30. When You Feel Exhausted
I know from talking to y’all that exhaustion is something many of you are experiencing. Even before the pandemic and all it brought, fatigue was often a problem for a lot of my clients, especially those who are juggling family and other commitments along with their career. But right now, I’m seeing even more exhaustion and it’s something I want to address (so that y’all can feel better AND enjoy your work/life more).
I was coaching a client recently on how exhausted she was. I gave her some coaching, and within a few weeks, she wrote me about what had changed for her. She also said that I needed to do a podcast on this because it had revolutionized her life. So, that’s exactly what I’m doing on this week’s episode.
I’ll give you some insight on how you can coach yourself when you’re feeling completely exhausted, and I’ll explain how coaching can help even if you won’t be able to change your actual life circumstances all that much (I mean, a month long vacation would be great, but that might not be available to you right now, so I’m going to offer some insight that will help even if you can only carve out a few minutes for it). I’ll share some of my own stories about exhaustion and I’ll teach you how you can incorporate this work into your own life so you can handle fatigue without it taking over your whole life.
If you love the podcast and want to take this work deeper, I have great news! I have space for new one-to-one coaching clients starting this month, so click here to schedule a call with me and we’ll see if we’re a good fit to start working together!
If there are topics y’all want me to teach and talk about on the podcast, feel free to write in and let me know by clicking here! I’d love to hear from you!
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
My clients’ experiences of feeling exhausted and not knowing what to do about it.
How to start prioritizing rest in your life.
The pressure we experience as women to keep doing more and more, no matter how much we’re already doing.
My own difficulties when it comes to resting properly, and how coaching has improved those experiences.
The coaching I gave my client about how to cultivate more rest in her life.
Insight into how you can apply this coaching in your own life.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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If you’re enjoying the show, please leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcasts!
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about what to do when you just feel exhausted.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y’all, how are you this week? I am doing really well. As many of you know I had a birthday recently so that was pretty exciting. I had some fancy dinner, I had some glasses of fancy sparkle Rose, I had a really nice time. My girlfriend got me like four birthday cards and then presented them to me and I had to like open them in order. She like hid them around the house, it was really wonderful. And I’m still like feeling the glow of my birthday vibe.
And then I have some other big news. So some of you may know this, some of you may not, but my girlfriend and I are planning on moving. It’s been something we’ve been talking about for a while. So right now we live in Seattle and listen, I love Seattle, there’s so much that’s amazing about Seattle. I’ve been here for I think it’ll be 11 years this summer, or actually right before it would be 11 years I will be moving. So we are moving. As much as we love Seattle, we wanted to do something different, we want to go somewhere for a while that has more sun. And so we’re moving to California where my girlfriend used to live before she lived here. And I’ve never lived in California but I’m pretty excited about it.
I’m excited to try something new and to have a new adventure. And to have this adventure with her. We’re moving to Sacramento, which is where she used to live. And we recently went there because we put an offer in on a house and it’s spectacular and we love it, so we’re in contract. So it’s all really exciting but it’s kind of wild because this is not what I imagined for myself in so many ways.
My girlfriend loves to like own houses. She owns the house we live in now. And for me that was not really a part of my dream life actually, this idea of like owning a home. But I’m really excited about it all the same and it’s just fun to see how sometimes our lives unfold in exactly the ways we’ve planned, like with my business. I very much planned for it to be the way it very much is.
But with these other things in my life, like I knew I wanted a partner and I, you know, met my girlfriend and we started dating and that was lovely. But there’s so much that’s happened in our relationship as its unfolded that just was unexpected for me. And really, it’s been such a source of growth, and challenges, and delight as well.
So that’s our big news. So without further ado let’s get into what we’re talking about today. And what that is, is exhaustion. And I know from talking to y’all that this is something many of you are experiencing or have experienced in the past.
