SUNDAY SEEDS OF THOUGHT: You Don’t Get a Gold Star for Running on Empty

Dr. Carmela Maxell: To Sunday Seeds of Thought with Rooted in Rising. I'm Dr. Carmela Maxwell. And before we start another week, I need to ask you something. When was the last time you were exhausted enough to need rest, but decided you weren't exhausted enough to deserve it? Read that again. Actually, don't. You're listening. But think about it. Because some of us have developed this ridiculous threshold for when we're allowed to stop. We're tired, but not tired enough. We're overwhelmed, but we can still function. We're getting sick, but we're not technically dying. We're emotionally drained, but we have meetings. We slept for four hours, but there's coffee. Our bodies are screaming, please sit the fuck down. And we're like, I can't. I have things to do. And somewhere along the way, we started confusing our ability to continue with our ability to function well. Those are not the same thing. We learned this somewhere. I think every generation got handed a slightly different version of work until you drop culture. Some of our grandparents and great-grandparents came from generations where work wasn't about fulfillment. Work was survival. You went to work because your family needed food. You didn't talk about burnout. You didn't have a mental health day. You had a job. And you were grateful to have one. Then you had generations where loyalty to a company became a virtue. You showed up. You worked hard. You stayed for decades. Calling out was something you did when you were really sick. Like, are you actively vomiting? No. Go to work. And a lot of us grew up watching that. Our parents dragged themselves to work sick. They worked through grief. They worked through pain. They worked through family crises. And many of them were proud of that. Because resilience was survival. But then somewhere along the way, resilience became performance. Then came hustle culture. The millennials came along. And did we get some interesting messaging? Work hard. Get the degree. Actually, get several degrees. Build your career. Buy a house. Start a family. Have a side hustle. Network. Build a brand. Monetize your hobby. Wake up at 5 a.m. Go to the gym. Meal prep. Drink enough water. Have a skincare routine. Heal your childhood trauma. Be an involved parent. Travel. Say for retirement. And make sure you have work-life balance. What? At some point, even our rest became another thing we needed to optimize. Now we're not just taking a bath. We're practicing intentional restorative hydrotherapy. Ma'am. I'm in the fucking tub. Then social media came along and made productivity visible. Now you weren't just working, you were watching everybody else work. Somebody woke up at 4 30 this morning. Somebody already ran six miles. Somebody read three chapters. Somebody made a smoothie containing 17 vegetables. Meanwhile, you woke up at 7.42 and immediately started negotiating with God. And suddenly, rest started feeling like failure. Gen Z said, absolutely fucking not. And then Gen Z entered the workplace and started asking questions that made everybody uncomfortable. Why? What happens if I don't answer after five? Why would I come in sick? Why can't this meeting be in an email? And listen, every generation has strengths and weaknesses. But I think younger workers challenged something that desperately needed challenging. Why are we proud of suffering unnecessarily? Why is showing up sick considered dedication? Why is skipping lunch evidence that you're hard working? Why is answering emails at 11 p.m. impressive? Why do we brag about not taking vacation? Why do people retire with hundreds of hours of unused leave like they're gonna put it in on the mantle? Congratulations. Here's your plaque. She never took a fucking Tuesday off. Being able to push through doesn't mean you should. This is the part I want you to hear before Monday. Just because you can push through doesn't mean you should. Some of us are incredibly high functioning when we're depleted. We can run meetings exhausted. We can parent exhausted. We can teach exhausted. We can answer emails exhausted. We can make decisions exhausted. We can smile at people exhausted. We can be productive while our bodies are practically filing formal complaints. And because we're still getting things done, we assume I'm okay. But functioning is not the same thing as being okay. Sometimes functioning is simply evidence that you've gotten really good at overriding yourself. That's not always resilience. Sometimes that's disconnection. Your body usually whispers before it screams. Your body usually gives you clues. You're more irritable. Everything feels harder. You're forgetting things. You can't focus. You're exhausted even after sleeping. Your patience is gone. Your shoulders are somewhere near your ears. You're getting headaches. You're staring at an email for 15 minutes trying to understand a sentence written in English. And instead of