Rest Is Productive: How to Heal High Achiever Burnout

• Why your nervous system holds the key to true productivity
• How self-compassion and productivity go hand in hand
• The hidden cost of pushing through burnout (especially for moms)
• Simple practices to start regulating your nervous system today
• How to shift from hustle mode into sustainable, peaceful growth

“Rest isn’t the opposite of productivity, it’s the pathway to it.”

“If your nervous system is fried, no amount of to-do lists will make you productive.” 

“High achiever burnout happens when we confuse doing more with being more.” 

“Self-compassion isn’t just self-care, it’s a productivity strategy.”

“Slowing down feels hard because hustle taught us it’s not safe. But slowing down is how you actually move forward.”

INTRO

Slowing down sounds lovely until you actually try it. If you’ve never sat still for five minutes and felt your skin crawl like you should be doing something, fixing something, crossing something off your to-do list, you’re not alone. Most of us high achieving women were not taught how to rest.

We were taught to perform, produce and prove ourselves. And in today’s conversation I am joined by Kate Kripke, a clinical social worker and motherhood coach and we are unpacking why slowing down often feels so uncomfortable. We explore the roots of overdoing, how fear-based beliefs shape our productivity and what it really means to pause when your nervous system is in overdrive.

If you’ve been feeling stuck in a cycle of not doing enough, even when you’re doing everything, this one is going to speak straight to your system.

Let’s dive in.

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

I want to start today’s conversation with you, Kate, by talking about what it means to be productive when your system already is in overdrive.

And I want to dig in why so many of us are stuck in this pattern of doing and pushing and achieving and then we still don’t feel like we’re actually doing enough. And I want to ask the question, why do you think that is that especially us women turn to this sort of behavior and pattern?

KATE

I think it is an exceptionally important question with not necessarily one easy answer. So let’s see if we can break it apart a little bit.

I think first and foremost, I want to acknowledge how many of us are in that situation in that position, right? Those of us who might consider ourselves to be high performing, high achieving women, we’re actually often over performing and over achieving, right? What I mean by that is we can meet that goal, whatever that goal is big or small, and we’re very quickly on to the next thing because that all of a sudden doesn’t feel like enough. And it becomes this really tricky, sort of self fulfilling, exhausting system of having to continue or telling ourselves we have to continue to do more in order to feel the way we want to feel. And we never catch up.

We never get there. So this is incredibly typical. I think what causes it is a number of things, some of which are inside of our control, and some of which are outside of our control.

Maybe I will first set the stage for the things that are outside of our control, so that we can remind ourselves that we’re not broken and we’re not horrible people or horrible mothers or horrible women, right? 

We are just caught up in something that is happening that we don’t have control over it. And I think let’s start by the reality of how many of us who are growing up in Western society are born into a system of achievement. We’re born into a system of capitalism, right? We’re born into a system of individuality.

I’d have to be able to do it myself in comparison. My sense of success is based on where I am in the totem pole of success. Does that resonate for you?

ANNE

Yes, very much.

KATE

And it’s really in the air we breathe. I think this is true regardless of what our socioeconomic background is, what our race is, even what our culture is, as far as our generational structure,where we come from in our generational patterns, because it’s just in the air we breathe in many Western societies.

And so that is already a setup. We’re raised as little children were raised to not be satisfied until we do better. So that, again, we didn’t ask for that.

We didn’t quote unquote, do anything to breathe in that air. It’s just the air we breathe in. On top of that, I think we are in an age, time and age where there are two very impactful things happening.

Number one is social media, this thing, right? And social media does two things to our brains from a neuroscience perspective. It does two things for a brain. Number one is it gives us dopamine hits over and over and over.

And so the slowing down and pausing that’s actually required for real true performance. And we can talk about that in a moment, but the slowing down and pausing our nervous system, our dope, our brain chemistry, it gets, we become addicted to the dopamine hit of these phones. So slowing down and sitting and just listening, or just quote unquote, being inside of our body creates this sense of urgency, this sense of angst.

ANNE

That resonates with me. 

KATE

And then the third thing is that with this phone, we are constantly getting, we’re bombarded by information, right? That kind of set sets our brain into calculating, okay, survival equals belonging, survival equals acceptance, survival equals admiration.

