Why Writing Emails Feels Impossible When You're Burned Out (and What to Do Instead)

Why writing emails feels impossible when you're burned out and what to do instead. If you've ever started from a blank page trying to write, or have you ever been told by a therapist or coach, hey, why don't you journal this out? And you're like, okay, I can totally do this, but it kind of feels like a lot in the back of your mind. So you go to try to write it down and you're like, Why is this so hard? Why is it so hard to write down what I'm thinking that's running through my head right now? You're not alone and you're not broken and there's nothing wrong with you. I used to have a coach that used to tell me and probably still does say this, and I believe her and I, I do think it's true for a lot of people that writing is a great way to get clarity. The more you write, the more you understand and the more clarity and unstuckness happens for you. But if you're anything like me, this advice felt extremely frustrating when every time I went to write, it wasn't about judgment. It wasn't about shaming myself about how I write or editing myself. It was all about the fact that it just felt like so much in general running through my head and I could not keep up with it. And not only could I not keep up with it, I didn't know how to actually articulate everything that I was feeling cuz my physical body was in a lot of pain. And it felt like more pain and more work. It felt extremely overwhelming. So if you felt like this advice has been hard for you, I want you to know that you're not alone. And it could just be that the system that you've been told is the best way in order to get clarity and to heal your burnout wasn't designed for your brain and your body and your energy in this season of your life.

Welcome to Business with Chronic Illness, the globally ranked podcast for women living with chronic illness who want to start and grow a business online. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and I went from living a normal life to all of a sudden being in constant pain with no answers to being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses and trying to make a livable income. I faced the challenge of adapting traditional business advice to fit my unique circumstances with chronic illness. Feeling frustrated and more burned out than I already was while managing my chronic illness to becoming an award-winning coach with a flexible, sustainable online coaching business. I found the surprisingly simple steps to starting and growing a profitable business without compromising my health or my peace. Since then, I've helped dozens of women just like you learn how to do the same. If you're ready to create a thriving business that aligns with your lifestyle and well-being, you're in the right place. Together, we're shifting the narrative of what's possible for women with chronic illness and how we make a living. This is Business with Chronic Illness.