I think even before Covid and even before this last year exhaustion was pretty common for a lot of women who work in corporate, for a lot of my clients. But I think especially with this last year it’s something that people are feeling in even more extreme amounts. And I was talking to a client about this, well I was coaching her on feeling exhausted. And feeling like she never gets enough rest, and she never gets enough time to herself and there’s so many things to do in the day. And I gave her some coaching which I’m going to tell you about in a minute.
And a few days or weeks after that coaching, she wrote me in Slack and she was like, “You need to do a podcast on this because it is revolutionary. It’s totally changing my life and how I feel in my day to day and in my moment to moment and as I go about my workday. But also as I go about like having a life with two small children.”
So for a lot of us in the current time, in the current world, with everything going on, a lot of us have sort of a never ending to-do list. There’s always something we could be doing, there’s always something productive we want to be doing, or something we feel like we have to be doing, right? I talk a lot about our social conditioning and all those internal shoulds we have.
And with women in particular what I see again and again is that there’s always that pressure to be doing more no matter how much we’re doing. So most of us find ourselves in this position where we feel exhausted, and we don’t feel like we have the time to get the rest that we want and need. And then on top of that, I myself, and a lot of my clients sometimes struggle when it comes to falling asleep at night or staying asleep at night.
So I don’t know that I’ve ever talked about this on the podcast but all the way back to my childhood I remember just laying in bed at night feeling tired. Feeling tired in my body but not being able to fall asleep. And as I’ve gotten older that has been a trend that has continued and I’ve experienced not sleeping, not being able to fall asleep in beds across the country and the world and in various different circumstances. And I’m every well acquainted with this.
And thought work and coaching has helped a lot and sometimes it helps in that sometimes I can like calm myself down and that can help me fall asleep. And sometimes it helps in that I am laying awake and not sleeping but I can at least have a better experience of not sleeping because of the way I’m able to speak to myself about that inside my own head and the way I’m able to frame the experience.
So for example, when I wake up in the middle of the night and have a hard time falling back asleep one thing that I like to do is tell myself my only job is to lay here. Because for me, it might be different for you, but for me when I wake up in the middle of the night and I can’t go back to sleep I begin to feel anxious.
And I begin to have this internal narrative of like, it’s happening again, I’m never going to fall back asleep. It’s only like whatever, probably three or four in the morning and I’ve only gotten five hours of sleep and it’s not going to be enough and I’m going to be tired tomorrow.” And even just talking about that right now and telling you right now, like I feel anxious in my body.
Versus if I think like, “My only job is to lay here.” Like would I prefer to be sleeping? You bet, but if my only job is to lay here then I can feel calmer. And often feeling calmer in that way actually does allow me to fall back asleep. So that’s a fun trick that you can use.
And then the other thing I think about is again, when I’m not sleeping my brain wants to go to that anxiety space of like how terrible it’s going to be and how bad I’ll feel tomorrow. But I can also tell the flip side of that.
Which is like even if I don’t get eight hours of sleep tonight, even if I don’t get six hours of sleep tonight, I’ve gotten less than this amount of sleep before and I’ve survived. Like it probably wasn't my favorite experience ever, but I’ve done it. Even when I maybe don’t sleep well for a night or a couple nights there are always other nights when I do sleep well.
And so in this way we’re kind of like comforting ourselves that even if we don’t get the sleep we want, it doesn’t have to mean that everything is terrible and horrible, and we don’t have to go into the anxiety space. We can kind of comfort ourselves into realizing that even if we don’t get that sleep this night, there are other nights, and we will be able to survive.
Because when we sort of start to freak out and get like going with that anxiety, on one level it's like our brain feels like its survival is at stake. Which it might feel like that's true but it's often not actually true. And stepping away from that actually can help us have a calmer, better experience. It also makes it more likely we're going to fall back asleep. So it's a win win.
