Sustainable Business Growth Starts With Mindfulness at Work

• How to recover from burnout while still working
• Why stress management in entrepreneurship requires more than time hacks
• The role of nervous system regulation in entrepreneur mental health
• How the “good girl syndrome” quietly feeds the burnout cycle
• And the small (but mighty) mindset shifts that lead to real, sustainable growth

“I realized I brought burnout with me when I left teaching. Because you are your business.” 

“It’s not just about time management. It’s about regulating your nervous system so you don’t burn out while still working.” 

“The good girl syndrome showed up again. Doing everything perfectly, showing up for every call, every task until my body finally said, ‘Stop.’”

“I had to learn to ask myself: What’s the one thing I can do today? Not ten. Just one. And that has been so freeing.” 

“Burnout doesn’t hit you like a truck. It creeps in quietly. One skipped lunch, one extra hour here and there — until suddenly, you realize you’ve fallen back into the same pattern.” 

INTRO

Burnout isn’t always loud. Sometimes it looks like quietly skipping lunch, stretching one more hour of work or signing up for every call because we want to be that good student or we don’t want to miss out on collaboration opportunities or other opportunities that might be coming from that call. So in today’s episode I’m joined by the brilliant Joanne Homestead, a copywriter storyteller and fellow entrepreneur mom and we are diving into a very real burnout story, one that might feel uncannily familiar if you’ve ever pushed through exhaustion thinking this is just what it takes or once I’m done with this project everything will calm down and slow down.

So today Joanne shares what it looks like to carry burnout from the classroom, because she was a teacher, into her business, how the good girl programming kept her stuck in overwork and what it finally made her stop and listen to her body’s quiet but very strong screams. But this isn’t just a story about burnout, it is also a story about returning, about choosing a gentler pace and about learning how to work from a place of being instead of doing. So come and join me.

Forget the hustle, ditch the burnout and step into your productivity sweet spot. This isn’t just another time management podcast, it’s your go-to space for refreshingly real conversations and practical strategies that help you work smarter not harder. I’m Anne Rajoo, your host and a passionate advocate for peaceful productivity.

Join me as we challenge traditional productivity rules and redefine success on your terms with time, energy and focus that actually fit your life. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, creative or just someone who’s done with the grind, you’ll find actionable tips, mindset shifts and powerful discussions to help you get more done without the stress. Let’s find your productivity sweet spot.

ANNE

A real-life burnout story and I think where I want to start this conversation is really, maybe describe a little bit of the experience like what was happening, what has been leading up to your experience and what have you noticed in yourself that was like oh hold on this is not quite the place I want to be. 

Let’s start off there. 

JOANNE

Just for a little context I come from 15 years in teaching where it was very normal to burn out every year basically and to have that summer break as my recovery time so that for the next school year I can go back and basically burn out again. For at least 10 of those years. 

ANNE

You have such long school holidays, I always wondered. Yes! It depends from a teacher point of view, not from a mom point of view but okay I definitely already learned something that never crossed my mind but that’s crazy though.

JOANNE

I think for a lot of teachers that’s really what you need the break for is to recover from the burnout and again it just really depends on where you’re teaching, how you’re coming, what angle you’re coming from because definitely it’s an external there’s you know obviously external situations happening that cause can cause me to burn out but there is also what I didn’t realize at the time was an internal there was something internally in me that was also causing me to burn out even though at the time I just thought it was an external like oh they’re putting all these expectations on me they’re structured it so it’s just not very conducive for me to even go to the bathroom when I need to during school day but then when I started my business five years ago that’s when I brought the burnout into my business and that’s when I had a coach who was able to point out to me, there’s also something internally happening here which is why it’s been brought into your business because you are your business and  that was my first definitely encounter with burnout in my business earlier on and I had my second son born that second year in my business and it was just like having two newborns at the same time but just continually pushing.

Just pushing myself like no I have to do this I have to financially support my family this is what I just have to do. I was able to put some things in place to help me like recover from the burnout and get the support I needed and work from a much better place that like what I like to say is work from a place of being instead of doing because I can be that person who can do, I can do just give it to me, I will do it and we’ll do it at a hundred ten percent and then realize oh no, no.

I’m burned out. I was able to put that in place and then I realized about six months ago. I joined a program to scale my business and I remember very distinctly saying to my coaches like I’m afraid I’m gonna burn out again because of my history with it.  I remember they asked like okay well do you have it like the tools and the strategies to help you not get to that point and I said, I do I worked with someone you know to help me build a better foundation and yet I  found myself in burnout again and it was from a different place which is what we had just started to talk about before we start recording is that what I call the good girl syndrome. 