saying, Maybe I need rest, we say, I need to get my shit together. Maybe your shit is together. Maybe you're just fucking tired. There's a difference. Sometimes self-care is calling out. And I know somebody is listening to this thinking, okay, but I have responsibilities. Of course you do. I am not telling everybody listening to call out tomorrow and tell their supervisor, Dr. Maxwell said I don't have to come. Please don't do that. Do not put me in your email. But I am saying that if you have the ability, the leave, the flexibility, or the support to take time when you genuinely need it. Use it. Sometimes self-care isn't Pilates. It isn't of facial. It isn't buying something. It isn't brunch. Sometimes self-care is waking up and admitting, I do not have it today. Sometimes it's taking the sick day. Sometimes it's using PTO. Sometimes it's canceling the optional thing. Sometimes it's telling somebody, I can't take that on this week. Sometimes it's going to bed at 8 30. Sometimes it's ordering dinner because you do not have the energy to cook. Sometimes it's letting the laundry sit there. The laundry has nowhere to be. It'll wait. Rest before the emergency. I think one of the biggest mistakes we make is waiting until rest becomes medically or emotionally unavoidable. We don't slow down when we're at 70% or 50% or 30%. We wait until we're at 3%, the check engine light is flashing, smoke is coming out of the hood, and somebody has to tow us off the highway. And then we say, I think I might need a break. You think? Rest shouldn't only happen after collapse. You don't have to earn rest by destroying yourself first. You don't need a breakdown just to justify a break. You don't need a fever to justify slowing down. You don't need to reach the point where you're crying in your car before you acknowledge this week took a lot out of me. Productivity is not a moral value. And this is something I think we desperately need to unlearn. Being productive does not make you a better person. Being busy does not make you important. Being exhausted does not prove that you're hard working. And I've said this before resting does not make you lazy. Taking a day off doesn't mean you're weak. And your value does not increase based on how much inconvenience you could tolerate without complaining. There is no prize at the end for the person who suffered the most efficiently. Nobody is standing at the finish line saying, Congratulations, you ignored every single signal your body gave you for 27 years. Here's your trophy and a prescription. And leaders, you need to hear this too. If you're in leadership, this matters twice. Because people watch what you normalize. You can tell your team, take care of yourselves. But if you're emailing them at midnight, working through every vacation. Showing up visibly sick, never taking lunch, and praising people for pushing through, they're learning something different. They're learning that rest is technically allowed but culturally punished. And that's how burnout becomes contagious. Healthy leadership isn't pretending the work doesn't matter. The work matters. Deadlines matter. People depend on us. But human beings are doing the work. And human beings have limits, including you. So here's your Sunday seed. Before you walk into another week asking, what do I need to accomplish? Ask. What do I need in order to make it through this week without abandoning myself? Maybe you need sleep. Maybe you need one evening with absolutely nothing scheduled. Maybe you actually need to take your lunch break. We talked about this last time. Maybe you need to stop checking your email after a certain time. Maybe there's something you can cancel. Maybe you need to use the PTO you've been hoarding like it's going to appreciate in value. Maybe you need to admit you're tired. And maybe you need to stop waiting for somebody else to give you permission. We inherited a lot of ideas about work. Some came from survival. Some came from pride. Some came from necessity. Some came from capitalism. Some came from our families. Some came from hustle culture. And some came from ourselves. But we don't have to carry all of them forward. You can be hardworking and rested. You can be ambitious and have boundaries. You can care deeply about your work without sacrificing yourself to do it. You can take a day off before your body forces you to take a week. And sometimes the most responsible thing you can do is recognize I could push through this, but I don't have to. You don't get a gold star for running on empty. And you certainly don't get bonus points for arriving at burnout faster than everybody else. So take care of yourself this week. Not after everything is finished. Not when everybody else's needs are met. And not when your calendar finally gives you permission. This week, stay rooted in who you are, keep rising into who you're becoming. And please, if you have 147 hours of PTO sitting somewhere, use a fucking Tuesday. I'll see you next time.