All that being said, that's not actually the coaching that I gave my client that I want to tell y’all about. That's kind of just an aside to explain that I understand there's a lot of different things that happen when it comes to physical exhaustion. And sometimes it's a sleep thing and sometimes it's something else where we're taking care of small children in addition to doing, you know, our knowledge work, or work, or whatever.
So the coaching question that I asked my client, and that you can ask yourself, was how can I offer myself rest? This is a very simple question but it's also very profound. And here's what happened that my client reported back to me when she told me that I should make a whole podcast about this because it's so important.
She would be doing something, right? Like she'd be in her workday and she would feel exhausted. And she would look at her calendar and see that she didn't have enough time to take a nap without canceling meetings or whatever that maybe she didn't want to cancel. And before coaching her brain would kind of come in with like, “I'm so exhausted, this is terrible. This isn't fair, this is going to be an excruciating day. I'm never going to feel rested.”
I’ve had all of those thoughts before and in the moment, they can feel very true. But here's the thing, they're not helpful. They don't help us feel better, they actually usually make us feel worse, kind of like those anxiety thoughts in the middle of the night. But when she would pivot in her brain, switch from the negative thoughts to thoughts about like how can I offer myself rest? She would get an answer, right?
So it's like maybe she would have 10 minutes before the next meeting and instead of spending those 10 minutes like being upset that she didn't have time to nap or like berating herself for her inability to sleep the night before, or I don't know, if it's me I would be like scrolling Instagram while feeling depressed about myself. Like I tend to scroll social media when I kind of feel sorry for myself but don't think there's a solution.
But when she would ask herself, how can I offer myself rest? She would get an answer, right? And so sometimes the answer was like, I want a hot drink. Or like I actually just want to like curl up in a blanket while I read this email that I'm reading. Or I want to do a two minute meditation, or a five minute meditation and that's going to help me feel more energized. Like maybe I want a glass of water.
The point isn't exactly which thing it creates. The point is the switch in mindset from the focus on what's not working to the focus on what could be working and how we can take care of ourselves in that moment.
So the overarching point of this isn't even the things that my client then chose to do. Like, I'm not necessarily saying like, “Hey, if you're tired, you know, having a glass of water will solve that for you.” It probably won't 100% solve it. It's more about making the switch internally, the mindset switch from this isn't working, I feel shitty, I'm never going to feel better.
All those thoughts feel terrible. They usually actually make us feel more tired. And they maybe also create some self-pity. Which listen, there's nothing wrong with self-pity, but it's usually not helping us solve our problems.
So we're switching from that over to something that is more helpful. That question, how can I offer myself rest? Which is like, yeah, even if it's not what we would ideally like, even if it's not taking a nap, or having a body that falls asleep as soon as it gets in bed, which is what I've always wanted, but just not what I have in this lifetime. It's what can we give ourselves, right?
And it's like what I'm always talking about y'all, the switch and orientation from what's not working, usually I say to what is working, but in this episode, we're talking about to what could be working. What could work for me? What could feel good to me? Let me take my confirmation bias away from all the ways in which this current moment isn't working for me. And let me use my confirmation bias to assume that there is something I could give myself that's going to help me feel rested, that’s going to help me feel cared for, that's going to help me feel better in this moment.
Now, obviously, this is not going to fix everything, like we still need to do work around like figuring out our schedules. And if we have too many things on our plate, maybe findings and things that we can delegate or stop doing or ask someone else to do. That's a topic for a different podcast, though, this podcast is about when we're in that moment where we don't have space for the kind of rest we truly want, what kind of rest can we offer ourselves?
And listen, sometimes you are going to cancel a meeting. Like you're allowed to do that. It doesn't have to be what kind of rest can I fit into this 10 minutes. When you ask yourself how can I offer myself rest? You might say, “You know what? I actually don't need to go to that meeting. I can catch the replay. What's more important is to lay down for 30 minutes. Or what's more important is to go out and take a walk.”