And I’m getting all this input here, whether it’s about motherhood, or working or whatever it is, and in order to quote unquote, keep up to stay safe, I have to do more. So it creates this nervous system response inside of our body, that quote unquote, is not in our control, our feelings, our nervous system, how our nervous system responds to a real or perceived threat, we can’t control that initial response. Does that make sense? 

ANNE

No, it really resonates.

And it’s definitely a big part of my journey. So I think I’m going to learn a thing or two from you today, which is always welcome. Because even though I’ve practiced, sitting still and being uncomfortable with not doing anything, I also have days where I fall back into this really deep pattern.

And I’m like, Oh, and you’re doing it again. And you know better. But it’s, it’s such a deep path for me personally, it’s so deep, that I like what I’ve got to do, I’ve got to work, I’ve got to produce and sitting still is lazy.

And rest is for the weak. So just my dad always said that, like, it’s so deep, that it still comes out, even though I help women like you just do, I help them not to do it. But I am guilty and guilty is not the wrong word. It’s not the right word. But I do it, sometimes it happens to me. But resonates deeply with me

KATE

You’re speaking for all of us, I think, you know, Matt, I should say many of us, we can totally relate to what you’re saying. And I do think it’s really important to recognize whether we want to be successful in our work or in our relationships, right? 

My client is a mom with a young child who is having a hard time feeling connected to her kiddo, because she’s in this place that you’re talking about, about needing to do more and feeling busy and anxious and not feeling unable to be present with her child.

But whoever we are in that situation, that is deeply uncomfortable, because we know, our brain knows, I’m doing it again. But our nervous system doesn’t know that it’s safe to slow down. So we can tell ourselves over and over and over, just spend 20 minutes with your child without distraction.

And then within two and a half minutes, we’re already wondering what we’re going to cook for dinner, or whether or not someone has tried to reach us on our phone, or maybe that the dog needs to be fed, or we find a reason to not be present, right. This is such a common scenario. You said something perfect segue to the other thing.

That again, I think I want to say what I said in the beginning a little bit differently. Both of the things I’m about to say are initially, quote unquote, not our fault and not in our control. But what to do with them is, does that make sense? We have control over how to get out of this cycle.

But the other thing is that many of us were raised in families where we were very, our parents unintentionally, usually sometimes intentionally, but often unintentionally, we learned that we weren’t enough. I’m not enough. I’m not okay.

And that messaging that we get when we’re young, again, there are certainly families where there is true capital T trauma, physical, emotional, sexual, psychological abuse, or when a parent is deeply ill, right?  I think that happens for sure. But this messaging can happen, even if we are being raised in an intact family, that on the outside looks like a quote unquote, good family. Right. But we can get messaging when we’re young, that in order to be loved, or to belong or to be accepted, we have to do more, be more fill in the blank, successful in school, a better soccer player, quieter, more put together, right, the good girl, whatever that is. And that gets into our hard wiring.

And again, I think until we actually look at that hard wiring underneath, we will continue to run on this high level of achievement oriented, kind of performance driven, but never quite getting there. treadmill, I’ll call it that in life that leaves us feeling exhausted and disconnected and depleted.

ANNE

This definitely resonates with me.

An even unintentional thing. I mean, in my case, I’m sure my parents did not intend to. And even I sometimes see it with my boys.

That didn’t like, Oh, my God, what am I doing here? Like they are, my meaning might be completely different, but that’s what they are internalizing. And it freaks me out sometimes, if I’m honest. But yeah, so see that in playing out for myself and for boys, too

KATE

I think the other thing that comes with some of these quote unquote, fear based limiting beliefs, of which, by the way, you said two of them, I wrote them down, you said, sitting still is lazy, rest is for the weak. So these are fear based limiting beliefs that motivate this high, this sort of fight, flight or freeze way of moving through those life, this high stress way of moving through life that we need to actually shift so that we can feel different in life. Those are two examples of that.

Another one is that many of us are taught, again, directly or indirectly, when we’re young, that feeling emotional discomfort is bad. That if we’re feeling emotional discomfort, that means, quote, unquote, something bad is happening, or there’s something wrong with us. We will turn into chronic, I’m going to use the word pathological, because it’s so problematic doers.

