Are You Running Your Energy Into the Ground? Let’s Redefine Consistency

Welcome to find you'd Clarity. I'm your coach and your show host, Megan Johnston. For over a decade, I've helped women move from burnout, pressure and overthinking to clarity, confidence and ease. If you've been stuck in a cycle of self doubt or fear, this is your space to come back to you. Each episode will blend real life coaching, grounded tools and intuitive insight to help you trust yourself more, lead with your energy and take your next aligned step now. Now let's find your clarity and the life that's been waiting for you on the other side. Hello my friend. Welcome back to the show. I'm so glad you're here. I took a little bit of an accidental break and that's kind of inspired the episode today. You know, this has made me think a lot about consistency and how often you might be running your energy into the ground just for the sake of this kind of false sense of consistency. So that's what we're talking about today. But first, hi. I'm so glad to be spending some time with you in the earwaves today. If you're listening to this in real time, I'm hosting a workshop next week on human design and it's been a long time since I've hosted a free human design class. So I'm offering it at two times to hopefully make it accessible for you to be able to attend. So you can either attend with me Wednesday or I should say with us because it's always a conversation in this space, not just me. Wednesday evening at 7pm or Thursday morning at 9am Both of those times, I'm saying are in Eastern time zone, which is New York time zone. I'd love to see you there. We'll be diving into the foundations of your human design and how it can support you to create more ease and flow in your life. And it's quite connected to the conversation we're having today around running our energy into the ground for the sake of consistency. Because we're not all designed to be consistent in the same way. So I would love to see you there. If you're listening to this in real time, I will put the link in the show notes for you to join us and we'll have a conversation about how your energy can support you to create your magical life. Get out of that overwhelm, out of fear, out of doubt. But not just this one track, one path kind of way, doing it in your way, aligned with your energy. So can't wait to see you there. Okay, let's talk about consistency so as I said at the beginning, you know, I took this break from the podcast. It was, it was extraordinarily unintentional because it wasn't for the lack of content. I have two episodes that I'm so ready to put out there for you all. It's with two of my favorite humans and one of those will be dropping this week as like a bonus episode. And it's with the amazing Emma Wilson, the turning 30 coach. And we have a conversation about aging. And she really specializes not just in, you know, honoring the seasons of aging that we're in, but also she really specializes in dating after 30 because there's a lot of societal conditioning to that. So that one will be dropping this week. So it wasn't for lack of content. You know, sometimes I think we have a gap in consistency or a break because we, we don't have the thing to put out there. And it, I don't think this just happens in business. This might be your workout routine and you might have this break in consistency because you stopped liking your workout class. It's not feeling good to your body anymore. Maybe something happened in your life, this earth shattering thing that, you know, maybe you're experiencing a grief or a loss and that changes your workout routine. Maybe, maybe you were doing really good at going on a walk outside every day and then all of a sudden it stopped because the weather started being really bad or you know, again, maybe something happened that changed your schedule and no longer can you walk at the same time so your routine changes. You know, I think we think about consistency breaking in terms of this, but we don't often talk about, well, what about when everything seems to be working fine and actually things are on track. Like nothing's changed in your schedule. Nothing's really changed. Like big picture wise, nothing's feeling off, but I just need a break. And I think this is when it's the tipping point of when we might run our energy into the ground if we decide, you know, I'm just going to push through it, I'm just going to keep going. And again, I come back to. Not all of us are designed that way. And you know, personally, I've been running my own personal brand since. Well, my coaching business started in 2016, but I started. When did we start the travel blog? 2014, 2015. So I've been showing up online since then and, and I think there's a lot of talk and conversation about consistency in like showing up as a solo entrepreneur or as a someone who's building a bit of a personal brand. There's this conversation about consistency, which I think is very true. I think it is true that consistency has been one of the pillars to why I would say I've been successful over the past several years. I think there's truth to that a hundred percent. And, and I think we can equate consistency to being on or showing up all the time. And again, I come back to that is just not how we're all designed. And consistency can have more than one angle. Sometimes consistency does require a breath. And, and that doesn't mean that you're showing up any less. You know, I often say that sometimes space is the best action you can give yourself. And I think we can beat ourselves up when externally it doesn't look like we're being consistent. We don't have this external output. But what's happening behind the scenes is there's still consistency going. Like there's a difference between