ANNE

We try to be very good girls, something that I love talking about. I’ve noticed that myself and I think there’s definitely some similarities in you and my stories in terms of burnout especially with young children and young businesses but what does a good girl mean to you?  I mean I have an understanding but I’m wondering what it means to you. Maybe if you want to share some examples like how you have been a good being I’m not sure about the grammar now.  How you’ve been a good girl and how that sort of contributed to the burnout. Maybe if you want to give some tangible examples so that the listener might better understand what are we talking about here, good girl.

JOANNE

We’re good girls sure,yes I like to say I’m like a good girl to the T when it comes to being a student in a program because I love to learn so when I joined the program.  I immediately and I didn’t realize this at the time but I switched into my good student like I’m gonna be the best student.  I’m going to implement everything that there’s telling me to do I’m going to do all the modules, all the lessons, take notes and because of that I fell back into that pattern of doing too much and it was also coming from a place of when I started the program was realized I joined the program thinking I need this to work, I need this place of meeting instead of just feeling open and like just being open to the program and not kind of like you guys like that grasping feeling holding on and grasping like oh I need this to work and I think that also led me into that cycle of do like doing everything and then all of a sudden like my work schedule my calendar was filled to the brim.

I wasn’t taking a lunch break anymore I wasn’t taking any breaks anymore I was working earlier I was working later I usually end work right when my older son is done with school that’s kind of a nice very tangible time like I’m stopping now,  but I was working after he got back from school and it was such a hard thing for me to see because I was in it. I wasn’t able to see that I was in this pattern again of just doing and basically not taking any breaks working from you know I was working I think like six hours a day without any breaks it was and that was that is very familiar to me as a teacher like to work. 

ANNE

Because that many hours are ingrained in yoU and it’s like I can imagine it’s not like you go from zero to 100  slowly but surely you fall back into the habit like you skip that one break you take just half an hour longer you just work another hour in the evening here and there and then suddenly it’s like boom and you’re back at what you used to do and what still feels very familiar in your body and in your brain because that is the default mode that you’ve learned for so many years and it’s so interesting that you’re sharing that and it made me sort of like chuckle on the inside because just yesterday I had a what’s up chat with a client of my virtual assistance agency and she’s developing a program and she said oh and then I think we’ll have some weekly accountability calls and I said to her maybe you want to think about bi-weekly because quite honestly like from a potential client like I like what she does and I could be a client of her I said like I might feel a bit overwhelmed with weekly calls and she said oh but it’s optional and I’m exactly like you I said to her well.

I would still either feel out feel like I’m missing out because I’m not able to attend all the calls and I’m like I paid for this or I would feel like I’m a terrible student because I’m not showing up to the calls and so I’m like I said I think there’s a lot of alignment between me and your experience because this good girl like you’ve got to be the good student you’ve got to do your your business in the right way and you’ve got to show up and all of that like I can so relate to that.

JOANNE

Yes. I love how you mentioned that because that was something in the program they had two calls per week and that’s what I fell into like I have to be there for the live calls because I don’t want to miss out I don’t I want to make sure I get as much as I can of it plus do all the all of the video content that they have as well and and all the implementation yeah it was just like it was like consuming is what I thought all consuming it just consumed me and it really was caused me to finally realize where I was at was my body telling me screaming at me.

ANNE

Usually the big red lamp big red signal that goes off especially when we don’t take breaks I just today recorded an episode about eating and nutrition and that’s what happened to me back in the days as well I wouldn’t eat properly because there was no time to prepare food or to even eat food it was always just a quick biscuit between just so that something gets into the stomach and that was a big factor why I burned out and why physically I had quite a few symptoms as well and it’s like the first thing to go and it’s not like it’s not like we don’t know it like I can imagine that you understand fully that it’s important to eat healthy and to take breaks but it’s really difficult like you said to see it when you’re in it because it creeps up it’s not it doesn’t happen you know like you’re not necessarily making an intentional choice. 

Okay just now I need to do an hour longer it just slowly happens and that is the danger I think and but what now you said I was about six months ago and I know you still had a really busy busy month of May and but obviously you recognize now okay hold on I’m falling back into old patterns something is not going the way I wanted to go what would you what are your action steps now to sort of counter this what are you falling.