If we take that belief into our life with life with us, because the more I do, the busier I stay, the less I have to feel. Or so we tell ourselves. 

ANNE

I think this is definitely powerful.

And this rings very true for me. And maybe we can go there in terms of the listener who might be like me, who has this pattern deeply ingrained and does feel uncomfortable, when she either wants to slow down, or is maybe forced to slow down. Like I said to you, I had this cuff that made me stop for this flu and turned into this long cuff.

What does a human like me and the listener do to, I don’t know, feel a little bit more comfortable to slow down? And why should we?  I know you mentioned it in one word in terms of the real. I can’t remember what exactly the word you use, but performance driven, you know, like that kind of thing. What can we do there?

KATE

So you said something a moment ago that I’m going to repeat, because I think it’s a really important part of this process. You said, you were talking about how you are probably me too, by the way, unintentionally sending the same messages to your boys that you got when you were young about achievement oriented worth, right? It, again, it’s in the air we breathe. We’re not, you’re not saying to your son, I’m not going to love you unless you act a certain way, right?

But because you don’t know how to, perhaps, regulate your own nervous system in the moment that you may send the message that your son needs to change how he feels so that you feel okay. He has to be more or be different for you to feel okay.

By the way, I think this is universal. So many of your listeners are going to be able to relate to this. And these are hard questions to ask.

We don’t even want to open up to that possibility because we’re going to feel that emotional discomfort. And again, if we were taught that emotional discomfort is bad, we’re not even going to ask that question because it’s too painful to ask the question. However, you said it makes me feel freaked out.

And from my world, I would say, great, that’s good. That feeling of anxiety is wise. We don’t want to take that feeling and then have you feed all kinds of catastrophic stories about it. That’s not helpful. The anxiety itself is there to tell you that you need to slow down around a few things. And many of us can’t tolerate the anxiety.

So we speed up and quote, unquote, do more just when we feel that instead of slow down. Does that resonate?

ANNE

Totally, exactly. If I stay here and I pause here, then it gets more uncomfortable. So let’s just find the next thing.

It’s the same. Where I live in the culture, I see this a lot with little children is the distraction. Grandparents, uncles, aunties, they want to try and distract the little kid from the emotion.

And it’s exactly that. Just don’t stay there because it’s uncomfortable. It doesn’t feel good.

So let’s move on quick, quick, quick out of this place here. I think this is definitely not helpful because then it’s always on to the next thing. And like what you said, like I recognize it myself. Oftentimes when I say something that I might regret or that my voice might interpret differently, it tends to be when I’m not in a very regulated, good place. 

KATE

Of course.  So let me answer the question of why is it important to slow down? And then we can give your listeners a couple of tangible things they can do to begin the process. And actually in there, I want to also answer what do we do about it? So why is it important to slow down? What is sort of the general global place we have to put our attention? And then what are a couple of things we can do? Does that sound like an okay way to move forward?

So why is it important to slow down? So decades, decades, decades, decades of research have focused on what is it that leads to health and well being in humans, right? This big study just came out from Harvard this year that talked about how the key to living a long life and feeling quote unquote happy is connection, the connections we have with people, when we’re moving really quickly and not slowing down. If that’s how we move through the world, we’re probably also likely to be the person who says, I never see my friends or I’m lonely, or I don’t have a community of people that I feel like I can be my most authentic self with Those two things probably go hand in hand, which means that they these people also probably have more health issues.

They have lower immune systems, they’re not sleeping as well, right? They’re not making as good quote unquote, good decisions for their own health and well being. So there’s a lot of interconnection here. What slowing down requires is feeling.

Okay,  if we slow down, we have to be willing to feel. But what feeling does is connect us with other people. So connection happens in moments of emotion.

One of the things I see in my work is that women will say, well, I have to do more because I need to be a better mom. The idea is if I keep doing more, if I do more for my child, if I plan the big party, if I make sure they have the perfect lunch in their lunchbox every day, if I read them six books tonight, if I do more, I will be fulfilling my role as a good mom. However, the doing more, the moving and staying busy keeps us from those moments of emotion.

