Marissa Mayer and Evan Carmichael argue that burnout comes from resentment, not overwork. They recommend vacations every 4-6 months, quarterly schedule audits, and dropping clients or habits that no longer fit. The fix is building a personal rhythm that evolves as your business grows.
Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is Find Your Rhythm. Over to you, Marissa Mayer. I wake up every morning with espresso to keep me going.
I've always had a philosophy around balance. A lot of people talk about balance. I don't really believe in balance, but I do believe in finding your rhythm. And I think a lot of it has to do not with 3 square meals a day, time at home at night, 8 hours of sleep. I think it has to do with resentment because I think what fuels burnout is this notion of, well, wait, I sacrificed this thing and it honestly meant too much to me and it meant— and it made me resentful. And for me, it's really about being able to walk out of the office for 1 week every 4 to 6 months I find if I start pushing that out or delaying vacations, I'll be like, "You know, I'm just not gonna work that hard tonight. I didn't get to take that trip I really wanted to take." And so I think you can work arbitrarily hard for really long periods of time, but you need to know yourself well enough that you can avoid resentment and avoid burnout.
I love this message, and I find that balance is an interesting word. I think a lot of entrepreneurs try to separate a home life and a work life, and it's really easy to have one blend into another. And the one thing that you definitely do want to avoid is having resentment, feeling like your business is taking up so much of your time that you can't spend time with your spouse and with your kids and go on vacation. And the more and more you start to feel that resentment, the less you're gonna bring to your company, right? The more you feel like your business is holding you back, the less successful you're gonna be and the less energy and motivation you're gonna have to do the great things that you planned on doing. And I find that If that happens for too long, then something needs to change in your business. And I think one of the greatest things of being an entrepreneur is you get to set your schedule, right? The reason why you left your job, stopped working for the man to do your own thing, is you wanted creative freedom. You want to be able to set your own hours. You want to create that schedule that supports you. And then somewhere along the path, for a lot of entrepreneurs, we get locked into a set schedule that maybe served us at the start, but doesn't serve us as well anymore. And as we change and grow as people, we stopped changing and growing our schedule. And then you end up locked into this schedule that again doesn't support you. You have to realize that as an entrepreneur, you can change it whenever you want because you're in charge. And so I find that this happens with my schedule, I would probably say at least once a quarter. You know, I have set days where I do set things, I have a morning routine, but it's never fixed. You know, the morning routine that I have is not the same one that I had 10 years ago, 12, 13 years ago when I started this business. It's always changing based on me and how I change and if it still serves me or not. And so what I encourage you to do is if you find yourself feeling resentful towards your business and the work that you're doing, then if that's happening on an ongoing basis, something needs to change. You need to stop working with some of the clients that you're working with You need to stop working with some of the people that you're working with, fire some of your partners. You know, you need to change your workout schedule, your work schedule, your morning routines, your habits, everything. And then I would sit down and try to figure out— the exercise I go through is, what are the big things that I want to get accomplished? What's important for me in my personal life, in my business life? What are the things that need to happen that would make me happy? And then I plan those things in. Put the big chunks in first, and every time I feel that my life is a little bit out of balance, I go back to my schedule and make a change. And that prevents you from going off and getting, you know, going off the deep end and being super resentful and hateful and angry towards your business, because your business should be something that fuels you, that motivates you, that excites you, that allows you to do great things, that provides for your family, that helps you accomplish your big goals, not something that you resent and you feel holds you back from helping you get to where you wanna go. So the question of the day today is, how do you find your rhythm and have you ever felt resentful towards your business? Leave it in the comments below, I'm gonna join in the discussion. Thank you so much for watching, have an amazing day, continue to believe, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso. Espresso, keep me going.