JOANNE

I mean I would definitely say it slowed down a lot and I think that’s really my body forcing me my body forced me to slow down and I’m still in that it was just about two months ago when my body started screaming at me saying you have to stop there’s there’s you can’t keep going like this and so in the last two months, I’ve slowed down a ton just because my body has just had symptoms and it’s I’m needing to make sure that I can take care of myself and gradually work go get back into work but also realizing not only just like having that good girl syndrome and and wanting to do everything perfectly as a student and show up for everything implement but it’s also another big piece of it was learning to regulate my nervous system and so that’s something that I’ve really been focusing on in the last two months is really learning okay how can I regulate my nervous system because it is really dysregulated and it’s stressed.

I learned about EFT tapping and so that was really helpful. I’ve been doing that meditating. I used to meditate every night but I kind of do a lot of routine again with that getting back into that but then just that and then also getting support from a coach, and then also it’s starting I just recently just started therapy with the therapist to be okay.  I really want to really dive deeper into how I can manage my my stress and the anxiety that came up and so those have all been very recent things very fresh things that I have been doing but then another piece of it is looking at my count looking at my work calendar again and you’ve been very helpful with this because just so happily. I just filled out your time audit assessment which is was really great and I’m very excited because another piece of that is okay I’m learning to regulate my nervous system.

I have that awareness of how I fell into that burnout again and I’m taking steps to take care of my body and then okay let’s look at my work schedule and see exactly what it is I’m what it is I can take off my plate, most likely doing too much because I’ve had this like my body has forced me to slow down. I just ask myself every day at this point what’s the one thing I can do today because that’s all the energy I have what is the one most prioritized thing I can do and I’ve actually been very freeing even though it’s just like it’s been a lot slower but it has been very freeing in that sense of okay this is the one thing I’m gonna focus on today and that’s it and if anything else I do that’s like a bonus but really I feel like I haven’t had the energy to really do too much but because of that I feel like I’ve been able to put my energy and focus into that one thing better than feeling scattered.

ANNE

No this is true this is often the issue that we are facing that we want to do too many things and then it is just more efficient to actually focus and narrow it down on something like fewer tasks which is not always easy and possible because obviously as business owners we’ve got plenty of things who wear plenty of hats and we’ve got to do all sorts of things, but it’s exactly what you’re saying like this is the work I do and that I love is to really look at what is going on on a daily basis and what are things that are really critical and that need to be prioritized and then how can we break it down in your case okay you’ve got one item that you would like one task that you manage to do. 

Because right now that’s the capacity you have and then how what is the item like sometimes it also feels very overwhelming when we have bigger projects and it’s like well you won’t be able to sit down for six hours even if that’s one project but to break it down in smaller tasks and then to look at what are the things that have sort of like taken over the schedule but they maybe are not that crucial and not that important or they could be automated or they could be postponed eliminated whatever it is that’s exactly the work that I love doing so it is exactly really finding like combining this the capacity that we have with the right things to do so that we’re still able to move the needle even if it’s one hour a day or if it’s five hours a day or whatever it is so it is exactly that.

JOANNE

I find that for myself it’s what I realized was all my connection calls I like I am such like I love connecting with people and I love connecting people with the right people,but I found that I had seriously overbooked myself with um connection calls in my calendar yeah because I just oh yes and I can get into that very easily because that’s my way of also um de-stressing myself is connecting with others I just I love doing that but realizing that okay it’s just way too I have gone overboard.

I’ve had too many calls and um because in the last few weeks I’ve been recovering from a cold and with allergies. I just gave myself permission to reach out to all the people who booked the connection calls and say hey I’m sorry I overbooked myself would you mind just rescheduling later next month just so I can spread it out more and also just give myself permission to say, hey I have overbooked myself I really appreciate you taking the time to to book this call with me because I know it takes time to put it in your calendar but for the time being um let’s just put it on hold for now.

ANNE

And how were the reactions what like so…

JOANNE

 so gracious…

ANNE

What did you expect? Were you telling yourself they will all be fine or were you telling yourself oh like I’m gonna look I don’t know like this entrepreneur who’s just not able to manage her schedule or whatever what was the inner talk there?

JOANNE

Yes totally feeling like oh I’m just I’m gonna look like I don’t have any control for my schedule.

ANNE

We all can relate and we can all understand yes.

