unshackling from the grip of productivity

I am tired of standing over counters at midnight, eating.

“You don’t have time to eat here, we can grab something on the way!” my mom insists, her urgency propelling me toward the door. With my dance bag slung over one shoulder, and cleats swinging from the other, I quickly turn back to dash back inside for my bat bag and uniform, barely remembering them at the last second. It often feels like I’m stuck between two roles, neither of which feel exciting or fun anymore. A low rumble escapes from my stomach as I hustle toward the car. 

Weekends were not filled with sleeping in, or watching movies, or playdates with friends. Weekends were often reserved for rushing around from activity to activity — whether it was my sport or a siblings’— we were always on the road as a family, always shoving food into our mouths from the backseat. There wasn’t a club or a sport or a travel team that was unachievable for us. I remember my parents tossing around the words “well rounded” a lot. I became a natural at never having down time, never sitting still. 

Decades later in college, I graduated with a dual major— completing nearly double the credits of my classmates— while also remaining on two honor societies, dance team, volunteer work, hours of art classes, curriculum for student teaching, and a part time job to pay my rent. *Not to mention also properly binge drinking four to five nights a week* I was up until 3am most nights, cramming (or partying) for the next thing. Empty redbull cans filled my dorm bathroom. I had become a professional do-er and non-rester. I had no idea how to sit still. My food was always to-go and my list was never ending. 

Ten years later, I’m not sure that’s changed.

I’ve become incredibly “well-rounded.” I understand now that is just a cover up for overextended. My boundaries with work and people-pleasing are nowhere to be found.

“Actually, can you make that order to go?” I anxiously ask the barista at the quaint little lunch spot downtown, after changing my mind and heading back to the studio. I had promised myself a few hours out in public while I worked, but now I’m second-guessing this break, much like a parent retracting a promised treat from a child who isn’t behaving. 

I stand at the counter at midnight, quickly engulfing the cold leftover lunch I never had time to enjoy. Some things never change.

I witnessed my parents in this cycle and continue to, though it seems to be taking its toll on them now. With three kids, a family restaurant to run, and two full time jobs— I don’t have a single memory of them even sitting down as a child… it would be well into my adulthood before I would even witness my dad sleeping. Most times, I still don’t. 

When my life began this way, I didn’t recognize because it was something I had always known. My body was raised on to-so lists, accomplishments, multitasking and hustle. Those skills meant survival for my parents. They did what they had to do to provide all that they could for us. And so they passed those survival skills down to me. 

Ambition ails me. Last September my appendix ruptured. Two days beforehand, I was finishing the final day of hosting a retreat in Asheville, NC. After sleeping five hours a night and running the programming all week, I found myself hurled over the sidewalk, vomiting and in pain. “I’m just exhausted” I tell myself, pulling into a coffee shop and ordering the xtra large to swallow my zofran with, before sucking it up to drive the five and a half hours home. I don’t have time to be sick. I don’t have time to rest. When they were wheeling me into the OR two days later, my anxiety was not focused on the safety of the emergency surgery or my body— but the long list of to-dos and trips that would be cancelled due to my recovery time.

I am still a chronic hustler. I do not understand what it means to put things down and unplug. As a business owner and freelancer, my to-do list grows endlessly each day. My body and nervous system are accustomed to the predictability of exhaustion. “This is just the way life is now…” I remember thinking on my drive home at 11pm, from my second job at age 25– the days when I was teaching little ones 6am to 4pm and then leading paint classes late into the evening. This is what it means to work hard, and earn something out of your life. I kept pulling up my bootstraps for over a decade, putting in long hours and working my body beyond repair.

“This is just the way it is”, I tell myself when boarding another flight to host another women’s retreat, 2-thousand miles away. I don’t bother packing my eye mask this time, because not sleeping on the flight is my normal in order to get things checked off— to draw client studies, to structure a marketing plan for the next few months and to plan the segmented hours of painting I must do — the moment I step off the plane back at home. I never thought, quite literally in my wildest dreams, that I would ever be in a place where traveling felt draining to my spirit. Guilt and shame wash over me as I lean my head back in the shower, talking myself into a list of gratitudes that feel distant and out of body. You ungrateful, rotten girl. 

Even my time away from work, or my vacations, are productive. How many countries can I possibly hop between in a week? If I wake up at 4am with my headlamp, I can fit in 12 extra miles of trail today. If we only have 20 days in a country, we can rent a car and drive 400 miles a day to cover as much ground as possible.

I run through the world like a little kid without a curfew, blowing past my bodies warning signs of exhaustion and come home feeling worse than when I left.

Age and ambition are on my heels, each after the same thing, each after the one thing I can no longer give to them. I’m afraid I can’t keep up the pace. 