And it’s in the moments of emotion that we connect. If we’re not slowing down and feeling we can’t connect and what I want to remind you and me and all of your listeners is that we don’t need to be in a moment of joy to connect. You know, we often say as mothers, we often say  I need to make sure my child is happy. But really, the irony of the moments of emotion that connect us even when our kids are sad or disappointed or angry or scared, right? Or for us. I don’t know about you but the moments where I have felt the most deeply connected to other people are moments of emotional vulnerability.

And of course, that’s been studied for a long time, right? 

ANNE

I’m getting so many examples that would come to mind. I think it’s really it’s head on.

KATE

So that’s why slowing down is important. Not to mention that if we speed up and don’t slow down, our body is going to force us to slow down because we’re going to get sick, right? Or get a cough or whatnot, right? So, our bodies need to slow down.

So either our physiology is going to make it so we have no choice, or we can begin to see the purpose and meaning and desire in slowing down and then begin to make the choice we need to make to be able to access some of that more kind of present minded, slow connection time, right? 

Side note, real connection, deep, secure, safe connection with us and our children or us and our partners or us and other family or friends requires listening, really good listening. And if we’re speeding up and thinking about, you know, 20 minutes from now or 20 minutes before, we’re not listening, we’re distracted. So again, the glue, the magic, the gold and building connections happens when we’re slowing down and pausing, not when we’re speeding up and doing more.

Does that make sense?

ANNE

No, totally. And I think  often, like my little one, he doesn’t like to be pushed along, like he needs to take his time he needs to take and he’s often a little person that reminds me of like, all right, slow down, because if I want him to do something, he will do it in his own time. But if I tell him, we’ve got five minutes to get out of the door, he will resist and he will create the biggest tantrum you can imagine.

So it’s that reminder as well that I’ve got to slow down because it’s not going to work any other way. But there’s like so many examples that come to me. But maybe if we just bring it back to productivity real quick, as well, the slowing down in terms of when we are actually, I mean, I’m the first one to knock my toes because I’m rushing, or cut my finger because I’m rushing.

And I guess if I slow down, that wouldn’t happen, first of all, but also, speaking to the entrepreneur who’s listening, what can slow slowing down do for us in terms of mental work and capacity there?

KATE

So it’s right in line with what we’ve been talking about. And again, let’s remember that one of the biggest reasons we don’t slow down is because if we do slow down, we’re going to feel something.

We’re going to feel some emotion of some sort. You know how many high achievers are really used to talking pretty critically to themselves. Come on, do more.

You screwed that up. What’s wrong with you? Right? That sort of like really harsh self talk, critical self talk. Many of us are taught to believe, maybe because it was modeled to us that we need to talk to ourselves that way in order to be productive.

We’re sort of taught that productivity comes from being hard on ourselves to do better, to do more. The data tells us something entirely different. What the data tells us is that when we are talking critically to ourselves, we are in a state of fight, flight, or freeze.

We are in a nervous system state, a sympathetic nervous system state. When we enter a sympathetic nervous system state, our frontal cortex, which is executive functioning turns off.

Right. So we believe that being hard on ourselves to do more, don’t stop. It’s a waste of time to slow down. What did you say? I’m sitting still as lazy rest is for the weak. What’s wrong with you? You’re so weak. Keep going.

Really? That kind of self-talk is turning down the part of the brain that we need to be productive and turning up the part of the brain that’s actually going to narrow our perspective. So we’re less curious. We’re less creative.We’re less open to new information. Does that make sense? What we know helps with productivity is self-compassion. Self-compassion is a practice of meeting ourselves where we are in our emotional state.

So what’s required for self-compassion is me pausing, like putting my hand on my heart and pausing and be like, what am I actually feeling in my body? Oh, I’m feeling a racing in my heart or my jaw is clenched or my tummy is turning. I’m feeling impatient or frustrated or angry or worried. That’s the first part of self-compassion. And then the second part of self-compassion is literally giving ourselves permission to feel what we’re feeling, not to say do something. So you don’t feel that way, or there must be something really wrong that I’m feeling this way, but to say instead, of course, I’m feeling this way. 

I’m beating myself up in my brain. It’s like having a bully on my shoulder. Of course, I feel this way.

I’m telling myself that sitting still is lazy and the rest is for the weak, and I desperately don’t want to be lazy or weak. So of course, I’m feeling this way.