space and giving up. There's a difference between surrender and giving up. It's a really subtle difference that I think is so important in the conversation of burnout. And so again, my, my biggest personal example of this is in my business. But I'm going to try and use some other examples as well because I know not everyone listening owns their own business. I think like working out or moving your body is another great example where we can see this showing up. We think, oh, I have to, you know, show up every day or else it's not gonna work. I, I know I've caught myself telling that story before with my workout. Like, what's the point if I can't do something every day? But my body doesn't want to. My body doesn't at least want to do an intense workout every day. My body wants to move every day, my body wants to stretch every day, but my body does not want to do an intense workout every day and especially certain times of the month. I don't know about you all, I know some of you all are experiencing perimenopause and or don't no longer have a period for many reasons. Whether you've just had a child and your cycle's changed a little bit or you're in that post menopausal stage. But for me, when I'm on my period that time of the month, I do not want to work out and so do I automatically go into self beat up of, oh, well, you've ruined everything. You know, you can't just start now. You're going to be starting from scratch. You're going to be starting from the beginning. And that's simply not true. And I think we can see this a lot if you are someone who runs a personal brand, if you're running a business, primarily a business that happens online. There was a lot of conversation again around consistency, but around, you know, showing up at least once every single day. I remember I took this Instagram story class in 2020 and one of the things she taught was you need to post one thing on your story every single day, even if it's a reshare of a post. Like if you don't feel like going on camera, just reshare someone else's post onto your story to keep your account top of mind. And oh my gosh, how much of the algorithm algorithm feeds into that in itself of you need to create a video every day to stay relevant in social media feeds. Andrew and I post videos on YouTube. I mean, we can tell if we don't post for a long time the difference in the views we get in the engagement we get. So the social media algorithm does not do us any favors when we do try to rewrite the stories of consistency. But these stories of consistency are rooted in this bigger systematic thing that sounds so like nonchalant systematic thing, but bigger systems at play that say everything's urgent, we need to have output, output, output in order to see return. And I'm just getting curious with how true is that? How true is that? And how often do I beat myself up because I'm not showing up all the time. And myself as a projector, I'm not designed to be in the doing all the time. I'm not designed to be in the going all the time. And on the flip side of that, my generators and manifesting generators who are listening while you are designed to be more in the go, in the in the go flow, to be in the doing of things, in the creation of things. That doesn't mean you're designed to be on all the time either. Because when you're on in the things that don't light you up, you're depleting your energy faster than a projector is who's not giving them their self enough spaciousness. And so the question becomes, why am I running my energy into the ground? For what cause am I doing that? And for me, the story that plays underneath is when it comes to my business, the story that plays underneath is, well, if I'm not out externally showing up all the time, then people are going to forget about me, I'm going to become irrelevant, which the Algorithms play into. Because if I disappear for a little bit, my engagement goes down, etc. Etc. And so that story plays of like, well, if I create spaciousness, like my business is going to fall apart. If I think about that in terms of workout, I tend to be quite on the dramatic side of things. So it tends to be very. If I, if I let this go, everything's going to fall apart, which is a bit of a control thing, just calling myself out here, maybe someone can relate. But if I, if I altered my workout routine in the past, now I say it in the past, because this is something I've very actively been working on. And I'm actually really proud of the growth that I personally have had. And so if I didn't do my workout routine on a quote, consistent basis, I don't know that I was ever the person that worked out every day. But I still have these stories around consistency and what that looks like in working out and moving my body. And I would kind of just have this what's the point mentality, like, I'm not doing it enough. So what's even the point? What's even the point? And all of this, all of this can be reframed. And I want to offer you, if you have related to any of this and you're like, oh, yes, I feel like I've just been trying to keep up, just been trying to keep up with it all, been trying to keep up with the world around me. I just want to offer you that consistency can have more than one angle. And sometimes consistency does require a breath. And that doesn't actually mean that you're giving up or letting anything go, because there's still things happening behind the scenes, even if you're not outwardly showing up. Now, I'm not saying we can say, you know, I want to commit to moving my body and then decide, like, for three months I'm just gonna lay on the couch, I'm gonna call that consistency. Right. You know, the difference here, the difference between intentional action in different ways, it kind of reminds me of TV shows more