Back home, I want to untether myself from the never-ending cycle of capitalism and what that means for my body: forcing no-sleep to stay on top of deadlines, blowing past my bodies’ signals that my chronic illness is flaring again, fighting anxiety nightly that I’m not making enough money at my age because I chose this life and I have no choice but to sustain it— even at the cost of my own physical and mental health. I open Instagram and panic slowly floods over my body, knowing I cannot handle scrolling through my overrun, content-filled phone album to edit a reel— without becoming overstimulated to the point of real tears. I close the app and post nothing instead. My newly finished work sits eagerly in the corners of the studio, unseen and unshared. 

Seven years ago, I started on this journey to have ultimate control and freedoms in my life. I feel as though I’ve lost the plot on that. My creativity is being suffocated and remains sedimented within a structured list of things to be done. The lust of it begins to feel like a chore, as if I’ve blown past the honeymoon phase of my life’s work and into the doghouse of resentment. I’ve traded my freedoms for a different version of productive prison. 

It is not natural to want less these days. It is not natural to put things down and feel present with what we already are and already have. It is instead, very natural, to sacrifice our sense of self to achieve more. To buy more things. To harm ourselves for the sake of wearing a persona or reaching a certain level of success.

Art has never been about that for me, and I refuse to let it be one more thing the world swallows and spits out, lifeless. My body and my soul and my life will not be one more meaningless sacrifice to the system they are so tired of upholding.

And so, I begin the work to loosen my grip. So far, this is what it looks like:

For the next three months, I have non-negotiables that will no longer be bulldozed over by my need for productivity. That means, by no excuse whatsoever, can these items be sacrificed in order to fulfill a to-do list, reach a goal, or settle a project. Rather than my life working around these achievement based rituals— this list of non-negotiables will now be the things I work my life around. No exceptions. Even if things aren’t done. Even if the list grows.

I swallow hard as I write that, already fighting the shame gremlins who remind me I am nothing without doing something.

The non-negotiables being laid out: 

1. Sleeping well and fully, especially when in a flare: This means a full seven to eight hours a night. If I’m in a flow with painting or writing until 2am, I’m no longer allowed to set my alarm for 5am and force my exhausted, swollen self out of bed for the sake of an early rise time. 9am will be the start, and I will not feel bad about it. If I’m exhausted at 7pm and have more things to get done, I will close the computer, crawl into bed, and wake at 5 once I’m rested. There will be no more 2, 3, 4 or even 5 hour nights of shitty sleep in order to hit a workout goal, a studio shift, or a business to-do list. I will start each day completely rested rather than depleted. 

2. Cooking and baking (at least) once per week: setting myself up for success looks like nourishing my body. I will no longer miss meals, eat quickly while standing, or make the “easiest” meals in order to blow through these moments in my day. Cooking and baking with whole and real foods drops me into the present. Preparing meals each week reminds me of my connection to the earth, to this body. Trying new recipes, baking a simple new muffin or bread for a friend, or taking three hours each week to adequately prepare healthy meals, will no longer be cut to make time for other things. I refuse to sacrifice my time of presence and gratitude for the illusion of hustle being more significant. I miss tasting what I’m eating. I miss sitting at a table with loved ones.

3. Bodily Movement: getting back into a healthy relationship with movement is another priority. Going to the gym, trying a new yoga studio, taking Luna for a walk at a local park. When my days are packed, this is always first to go. 

4. No technology past 10pm: No matter how many things are left on the list, no matter how many unanswered emails or texts, no matter how badly I long to numb out on a TikTok scroll— the phone and computer and TV have no use past 10pm. I’ll read, I’ll write, I’ll make bracelets, I’ll get bored, I’ll draw, I’ll call a friend, I’ll fall asleep.

5. Getting outside to feel fresh air, swim in the ocean, or walk: it’s the end of summer, and I have swam in the ocean once. I moved to Charleston to foster my innate connection to the water, to the waves. This connection has severed over the last two years, lost to overbooked schedules and the guilty conscience of needing to complete more and more and more. I will go for a sunrise to write. I will join Luke for a sunset swim. I will take two hours in the middle of the day to sunbathe and write before showering and heading back to the studio. The guilt will lessen. The to-do list won’t. And guess what? it won’t kill me. 

Let’s see how this goes: starting today with blueberry muffins, a sourdough starter, and sleeping with no alarm after a full day of travel. I still managed to write this piece, prep two meals, answer emails, paint for three hours, prepare a retreat curriculum, and walk the dogs. The world did not end. It felt a little brighter x

To ending the productive cycle. Share your new non-negotiables with me in the comments below: