Breaking the Cycle of Guilt & Shame around Resting
It’s a struggle we all know too well: a never-ending to-do list, coupled with an overwhelming sense of guilt and shame for taking a break. You hoped that resting would recharge you, but instead, you end up feeling even more tired and defeated. Your mind bombards you with self-critical thoughts like, "You're being selfish! You're wasting time! You should be doing something else right now. You're so lazy. This is why everyone is more successful than you." No wonder you feel drained and unmotivated.
What usually happens next is either A) gritting your teeth, powering through your to-do list fueled by self-critical thoughts, or B) avoiding those negative feelings by distracting yourself, procrastinating, or tuning out, letting defeat win this time.
All you want is to feel at peace, to rest without the nagging feeling that you're doing something wrong. You want to feel content with what you accomplish at the end of the day – and have it be enough.
Getting from Here to There
Improving your relationship with rest and productivity is entirely possible. It simply requires your willingness to try out some new approaches. The goal isn’t to eliminate those pesky feelings and thoughts (since we can’t control what thoughts pop into our mind or what feelings show up). Rather, the goal is to change how you respond them, so that each time they appear, you have a broader range of choices in how you handle them. Treat the practices below like experiments – testing them out to see what happens. You are the ultimate decider of what is helpful and unhelpful!
1. Practice Self-Compassion
Many of us fall into the trap of invalidating our feelings with harsh self-talk like "work harder" or "you should be able to handle this." These self-critical thoughts worsen our motivation and overall well-being. It's like having an unkind friend kicking us when we're down.
A more effective approach is self-compassion. This involves acknowledging your feelings ("I feel anxious about resting") and treating yourself with the kindness you'd offer a struggling friend. Ask yourself: How would I comfort my best friend in the same situation? Then, extend that same kindness to yourself.
—> How to Practice Self-Compassion:
Imagine a close friend facing the same struggle as you. What would you say or do to support them?
List at least three things you could say or do to extend the same care to yourself.
Choose one action from your list and commit to starting your self-compassion practice now.
2. Identify What’s Important to You
When it comes to productivity and rest, many of our beliefs and ideas come from messages we’ve received from society, our employers, or our parents or other authority figures. These ideas tend to emphasize working harder, being more efficient, and continuing to produce more and more. Have you ever stopped to really consider what’s important to YOU about productivity and rest?
If we simply adopt the productivity standards and values set by others, there’s almost never an end (because society or your boss will always want more!). When we pick our own values around productivity and rest, we can decide for ourselves how we want to be and what we want our lives to be about.
—> How to Identify What’s Important to You:
Questions to journal or reflect on:
- When it comes to balancing productivity and rest, what do you want to stand for?
- If no one were watching, what would you want a “productive” day to look like for yourself?
- When it comes to resting, what qualities do you want to embody? (present-focused, grounded, allowing stillness, etc.)
- If you were to reinvent productivity/rest, what would be different?
Once you know what truly matters to you about productivity and rest, you can being to make small changes each day to align yourself with these values.
3. Intentionally Make Time to Be Unproductive
This is a practice that will increase your flexibility around “rules” you might have about being productive and taking time to rest. Whatever “rules, “shoulds,” or “should-nots,” you hold about being productive and resting, the more you believe and follow them, the more rigid and constrained you become.
Thoughts are merely thoughts – not facts. We don’t have to obey every single thought we have.
—> How to Intentionally Make Time to Be Unproductive:
Scan your calendar, schedule, or to-do list for today and write in at least 10 minutes for “unproductive time.” This is a chosen time to simply be (not do). When taking this “unproductive time,” you will likely have thoughts like, “what am I doing? I should be working instead. This is silly.” The aim of this practice is to let those thoughts come and go while you simply observe. In this way, you are disobeying your thoughts – not letting them control you – while calling the shots yourself. Embrace the intentional rest and unproductivity!
4. Practice Acknowledging Your Daily Achievements
Most of the time, we cut ourselves short on our accomplishments and achievements by believing that since there is more to do, we haven’t done enough. Despite having been quite busy and active all day, we tend to only focus on the things that we did not do. This is a recipe for feeling unworthy, non-deserving, and “never enough.”
—> How to Acknowledge Your Daily Achievements:
If there is someone in your life you can use to keep you accountable for this one, I highly encourage you to use them! At the end of each day, spend a few minutes with this person communicating what you accomplished throughout the day. Ask the person to kindly interrupt you if you begin speaking about what you have yet to accomplish.
You can also practice this skill by journaling or keeping a running list of things you’ve done throughout the day to look back on in the evening. This practice tends to surprise me every time I do it – we certainly do a lot of things in a day!