so how we used to watch TV shows than now when we can binge watch an entire season. Though, I think a lot of shows are still doing, you know, a new season launches every week. But remember, we can still relate this to now. A new season of a show comes out, whether it's rolling out every single week. So there's a different form of consistency there than being able to binge watch it all at once in one sitting. But the new season rolls out. And if it's a new show, then you have to wait months, sometimes years. Is anyone else still waiting for Stranger Things, the Witcher? I'm waiting for all of these shows. But there's still consistency happening in releasing a series, in releasing shows one week at a time, there's still consistency happening even if we can't binge watch it all at once. If we think about a season, a new season in particular coming out, we think about a new season of a show rolling out, then think about everything that has to happen before that new season comes out, right? There's production, there's editing, there's post editing. There's everything that it takes to get the show out there. There's technology, there's all these things that are happening behind the scenes. It doesn't mean there's no work being done just because you can't see the work. You only see the final product. And I think this is a reminder for ourselves, too, that, that often we are seeing someone's final product. And how often are we saying, oh, my gosh, I want XYZ that this person has, so I need to work myself to the ground in order to make it happen when that might not have been their story at all. Sometimes consistency requires a breath. So considerations for you for the week ahead and integrating this all into your life, think about what stories you have around consistency. Where are you consistently showing up? And it's just not feeling good, even if the zoomed out does feel good. So, for example, the podcast, this podcast that you're listening to, if I zoomed out, the podcast felt good, but if I zoomed in, something felt off. And so where are you consistently showing up all the time? And it's feeling a little off and you can't quite put your finger on it. That might be a sign that you just need a pause, a breath, or reset. And it doesn't have to be days, weeks, or months. It can be a few hours where you sit with it, then you go, oh, that's the thing. And then you reset and you go back into it. You know, for me, something did feel off when I zoomed out on the podcast. And for me, as I zoomed out on that and I sat with that in the space in between, and I saw several of you all still listening to episodes. Thank you for being here. I realized, you know what, I do love the podcast, but I think I've lost some of the intention behind it. And so coming back home to the intention of why I produce these episodes and what are the Stories I want to bring to you as a listener, and how do we approach that? So that pause can give you the reset to get back in line with intention, which then allows you to show up even better than before. Sometimes we think, if I just run past, if I'm just consistent with it, like that's going to make it better. If I just force through, push through, do it, just do it. Think about all the quotes we have, that just back that energy. But instead, if I pause, reset, I might create something even better than forcing through could have ever created. So think about where you're forcing consistency. Give yourself a little bit of a pause, whatever that means for you, and just see what comes up. And my other consideration for you to bring into this, if you're relating to any of this, is one of my favorite questions. It's a question that I start most of my client sessions with. And that question is, what do I need? What do I need? It is often a question that women in particular feel uncomfortable with and need to practice asking. A lot of women, particularly in this cozy little corner of the Internet, would relate to being a people pleaser. And people pleasers put other people's needs in front of their own. And so that question, what do I need? Can bring you back to what matters in this moment. It can bring you back to what type of pause you might need. It can also bring you back to, I mean, we can have a whole reverse conversation about this of when you need that consistency, when you need that more daily output all the time. We can have that reverse conversation too. But by pausing and saying, what do I need? We can find something that can maybe support us in how we hold the moment of the in between, how we hold the pause, how we hold reframing consistency. That that simple question can support us there and in so many other scenarios. So give that one a try, okay? My friends, I hope you enjoyed this session today and I hope that you enjoy coming back to energy that feels like your own, that doesn't feel burnt out, that doesn't feel like you have to do something. That success only happens when you're forcing. That is not true, my friend. That is not true. And I want you to breathe all of that in. Just breathe in the knowing that we do not have to force in order to create a success story. So I'd love to hear from you today if this episode landed, if you're excited that we're back on the earwaves together. Like I said, another episode will be launching later this week as a little bit of a bonus episode for you, so I hope you enjoy that conversation as well. You can always drop me a note in email world or a little Instagram message or share the episode. Share it with a friend who needs it. Okay, that was way too many asks at the end there, but basically, what do you need? Find what way feels good to connect after this episode for you. I hope you have the most magical day and I'll see you really soon. Sam.