JOANNE

Yes and they are they all said the same thing I totally understand I have been there or I’m there right now they usually say like that’s actually perfect timing for me as well because I have been feeling overbooked and so I very gracious and very understanding and everyone just had very we’re very encouraging too like saying I’m in a very similar spot as you sometimes 

ANNE

it’s really actually setting an example because we are not alone and sometimes when someone says actually, I cannot because of xyz and you’re like okay actually it’s fine we can do that, we can reschedule, we can block our schedule because of something and it’s we have the permission to do that and it gives the permission to other people also to do that.

Thank you so much for sharing your still quite raw and current experience and I’m really looking forward to actually doing the audit with you and see what can shift there but for today thank you so much and maybe if you want to share with everybody if they want to find out what you do because you are actually a copywriter a very brilliant copywriter so tell everybody if they want to connect with you where to go.

JOANNE

Yes. First I have to say I’m really excited for our time audit because that is definitely not my strength. It’s like looking at the systems and the processes and looking at the calendar and trying to figure that all out. So I’m really excited for that and yes I am an email copywriter and an email copy coach and you can come find me on Linkedin that’s where I’m most active and you can search for my name Joanne Homestead and the last name is spelled h-o-m-e-s-t-e-a-d like the word homestead and find me there you can connect say hi in the messages but you can also find me on instagram at desk plant creatives which is my business name ,and it just has a dot in between desk dot plant dot creatives.  I’m not actively posting there but I am still active in the messages there and of course you can come join me in my free email community flourish and that is where I give copywriting tips email strategy email sequence tips and of course stories of all flavors because I am I like to say I’m the story whisperer and I love weaving stories into the copywriter for the copywriting for a better conversion in 100% your authentic writing voice because that’s really how we attract people into our worlds so yes come find me.

ANNE

Go and check Joanne out. I’m gonna definitely have to find your community so I’ll join you there. Thank you so much for today.

OUTRO

I’m so grateful for Joanne to share her story and I love that she named something that so many of us feel but we rarely talk about it the hidden burnout that follows us even when we left that job or we changed our schedule it follows along because some of these things are really deeply ingrained in us the way of working our habits they have been there for many many years and even if we think we managed this one part here it might show up in a different part I’ve experienced that I still experience it.

I recently did a workshop on breaking the busy loop because I also realized that still after years of talking about peaceful productivity I still end up in busy loops and so there are many different reasons why that happens 

But I think what I took away from this conversation today mainly is that burnout isn’t always caused by external deadline and pressures a lot of burnout that we’re experiencing actually comes from our own stress patterns and patterns that we have absorbed somewhere in her case it was from teaching and that moment of self-awareness of seeing that you are your business it can be sort of confronting but it can also be freeing and if you’re noticing similar patterns that doesn’t mean that you are failing it just means you’re ready for that shift it’s time for you to try something different.

And the second part that I would love to re-emphasize is that you don’t have to earn rest so Joanne’s simple practice of asking what’s the one thing I can do today because it was simply only one thing that she was able to do it’s just a beautiful reframe and I would love for you to try on Joanne’s question and tomorrow or today ask yourself what’s the one most important thing that I can do today and let that guide you and not your never-ending to-do list.

So I hope you enjoyed this conversation today and if conversations like this spark something in you and you are also going to be on summer holidays or school break or vacation and you like me have children or like Joanne she also has little kids and you know that it can be a bit chaotic and that your schedule might be overthrown and that there’s just so many other things coming into the mix you might want to have a little break and I have created something that will give you this break I’ve created what I call the magic mom moment and that’s an email series with very very short two three five minute maximum video clips of conversations I had in the past with some of them are podcast guests.

Some of them are people I interviewed for online summits some of them are friends of mine and we all share little practices and simple moments that we can do at any point in the day to spark a little bit of a magic moment and that’s why it’s called the magic mom moment and you can sign up on my website as always annerajoo.com and forward slash moment I will link it in the show note you can just get that little zest that you might need for the day to just really recalibrate ground yourself and then continue whatever you’ve got to do.

So sign up to enjoy the magic mom moment and then obviously if this episode resonated with you take a little moment to share it with a friend, leave a review or take a screenshot and send it over on instagram and tag me _annerajoo_ . I would love to see what resonates and who is listening to the podcast and of course come back next week I will continue this sort of motherhood productivity conversation with someone who’s actually a coach for moms and her name is Kate Kripke and we will talk about something that’s very close to my heart why we tend to overdo and why rest often feels uncomfortable and we’re digging into a nervous system regulation mom guilt fear that creeps in when we try to slow down and how over functioning can sometimes feel safer than being doing nothing I would love for you to join me next week and until then as always stay peacefully productive and I’ll catch you next time