2 Reasons You Feel Drained
The reality of being drained and feeling like you’re constantly running on fumes is not normal, and it’s not “just life.”
I wish someone had told me five years ago when I got out of college that just because I was good at A, B, or C didn’t mean I had to make it my identity or career.
Don’t get me wrong, there are pros and cons, and I understand with great weight that my work is valuable and makes a difference; however, it sucks the life out of my soul.
So much so that I melted into the couch every evening with no energy to do anything for myself.
I couldn’t find the will to workout, make food, go for a walk, play with my pups, or go out for date night. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, was getting any more of me after 5 p.m.
What a sad way to live, right?
This is the “norm” we’re fed from early elementary school.
Get a job, pay the bills, get married, have babies…rinse, wash, repeat.
Nowhere in this lineup does it mention finding and doing something you LOVE and how to create it when you can’t find it.
Okay, boo... they didn’t teach us how to become self-motivated entrepreneurs in high school instead of mainstreaming The Odyssey and Pythagorean Theorem.
Yeah, sure, it sucks. However, the only important part of this equation is YOU.
We are the ONLY people who can change the trajectory of our reality, and I believe we feel like we’re running on empty for two reasons.
1. You won’t leave the norm.
What even is the “norm?”
Giving every ounce of yourself to everyone and everything around you and having nothing left to give yourself?
Hi, I’m her, and if you’re reading this, you probably are too!
The norm to me was the cookie-cutter things we did to fit in and be accepted by everyone else.
We’re programmed to be this girl.
The girl with the cutest things, the best hair, the cutest boyfriend, and the girl who says and does all the right things and is never “bad.”
Good girl syndrome, anyone?
Hi, I’m her too!
I wish I had been encouraged to be weird and interesting.
I wish I had been told that being bold and assertive wasn’t unattractive and improper.
I wish I had better female examples of what it looked like to be a fire-blazing pathmaker, professionally and personally.
I wish I had been encouraged to be anything but conventional.
I could wish away many details of being raised as a woman in a small town; however, none of those wishes changes the outcome for me except getting up and physically changing the narrative of my own story.
Social standards have set the norm, but whether you choose to be a victim is no one else’s fault but your own.
It’s boring to be just like everyone else, and clearly, doing that has led you to question why you’re aching for more in your life and why you feel so unfulfilled.
2. Failure is SCARY.
Heck yeah, it totally is.
Failure is scary.
The word “no” is scary.
Being bad at something is scary.
Being broke is scary.
Being judged is scary.
Being different is scary.
Being in the same spot this time next year, doing the same things, still drained…that’s the scariest thing of them all.
It took me a long time of sitting in the hard and thinking this was all life was before I finally hit a wall and thought, “If I died today, it wouldn’t be doing something I love.”
OUCH.
A freaking hard truth.
I spent so many years afraid of failure and people’s judgment that I played small for most of my early twenties.
Until one day, I said, “I’m done.”
I’m done playing small.
I’m done being afraid of judgment.
I’m done being broke.
I’m done fearing the word “no.”
I’m done being “good” at everything I’m supposed to be good at.
I’m done being conventional.
I’m done being like everyone else.
So, I asked myself a hard question…What do I have to lose?
Nothing. I had nothing to lose because I was already at the bottom.
If the worst thing was for me to end up right back where I was, this raised a different question: why would I ever want to stay where my worst-case scenario was?
So, which are you?
The woman who moves in faith or stays out of fear.
XX, Kaela