Because interestingly, sometimes offering ourselves rest is offering ourself movement. That's a weird one but that works for me. Right? And so actually, you could even change the question from, how can I offer myself rest to like, how can I offer myself care? How can I offer myself kindness even?
I like rest because I think it helps your brain think about what would be restful in that moment. And if we're talking about exhaustion, rest restfulness is the antidote. But you can play around with this and figure out like what question is more helpful to you. And I want to say one final thing, which is that I think this is a tool that sounds too good to be true. Like, I think when I first asked my client that question, she was kind of like, “How can I offer myself rest?” Like eye roll. I didn't see her roll her eyes and she didn't say that at all to me.
So client, I know you're out there listening to this, like I don't mean anything about you. I just mean I know if I were the client and someone said that to me, I might be like, “This question is not going to help me feel better. This question is not going to solve the fact that I didn't sleep last night.” But what if it can help you feel better?
Like no, it might not solve that you didn't sleep well last night, but what if it can give you something? What if it can give you a little bit of a push in the direction you want to go? And it does, and it has. It did for this client. And like I said she was so excited about it she insisted I do a podcast, which I love that. And all of y'all can always invite me to do podcasts on anything you would like to hear from me about.
But I really want to invite you to try this today or this week. If you are feeling exhausted, ask yourself how can I offer myself rest right now? How can I offer myself rest in the time that I have? What would feel restful to me right now.
While I believe firmly in and want to do the work for creating a world that has space for us to rest, sometimes it has to start with us and sometimes that's the only place it can start. And even if the world wants to offer us rest, if we're not willing to take it then we won't get it, right?
And I know, sometimes we want to rest at night when we're “supposed to” but things don't always go according to plan. Like, that's not always going to be the way it is. So a question like this can help you handle the situation you're in when the situation you're in is not what you would like it to be.
That's just part of life, y'all. Like, I wish I could make your lives always the way you want them to be. If I could do that, I would do that. But I can't do that. Shit will not always go according to plan, but you can always figure out ways to offer yourself rest, to offer yourself care, to offer yourself more of what you want.
And then we can also go in to do the work to change the overarching structures, like to change the calendar, to change the schedule. Even when we do that, sometimes our bodies won't sleep at night. So this tool will always be useful. But like I just can't say enough how valuable it is even if you also want to make larger changes in your life. Try it today, and report back. Let me know how it goes for you.
And if you love what I teach, and you want some help taking things a little bit deeper and figuring out how this all applies to your own life, I've got good news for you. I've got space for a few new one on one coaching clients starting this month. So let's hop on a call. I'll give you some coaching right away to help you get going. And if it seems like a good fit, I will share with you how we can work together. Just head on over to my website and click on the work with me button and get started there.
Also bonus, my coaching offering is totally virtual so as to better serve my global audience. And yes, I do work with people who are not native English speakers and we've had great success doing that. There's even a testimonial on my website with someone in that category. So you can check that out on the testimonials page.
All right y'all, have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y’all, how are you this week? I am doing really well. As many of you know I had a birthday recently so that was pretty exciting. I had some fancy dinner, I had some glasses of fancy sparkle Rose, I had a really nice time. My girlfriend got me like four birthday cards and then presented them to me and I had to like open them in order. She like hid them around the house, it was really wonderful. And I’m still like feeling the glow of my birthday vibe.
And then I have some other big news. So some of you may know this, some of you may not, but my girlfriend and I are planning on moving. It’s been something we’ve been talking about for a while. So right now we live in Seattle and listen, I love Seattle, there’s so much that’s amazing about Seattle. I’ve been here for I think it’ll be 11 years this summer, or actually right before it would be 11 years I will be moving. So we are moving. As much as we love Seattle, we wanted to do something different, we want to go somewhere for a while that has more sun. And so we’re moving to California where my girlfriend used to live before she lived here. And I’ve never lived in California but I’m pretty excited about it.
