Break the Cycle

I had set out back in April on a change journey because I wasn’t ‘happy’ with where I was in life. My writing—on my blog and social media posts—reflected that. That unhappiness bubbled over as I lapped up as much self-help literature as I could read, because I thought—erroneously—that there was something wrong with me. Everything I read made me believe, again incorrectly, that I wasn’t hustling enough, wasn’t committed enough, wasn’t worthy enough. Until I realized it was time to break the cycle.

You Deserve More, Right?

Part of what fueled my change journey was the belief, repeated in numerous self-help books, courses, and podcasts, was that I deserved more. I had to believe that I deserved more, more than I currently have. If I wanted to earn more, start a side hustle. Want to be the next David Goggins or Tom Brady? Get up an hour or two earlier and hit the gym or trail. There is nothing inherently wrong in wanting more until you are no longer satisfied with what you do have. That is when we lose sight of the happiness that is, in fact, right in front of us.

Taking the advice to ‘go all in’ and ‘outwork everyone else,’ I wondered why, on my change journey, I seemed less happy. I realized that it was due in large part to me being stuck in a back and forth between creating new habits that moved me forward and relapsing to old ones that held me back. I was caught, as Cal Newport writes, in “our exhausting tendency to grind without relief, hour after hour, day after day, month after month.”¹ It was a rhythm that didn’t allow me to break the cycle, repeatedly kicking me back to the old habits that kept me comfortable.

Break the Cycle

Happiness, for me, is doing the things I love—regardless of the typical commercial success most people seek. I am happy when I am at my desk creating characters and weaving plot lines, grateful for the e-mail from a reader that says I moved them. I am happy when I’m creating in the kitchen, and breaking bread with people who matter. And I am happy when I’m on the trail running, letting go of my thoughts and embracing stillness.

It is up to each of us to decide whether we want to grind sixteen to eighteen hours every day. I know it’s not something that I can, or want, to do if I want to live a meaningful life. To live that life, I must break the cycle of following prescriptive self-help advice that does not serve me. Newport is spot on when he writes, “We suffer from overly ambitious timelines and poorly managed workloads due to a fundamental uneasiness with ever stepping back from the numbing exhaustion of jittery busyness.”² I’m no longer going to let myself burn out from that ‘jittery busyness.’ Life is too short.

Remember, you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And you don’t need anyone’s permission to be—wholly and unapologetically—who you are.

1. Newport, C. (2024). Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment without Burnout, Portfolio, New York, p. 115. [↩]
2. Newport, p. 115 [↩]