That compassion actually is a practice in connecting with ourselves. So again, in order to connect with colleagues, friends, family, children, we have to slow down and feel, and that slowing down and feeling with ourselves, which we call self-compassion is an act of connecting with ourselves. And when we are in a state of connection with ourselves or other people around us, our parasympathetic nervous system turns on rest and digest.

And when that nervous system turns on, our executive function becomes more accessible to us, and we’re more creative, and we are more open to new information. And we have all these skills that actually help us to move forward and evolve and grow in our work or whatever it is that we’re focusing on.

And when that nervous system turns on, our executive function becomes more accessible to us, and we’re more creative, and we are more open to new information. And we have all these skills that actually help us to move forward and evolve and grow in our work or whatever it is that we’re focusing on.

ANNE

I love that.  It really resonates. It’s just like the sense of feeling good in the way that you’re working instead of pushing and just kicking yourself in the butt for not doing the work. I have that quite often of like, why does this feel so hard? You know exactly what you’re supposed to do, but still, it’s just so much work. But it comes so much easier when we actually sit there from this place of, no, Anne, you can do this. It’s fine.

You’ve done it before. And totally resonates with me. I can really, I’m that critical person.

So yes.

KATE

And just to take a one level deeper, Anne, because I think it’s worth kind of, again, just one level deeper. First of all, it is okay to have big goals and to want to achieve amazing things. So none of this is saying we shouldn’t have high expectations or want to achieve big things or have big goals. In fact, we know also when we look at the data and the research of people who are the healthiest and the quote-unquote happiest, there are people who feel a greater purpose in their life, right? So when we have a purpose, when we’re doing purpose-driven work or activities, whatever it is, passions, we actually will be happier. So we want to have those.

I want to go back though, to how we started just a few months ago, which is that many of us were raised to believe somewhere deep in there, like this stacking doll, these rushing dolls that are stacking dolls with all these, right? Somewhere inside the rushing stacking doll, you know, on the outside is this beautiful version. We’re all put together and we’ve got a smile on our face. And deep inside, there’s a little version of us that worries that we’re not okay.

I’m actually not okay. If only people knew. I’m actually not enough.

If people really knew, they would know that I’m not enough. I’m really not worthy. If people really knew, I wouldn’t be, I’m not worthy. We have these little parts of ourselves that actually believe those things. And nothing will really shift in this pipeline or this pathway we’re talking about until we poke holes on those deeper beliefs. Because I can tell myself, come on, Kate, you can do this. It’s okay to feel this way. You know what to do. I can tell myself that.

And that might work for a few minutes or a few hours or a few days. But if I still have that deep fear-based limiting belief about myself, it won’t be sustainable. I’ll go back to those old habits.

ANNE

There you go. I think you pointed something out to me that I said in the beginning, I keep going back to the same patterns.

So there is probably still something inside that me believes, this is not enough. You’re not doing enough and oh okay. That’s why I love being on a podcast.I always learn something.

KATE

Me too.  And I’m the one kind of sharing this information, but I’m not immune to the things that we’re talking about here either. I want to make sure that you and me and your listeners understand that this isn’t happening because there’s something wrong with us inherently wrong with us or that we’re bad mothers or bad professionals or bad humans. That’s not the point because we started by saying, look at the world in which we’re living. It’s like a fish in water.  It’s the air we breathe, right. We’re just in it. So the place to start really, and is to begin to, number one is to get really curious.

Like what are the fear-based limiting beliefs that I might be telling myself without even realizing it. And again, you said two that I bet so many of your listeners can relate to sitting still as lazy rest is for the week. Some other really common ones are  I’m not enough in less dot, dot, dot, fill in the right. I’m doing everything for everybody. My house is perfectly clean. My children are always happy. Um, you know, everybody likes me, whatever it is.

That’s another one. The one that you and I talked about today was unpleasant or uncomfortable emotions are bad and wrong. That’s another one.

So we want to get clear on what those old fear-based limiting beliefs might be. The reason we call them fear-based limiting beliefs. Number one, they’re based in fear, right? We know that we feel fear in our body when we think about them and they limit us from what we want most because our beliefs are extremely powerful in our lives.