I’m excited to try something new and to have a new adventure. And to have this adventure with her. We’re moving to Sacramento, which is where she used to live. And we recently went there because we put an offer in on a house and it’s spectacular and we love it, so we’re in contract. So it’s all really exciting but it’s kind of wild because this is not what I imagined for myself in so many ways.
My girlfriend loves to like own houses. She owns the house we live in now. And for me that was not really a part of my dream life actually, this idea of like owning a home. But I’m really excited about it all the same and it’s just fun to see how sometimes our lives unfold in exactly the ways we’ve planned, like with my business. I very much planned for it to be the way it very much is.
But with these other things in my life, like I knew I wanted a partner and I, you know, met my girlfriend and we started dating and that was lovely. But there’s so much that’s happened in our relationship as its unfolded that just was unexpected for me. And really, it’s been such a source of growth, and challenges, and delight as well.
So that’s our big news. So without further ado let’s get into what we’re talking about today. And what that is, is exhaustion. And I know from talking to y’all that this is something many of you are experiencing or have experienced in the past.
I think even before Covid and even before this last year exhaustion was pretty common for a lot of women who work in corporate, for a lot of my clients. But I think especially with this last year it’s something that people are feeling in even more extreme amounts. And I was talking to a client about this, well I was coaching her on feeling exhausted. And feeling like she never gets enough rest, and she never gets enough time to herself and there’s so many things to do in the day. And I gave her some coaching which I’m going to tell you about in a minute.
And a few days or weeks after that coaching, she wrote me in Slack and she was like, “You need to do a podcast on this because it is revolutionary. It’s totally changing my life and how I feel in my day to day and in my moment to moment and as I go about my workday. But also as I go about like having a life with two small children.”
So for a lot of us in the current time, in the current world, with everything going on, a lot of us have sort of a never ending to-do list. There’s always something we could be doing, there’s always something productive we want to be doing, or something we feel like we have to be doing, right? I talk a lot about our social conditioning and all those internal shoulds we have.
And with women in particular what I see again and again is that there’s always that pressure to be doing more no matter how much we’re doing. So most of us find ourselves in this position where we feel exhausted, and we don’t feel like we have the time to get the rest that we want and need. And then on top of that, I myself, and a lot of my clients sometimes struggle when it comes to falling asleep at night or staying asleep at night.
So I don’t know that I’ve ever talked about this on the podcast but all the way back to my childhood I remember just laying in bed at night feeling tired. Feeling tired in my body but not being able to fall asleep. And as I’ve gotten older that has been a trend that has continued and I’ve experienced not sleeping, not being able to fall asleep in beds across the country and the world and in various different circumstances. And I’m every well acquainted with this.
And thought work and coaching has helped a lot and sometimes it helps in that sometimes I can like calm myself down and that can help me fall asleep. And sometimes it helps in that I am laying awake and not sleeping but I can at least have a better experience of not sleeping because of the way I’m able to speak to myself about that inside my own head and the way I’m able to frame the experience.
So for example, when I wake up in the middle of the night and have a hard time falling back asleep one thing that I like to do is tell myself my only job is to lay here. Because for me, it might be different for you, but for me when I wake up in the middle of the night and I can’t go back to sleep I begin to feel anxious.
And I begin to have this internal narrative of like, it’s happening again, I’m never going to fall back asleep. It’s only like whatever, probably three or four in the morning and I’ve only gotten five hours of sleep and it’s not going to be enough and I’m going to be tired tomorrow.” And even just talking about that right now and telling you right now, like I feel anxious in my body.
Versus if I think like, “My only job is to lay here.” Like would I prefer to be sleeping? You bet, but if my only job is to lay here then I can feel calmer. And often feeling calmer in that way actually does allow me to fall back asleep. So that’s a fun trick that you can use.
And then the other thing I think about is again, when I’m not sleeping my brain wants to go to that anxiety space of like how terrible it’s going to be and how bad I’ll feel tomorrow. But I can also tell the flip side of that.
