Why is balance so important for us?
Burning yourself out won't do you any good; it will push you back
The clock ticks, twelve am, and the screen lights up your face. Your eyes follow, right and left, while you look concentrated on the screen.
You don’t notice your eyes burning from staring at it for hours.
Just one more thing.
And the clock keeps ticking.
One more.
Your body and mind are screaming, the damage slowly building in your body like an unseen force, the payback for it? Slowing creeping inside.
TW: Mention of depression & burnout (Just briefly)
That was me, I worked on stuff till late in the night. Constantly finding new things, even if it was researching, finding new topics, doing courses, writing books, planning…
Planning…
Planning.
For me, success and ambition meant: Working yourself to the bone and not listening when I couldn’t do it. On anything. But did that work? No. I got a horrible hit in 2024, and I am still recovering from it.
From 2022 to 2024, I was working on anything, for hours every day without a single day off. I still lived with my parents at this point, together with my grandpa, in a house that he worked hard for.
I couldn’t stop being busy. And that added to health issues? Oh, I was in for it.
I woke up at 8 am, without even sipping my coffee, I was sitting at my desk, computer on, MacBook on, and started with the first thing while having my coffee. Planning books, to-do list, ‘Oh, I have this course’, and a whole list of thirty things for the day.
And I was even annoyed when my mom asked me to go downstairs with her to my grandpa, because in my mind that meant I had to put down what I was working on and have some time for something other than books, involving and whatever I put my mind to. (And that is not normal)
I kept busy; everything became one thing: Always improve.
Watching videos? Only if they are self-developed ones, documentaries, or something, could I learn something from them.
Reading books (My favourite hobby since I was little)? Only books that improved my mind, psychology books, science books, and non-fiction books.
Course I did on Skillshare (Udemy now)? More than I can put in my mind.
Writing books? Every second I can type, even when my finger sometimes hurts.
And you know what? All of the above things I love doing with my whole heart became a chore. As someone highly ambitious, I felt good when I passed out in bed, mentally and physically exhausted.
But what I didn’t notice is that, only doing and never resting, slowly made my health issues worse. And I brushed it off, I always wanted to have my own business and also make writing my living. I just focused on the wrong thing.
In 2024, my body had had enough. Mentally and physically. Looking back, I could see it happening in June 2024, before it went down in July. And I was hit with the worst depression, and suddenly I wasn’t doing anything anymore.
I want to go into this in another post, in case someone can’t go into heavy topics like this, but still wants to read this. So, I leave it at that.
And something like this makes you think, I looked at it and noticed, I worked myself right into this one. As much as it feels good to accomplish everything, it’s not worth ignoring your health and mental well-being for this.
So, after coming out of everything in 2025, which changed my life, I still fight sometimes with the mindset of depression, which appears in my reversed seasonal depression in summer. I learned the most important lesson: Balance means everything.
You can even achieve more, since your body doesn’t go into a burnout or shutdown eventually. Balancing my days, working with my energy levels like I have a post here about this topic, I notice a huge improvement.
Filling days with working on goals and ambition while also finding things for my soul without having to do an outcome, or be perfect at them, is making me happy. Even when I notice it is still a bit hard sometimes. But I also have my hobbies and try new ones out without wanting to be perfect and doing them because they are fun.
Balance provides stress relief and benefits both your physical and mental health. If you can’t do something, now, really can’t do it, do it tomorrow, since it will benefit you more than pushing through. I love to check in with my body.
Dealing with everything over the last few weeks and continuing not to know what is going on made me realize even more how important this is. I always wanted to ignore this and write a post, be active here, but I couldn’t. Just the bare minimum in taking care of myself became a challenge, and I had to pick my battles.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
My mind and body couldn’t do what needed to be done to write here. As much as I wanted to, filled with ideas, plus the frustration from wanting to but not being able to do it.
It’s easy to ignore it for the moment, but is the aftermath really worth it? And as someone who couldn’t even walk a straight line, tripped over everything, forgot everything, couldn’t even touch my finger with my nose when the neurologist in the hospital did test with me, since I was slurring words too, I can tell you, it’s not worth it.
Even when these symptoms I had/have aren’t because of overworking myself, this takes the point home of, when you suddenly don’t have the things you take for granted, that is much worse than taking a day off. And I wanted to show you how fast small things can change.
Thank you so much for reading. Your support means the world to me. I am so grateful to have this corner of the internet, where I finally felt comfortable creating and sharing my writing.
If you have someone who would benefit from this publication or this post, feel free to share it with them!🤍
xx
Lena