And then the second part is just to begin to poke holes. Is it possible that that thing I’m telling myself is not true. And when we do work like this, we’re only looking, we only need 1%.

We’re basically saying, is this a fact? Is this a fact that if I, if we asked every single human on the planet, there’d be scientific data to prove, right? Is it a fact? Is it possible? It’s not true. And then the other question is, how might I be moving through this situation, this experience differently if I didn’t have that thought? And we just want to begin to loosen up our grip in some of these stories. We tell ourselves that keep us running in chronic anxiety, chronic stress, chronic guilt, exhaustion, burnout, so that we can have access to a different kind of template to move through life.

ANNE

I love that. And that again, it’s the whole slowing down so that we can actually pay attention to what’s going on and not run away from poking the holes.

I love that poking the holes that really speak to me like just a little bit, you know, scratch the little surface and next time maybe go a little bit deeper. And at some point you’ll be like, oh yes, now I fully understand. And then you find something else, the next level, but this is the fun.

This keeps it interesting, but I love this so much.

KATE

And it really is slowing down and because remember, if you’re not used to slowing down, it’s going to feel uncomfortable to slow down. If you believe that uncomfortable emotion means you’re doing something wrong or there’s something bad happening, you’re going to kick yourself out of that slowing down very quickly. So understand that of course it’s going to feel uncomfortable to slow down. Of course. And that’s where we offer the self-compassion, right? What am I feeling? What is that feel? It’s a jitteriness. Okay.

Well that makes sense. Of course I feel that way. Once you offer yourself that compassion, you’ve connected with yourself and you have more access to making more intentional choices in your next step.

ANNE

Cool. Perfect. Well, I could talk about this forever, but obviously we’ve got time running out.

So is there anything else that you want to share that we really should have spoken about today? and then obviously share with everybody where they can connect with you and how they can find you.

KATE

I think just in summary, we didn’t, I didn’t necessarily say this yet, but it’s just really important to realize that those of us who are high achieving, high performers we’ve really mastered the skill of achieving. We know how to problem solve.

We know how to fix, we know how to organize, we know how to control, right? Those things we’ve actually gotten quite good at. And those skills are really important. It’s just that connectingwith ourselves and other people in our lives requires a different part of our brain and it’s there.

We have a full brain, right? We just may not have been practicing and strengthening that part of our brain. So again, I want to just make sure people know, cause many of us are like, well, I don’t want it. I want to keep achieving, right? I don’t want to suddenly, you know, go backwards or get complacent

And that’s not the point here. The point is great. Celebrate that achievement brain, celebrate that achievement brain, and begin to practice strengthening your connecting brain. And that will require slowing down and pausing to get there.

ANNE

I love that. Perfect. Well, where should people go to find you? Where do you hang out?

KATE

Thanks for asking. So I am on Instagram at Kate Kripke. I have a website, katekripke.com. And then I will send you a link to a short 30 minute masterclass that talks about how this concept we’re talking about today can lead to anxiety and guilt in motherhood.

So if you have some listeners who are mothers, who are maybe they’re working moms, and they’re really worried about how do I stay connected to my kid while I’m also pursuing this work or this goal I have, if I’m an entrepreneur and how do I get myself to a place where I really can slow down so I can connect deeply with my child, that masterclass is going to talk more about that. I’ll leave that. I’ll give that to you so you can put that in your show notes for anyone who’s interested.

ANNE

Sounds brilliant. Definitely something that I’m going to watch becauseI’ve been talking to a lot of moms about the holidays, the school, schools are out and how do we  maintain some sort of business,as usual, but we still have the chaos going on.

I’m going to watch it and it’s going to be in the show note, but thank you so much, Kate. It was a huge pleasure to speak to you.

KATE

You too and thank you so much for having me here. 

OUTRO

This conversation with Kate definitely scratched something for me. I’m recording this outro a few days after we had spoken and it definitely got me thinking. And I think it’s important to share that part here because I want you to know I’m human. I’m not, while I teach productivity and peaceful productivity, I’m not super human. I’m not always highly, incredibly productive because I’m human.