Which is like even if I don’t get eight hours of sleep tonight, even if I don’t get six hours of sleep tonight, I’ve gotten less than this amount of sleep before and I’ve survived. Like it probably wasn't my favorite experience ever, but I’ve done it. Even when I maybe don’t sleep well for a night or a couple nights there are always other nights when I do sleep well.
And so in this way we’re kind of like comforting ourselves that even if we don’t get the sleep we want, it doesn’t have to mean that everything is terrible and horrible, and we don’t have to go into the anxiety space. We can kind of comfort ourselves into realizing that even if we don’t get that sleep this night, there are other nights, and we will be able to survive.
Because when we sort of start to freak out and get like going with that anxiety, on one level it's like our brain feels like its survival is at stake. Which it might feel like that's true but it's often not actually true. And stepping away from that actually can help us have a calmer, better experience. It also makes it more likely we're going to fall back asleep. So it's a win win.
All that being said, that's not actually the coaching that I gave my client that I want to tell y’all about. That's kind of just an aside to explain that I understand there's a lot of different things that happen when it comes to physical exhaustion. And sometimes it's a sleep thing and sometimes it's something else where we're taking care of small children in addition to doing, you know, our knowledge work, or work, or whatever.
So the coaching question that I asked my client, and that you can ask yourself, was how can I offer myself rest? This is a very simple question but it's also very profound. And here's what happened that my client reported back to me when she told me that I should make a whole podcast about this because it's so important.
She would be doing something, right? Like she'd be in her workday and she would feel exhausted. And she would look at her calendar and see that she didn't have enough time to take a nap without canceling meetings or whatever that maybe she didn't want to cancel. And before coaching her brain would kind of come in with like, “I'm so exhausted, this is terrible. This isn't fair, this is going to be an excruciating day. I'm never going to feel rested.”
I’ve had all of those thoughts before and in the moment, they can feel very true. But here's the thing, they're not helpful. They don't help us feel better, they actually usually make us feel worse, kind of like those anxiety thoughts in the middle of the night. But when she would pivot in her brain, switch from the negative thoughts to thoughts about like how can I offer myself rest? She would get an answer, right?
So it's like maybe she would have 10 minutes before the next meeting and instead of spending those 10 minutes like being upset that she didn't have time to nap or like berating herself for her inability to sleep the night before, or I don't know, if it's me I would be like scrolling Instagram while feeling depressed about myself. Like I tend to scroll social media when I kind of feel sorry for myself but don't think there's a solution.
But when she would ask herself, how can I offer myself rest? She would get an answer, right? And so sometimes the answer was like, I want a hot drink. Or like I actually just want to like curl up in a blanket while I read this email that I'm reading. Or I want to do a two minute meditation, or a five minute meditation and that's going to help me feel more energized. Like maybe I want a glass of water.
The point isn't exactly which thing it creates. The point is the switch in mindset from the focus on what's not working to the focus on what could be working and how we can take care of ourselves in that moment.
So the overarching point of this isn't even the things that my client then chose to do. Like, I'm not necessarily saying like, “Hey, if you're tired, you know, having a glass of water will solve that for you.” It probably won't 100% solve it. It's more about making the switch internally, the mindset switch from this isn't working, I feel shitty, I'm never going to feel better.
All those thoughts feel terrible. They usually actually make us feel more tired. And they maybe also create some self-pity. Which listen, there's nothing wrong with self-pity, but it's usually not helping us solve our problems.
So we're switching from that over to something that is more helpful. That question, how can I offer myself rest? Which is like, yeah, even if it's not what we would ideally like, even if it's not taking a nap, or having a body that falls asleep as soon as it gets in bed, which is what I've always wanted, but just not what I have in this lifetime. It's what can we give ourselves, right?
