I’m tired. How am I supposed to push through this tiredness and write? Or run? That is a recurrent thought bouncing through my mind lately. Working the overnight shift since May, life has felt like a constant battle between fatigue and productivity. I don’t want to sleep the day away because I still want to write, run, and enjoy life. But that has meant getting, if I’m lucky, four or five hours of sleep. In the short-term, that seems fine, but long-term…?
To Grind or Not to Grind
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, there was one day when I slept only three hours after my shift because my partner’s cousin was hosting the family meal. I went to work later that same night feeling depleted and struggled not to fall asleep during my eight-hour shift. The ensuing fatigue lingered for days, and I almost talked myself out of attending a scheduled coworking session that was part of a 30-Day Creative Challenge I’d signed up for.
It is because of this constant fatigue that I am, at the moment, questioning the hustle-and-grind culture. I do believe that success requires sacrifice. I can’t lose ten pounds if I’m still eating sugary treats, salty foods, and running less. If I want to finish writing my current novel, I need to write and not climb into bed for multiple naps. And while I get that you must be willing to do what others aren’t willing to do—to show up when you’re tired or don’t feel like it—how do you realistically push through the fatigue? How do you grind when you constantly feel spent?
Be Hungry
In writing about fatigue and productivity, and the associated challenges, the conversation in my head becomes extremely uncomfortable. The question is no longer about whether or not to grind, but a more pointed one: Am I hungry enough? Because now, when I am honest with myself, I can see that I’m using fatigue as a crutch—a reason to stay ‘stuck’ where I am, to not push through the pain to get what I say I want.
The challenge now is to figure out how to get past the frustration of fatigue in order to act more consistently. When I get caught up in a ‘fatigue haze,’ I get frustrated because I think, erroneously, that I should still be able to do big things, like sit down for an extended writing session. But it is the small actions, as Adam Alter writes in Anatomy of a Breakthrough, that “take you from stuck to unstuck, even if you’re making only modest progress initially. That binary leap is the first step in making meaningful progress.”1
Push Through
You know it, I know it. Change is hard. Creating the habits to succeed is hard, because it means stepping away from your comfort zone and into discomfort. It means doing things that you know you must do when you’re tired, when you don’t feel like doing them. That is, however, the only way to succeed and to create the life you imagine for yourself.
And along the journey to success, there are always setbacks. There are mountains to climb and valleys to wade through. I know. Because I’m wading through the valley of fatigue, letting it more often than not hold me back. But I will try to take more of those small actions that help me make even the ‘modest progress.’ I can, I will, I must push through. Because my dreams, and the life I imagine for myself, depend on it.
Let me tell you today that you are loved, you are worth, and you matter. And you don’t need anyone’s permission to be—wholly and unapologetically—who you are.
- Alter, A. (2023). Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York, p. 246. [↩]
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