And because I have beliefs and baggage and this notion of discomfort when I’m trying to pause, when I’m trying to rest is definitely one of my biggest productivity challenges. I am the one who struggles with all sorts of feelings when it comes to just sitting down and doing nothing. And so I think when I spoke to Kate, it really got me thinking like, okay, I haven’t resolved this yet.

There is something deeper there. And I just want to invite you to be with me on this journey because one element of my peace framework is to enjoy the journey because productivity is the journey. It’s not the final end product to be highly productive and to create output and businesses that are incredible and impactful.

And yes, these are things that we want, but the journey is the peaceful productivity, how we get there. And the journey is more important than the end result. So I want you to come along on this journey and enjoy it with me.

And so I want to leave you with two takeaways today, as I always do. And I would love to invite you to come along with me and try to pause. And if you have feelings of discomfort coming up for you as well, when you’re doing nothing. I want you to not push past it. That would be my initial, my go-to strategy, push through it.

Get five minutes rest and that’s good. And you’ve done it. And it’s not that I want you to get curious with me and I want you to tune into these feelings and see what is there. Not trying to fix it. No judgment, just name the feeling, the discomfort that comes up. So try this with me today.

And the second element of the conversation that stood out for me is this notion of self-compassion. It’s also an element of my peace framework. Self-compassion is powerful. Self-criticism is something that we go to quite easily, especially as women, we tend to be more critical about ourselves than we are compassionate.

I would love to invite you to join me in a compassionate practice today. And together we can put our hands on our heart. We can take a deep breath and we can ask ourselves, what am I feeling right now? And we name it again, no judgment, no criticism, just name the feeling. What is it? Do I feel relaxed? Do I feel anxious? Do I feel excited? Do I feel tired? Just any sort of feeling that comes up in that moment and allow that feeling to be there and give yourself the compassion of, it’s okay to feel that way and acknowledge it and don’t judge. Don’t try to fix it. Just be there. 

So I hope this episode resonated as much as it did with me. And if it did, I think I have something that you will like.

I have created a special magic mom moment summer edition series. So that’s an email series with small video clips, two, three, five minutes, max video clips of conversations I’ve been having over the past six years or so with a variety of people, moms, mainly moms, and really business owners, experts, coaches, but also just normal people. And we talk about, or they shared in these conversations, their small practices that help them to ground themselves, to help them create this sort of little magical moment.

And I know that when you’re listening to this, when this episode comes out, it’s the mid to end of July, and you’ve probably gone through a few weeks of summer holidays, kids at home, trying to do some work at the same time, vacations chaotic schedules, social engagements, lots of fun and hopefully really beautiful memories. But I know for myself that at the end of a holiday, not even at the end, probably more towards the middle, if I’m honest, I can feel exhausted. I love my children, but juggling the whole holiday thing, all the things that come with it, that’s beautiful and exciting, and still trying to do some work is exhausting.

And so I think you might need a little bit of a magical moment here. And so I’ve created the series, and you can sign up for it on my website, annerajoo.com forward slash moment. The link will be in the show notes, and your first email will come on the 29th of July at 7am.

You grab your cup of tea or coffee, you sit down, you watch that little clip, feel the magic coming in, and then you can go off into the and apply that wherever you get this moment of, I need that magical reconnection, grounding, and so that you can make these beautiful summer memories for the last few weeks of summer. Sign up on it, annerajoo.com forward slash moment. And then as always, help me to spread the word about peaceful productivity.

Take a screenshot of the episode, post it on Instagram and tag me at _annerajoo_. Leave a review on any of the podcast apps that you listen to this. And I really appreciate you being here, tuning in every week.

And I hope we all can change the notion of productivity and can bring peacefulness into the work we do. And of course, come back next week, it will be a solo episode. And it is for you, if you feel stuck in a busy loop, if you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, but you’re not actually moving forward.

And it sort of feels like an unproductive pattern that you might have created there, something that you keep doing, and you’re not quite happy about it, but you still can’t really put your finger on what it is. I will talk about the typical patterns that I see with my clients. And I will talk about how we can break those so that we can change the work so that we can change the way we’re working and so that we also feel differently when we’re working.

So you don’t want to miss that one. Subscribe to the podcast. You get a notification.

Come back next week. And until then, stay peacefully productive and I’ll catch you next time.