And it's like what I'm always talking about y'all, the switch and orientation from what's not working, usually I say to what is working, but in this episode, we're talking about to what could be working. What could work for me? What could feel good to me? Let me take my confirmation bias away from all the ways in which this current moment isn't working for me. And let me use my confirmation bias to assume that there is something I could give myself that's going to help me feel rested, that’s going to help me feel cared for, that's going to help me feel better in this moment.
Now, obviously, this is not going to fix everything, like we still need to do work around like figuring out our schedules. And if we have too many things on our plate, maybe findings and things that we can delegate or stop doing or ask someone else to do. That's a topic for a different podcast, though, this podcast is about when we're in that moment where we don't have space for the kind of rest we truly want, what kind of rest can we offer ourselves?
And listen, sometimes you are going to cancel a meeting. Like you're allowed to do that. It doesn't have to be what kind of rest can I fit into this 10 minutes. When you ask yourself how can I offer myself rest? You might say, “You know what? I actually don't need to go to that meeting. I can catch the replay. What's more important is to lay down for 30 minutes. Or what's more important is to go out and take a walk.”
Because interestingly, sometimes offering ourselves rest is offering ourself movement. That's a weird one but that works for me. Right? And so actually, you could even change the question from, how can I offer myself rest to like, how can I offer myself care? How can I offer myself kindness even?
I like rest because I think it helps your brain think about what would be restful in that moment. And if we're talking about exhaustion, rest restfulness is the antidote. But you can play around with this and figure out like what question is more helpful to you. And I want to say one final thing, which is that I think this is a tool that sounds too good to be true. Like, I think when I first asked my client that question, she was kind of like, “How can I offer myself rest?” Like eye roll. I didn't see her roll her eyes and she didn't say that at all to me.
So client, I know you're out there listening to this, like I don't mean anything about you. I just mean I know if I were the client and someone said that to me, I might be like, “This question is not going to help me feel better. This question is not going to solve the fact that I didn't sleep last night.” But what if it can help you feel better?
Like no, it might not solve that you didn't sleep well last night, but what if it can give you something? What if it can give you a little bit of a push in the direction you want to go? And it does, and it has. It did for this client. And like I said she was so excited about it she insisted I do a podcast, which I love that. And all of y'all can always invite me to do podcasts on anything you would like to hear from me about.
But I really want to invite you to try this today or this week. If you are feeling exhausted, ask yourself how can I offer myself rest right now? How can I offer myself rest in the time that I have? What would feel restful to me right now.
While I believe firmly in and want to do the work for creating a world that has space for us to rest, sometimes it has to start with us and sometimes that's the only place it can start. And even if the world wants to offer us rest, if we're not willing to take it then we won't get it, right?
And I know, sometimes we want to rest at night when we're “supposed to” but things don't always go according to plan. Like, that's not always going to be the way it is. So a question like this can help you handle the situation you're in when the situation you're in is not what you would like it to be.
That's just part of life, y'all. Like, I wish I could make your lives always the way you want them to be. If I could do that, I would do that. But I can't do that. Shit will not always go according to plan, but you can always figure out ways to offer yourself rest, to offer yourself care, to offer yourself more of what you want.
And then we can also go in to do the work to change the overarching structures, like to change the calendar, to change the schedule. Even when we do that, sometimes our bodies won't sleep at night. So this tool will always be useful. But like I just can't say enough how valuable it is even if you also want to make larger changes in your life. Try it today, and report back. Let me know how it goes for you.
And if you love what I teach, and you want some help taking things a little bit deeper and figuring out how this all applies to your own life, I've got good news for you. I've got space for a few new one on one coaching clients starting this month. So let's hop on a call. I'll give you some coaching right away to help you get going. And if it seems like a good fit, I will share with you how we can work together. Just head on over to my website and click on the work with me button and get started there.
Also bonus, my coaching offering is totally virtual so as to better serve my global audience. And yes, I do work with people who are not native English speakers and we've had great success doing that. There's even a testimonial on my website with someone in that category. So you can check that out on the testimonials page.
All right y'all, have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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