start to coalesce (and usually resentment or resistance is one of those ingredients), I remember to advocate for a path forward so burnout isn’t the result. Sometimes that means a request is a hard no. Sometimes there is a creative way forward with certain stipulations in place, like adjusting the rate, timeline, or scope of the project.
I am grateful to have two incredible souls on
Team Maggie who support me and point me back to my values when I am too in the weeds to have the proper perspective. Their gentle inquiries and reflections always help me to gain the clarity I need.
With trusted partners by my side, and
allowing Inquiry to guide me along the way, I am getting ever closer to ensuring that my business truly is values-aligned. I’ll never fully “arrive” in alignment, because living values is a practice, not a destination. But I do get to know my work supports more of the ways I intend it to because I meet my values with aligned action.
If you’re curious to explore your own values alignment in your business (and create a roadmap for actions that support those values), check out
my latest blog post.