Okay, so I don't want this episode to be about, you know, like shaming people who journal. I love to journal. I'm an OG journaler. I have stacks upon stacks of journals. Around the house and in boxes, and I've been doing it since, since I was a kid. And yet emails and writing haven't been my greatest thing, but I'm fortunate that I gave myself the permission to invest in the skill of writing for business. But in the days of starting my business as a coach and living with chronic illness, and at the time I really didn't know it was chronic illness, I was just, just figuring that out. Especially during flare-ups, during appointments, during heavy times outside of just my health, but just life happening, I found it extremely difficult to write. My hands between the carpal tunnel or my fibromyalgia being flared up, writing just felt hard and impossible and actually felt really slow for me. And what I learned was I process so much faster in my brain than I can actually write. Now, I've learned a lot about this over time, working with different clients and seeing other clients have the same challenge as I did and as I do. And also the reason why I believe coaching in general works so well and why CBT therapy works so well is that I discovered that our verbal processing is connected to how fatigued that we are in our own head and in our own cognitive load, our own stress load. And it has a lot to do with the challenges we might have with brain fog, which is caused by pain and overload of things going on in our bodies and our mind. I have found so much clarity over the years having a podcast. Now you might be thinking, Nikita Williams Williams, I'm not going to air my business that I would write in a journal to my podcast, but just bear with me. This is just to share with you the power of how my podcast let me understand the way my brain worked and how I could better find ways to get unstuck. My podcast has really been a vehicle for me to get clear on things around my values and a lot of thoughts that I have, being able to see patterns, especially after learning how to edit my content and listening back and hearing, oh, I didn't realize I said that, or I felt that way, or I would say that differently. Really being able to hear myself out loud was what helped me to find clarity. And even when I started leaving myself voice notes personally for my personal notes, all that changed how I felt about doing everything. Matter of fact, that is how I write my emails these days. I usually voice it out in a voice memo and grab the transcript. It makes it so much easier for me to edit and actually create the content that I need in order to connect and serve my clients and convert with ease. Writing for my business has become much easier because of the verbal processing skills that I've developed over the last several years in my personal life. Now I have to give prompts where prompts are due. I have been in a personal development learning on public speaking all of my life, pretty much since I was like 5. And so I think for me, this is a skill that was enhanced or a gift or talent that was enhanced because of the beautiful privilege that I grew up with because of my faith. I volunteered and was able to learn from a school that taught me how to speak and connect with people. But beyond that, there is science and psychology that lets us know that the way that we process things matters. Verbal versus written processors. If you're a verbal processor, this makes sense. Doing what I'm saying makes sense because you naturally want to make things make sense by speaking, not writing first. And when we're burnt out or burnout affects our executive function, which is that part of our brain that says, hey, you can do this thing, it's important to keep this in mind. When you add burnout and chronic illness, which adds to burnout, it can drain our executive function. Writing can often feel like more effort. Research shows burnout affects the prefrontal cortex, making planning, focus, and language organization harder. Writing taxes those same cognitive functions. Speaking bypasses some of that strain and it feels more natural for a lot of verbal processors. Verbal processing builds clarity. Studies have shown that third-person self-talk improves emotional regulation. Speaking activates more of the brain. Speech production plus listening equals emotional regulation. This is coming from a 2012 Journal of Positive Psychology study found that talking about experiences boosted mood more than writing about them. Now you guys know I've been researching and reading a lot about positive psychology for years now, and I truly do think it's something that we all could benefit from. It's not toxic positivity, and that's a whole nother episode, but it's definitely helpful. So if you've been feeling like you're inconsistent or like you're avoiding what your coach says to do, you're actually trying to force a system of what the mainstream system says is the right thing to do that doesn't fit into your capacity or your ability currently, instead of working with what you can. So notice I said currently. It's really important to realize this. I go through different seasons where I prefer to speak and I prefer to write, and it really is honestly based on my ability cognitively, living with multiple chronic illnesses and trying to heal them. So this isn't a hard, fast rule, but this is something that might be helpful for those of you who are struggling. So for those of you who are struggling and are verbal processors or are burnt out and feeling like the writing aspect of doing things for your life or your business is hard, this is my voice-first content strategy. It's also a really great way to help you in general when you're dealing with marketing and feeling stuck. So if you're stuck in your own thoughts, verbal processing, and having a voice-first approach will help you not feel so stuck. Here's how the voice-first content strategy works, and I'll walk through why these things work. So I'm just going to give you a list of what they are. First, leave yourself voice memos. Complete your full thoughts out loud. Record yourself doing this. Talk your captions and emails out loud first before you even try to write them down. Transcribe or summarize what you said. And then you can make it easier by repurposing smarter with one voice note that you can edit that can become several pieces of content. The reason why this is helpful is because I don't know about you, but there's a lot of incomplete, like random words or sentences in my notepad. And when I go open up the notepad, sometimes it drops a memory. But if you're living with brain fog and you're healing through burnout, you might be more frustrated and irritated that you can't remember the full complete thought. Because you did it like while you were working or while you woke up in the middle of the night or in the shower or something like that. You're like, I gotta put this down. It was like this quick thing to do. However, you can do that quicker with a voice note, so much faster and quicker. And if you leave yourself a voice memo with the complete thought and context, you can go back to listen to it and you feel more at ease. This has become my podcast workflow for a sustainable system that works within my capacity, not against it. When you're living with chronic illness, your cognitive load is really high. Your stress load is really high. And being able to work within a system that already feels uncomfortable because entrepreneurship is hard, it makes what you need to do a lot easier. So what is this approach like, in my opinion, boost and make sales easier? Speaking connects faster than writing. I mean, this is the reason why video and podcasting are blowing up. I think a lot of people, and some people, a lot of people, including myself, I love to read. But if I have the chance to read or listen to a book, I will listen to a book. But there's a reason why video and podcasting have become so much a part of the context of content creation and marketing. It's because it gives more context to feeling and seeing and being. You can see and hear nuances that you can't always hear in written marketing sales content, and it builds trust faster. According to Edison Research, podcast listeners are 54% more likely to buy after hearing your voice. Podcasts have a 65% average completion rate compared to 15 to 20% email open rates. It's really interesting that people will listen to a longer piece of content than read a whole email. When you get in the habit of creating systems around your voice and verbalizing your thoughts, it helps you get unstuck, and it also helps you create a system now that leads into your marketing sales, which allows your audience to consume more. Your voice is your most powerful tool, especially when you're burnt out and low and have low capacity and managing chronic illness. Now, before I kind of get into how you can start today, obviously this message is for those of us who can speak. If we have the ability to use our voice, And we have that leaning where it feels easier than do it that way. But ultimately, this whole episode is about finding a way to find the rhythm and find the systems that work for you in your season right now, where you are on this journey as an entrepreneur experiencing the hard thing of being an entrepreneur. So how to start today? Open your voice memo and start with prompts like, Right now I feel the thought that keeps circling is if I didn't need to get it perfect, I'd say. Talk it out for 2 to 5 minutes. Listen back. Notice where clarity appears. For your business content, talk your captions or talk your email out loud first. Then use transcripts or summaries to turn your voice into words. From there, you can edit and adjust and really see what needs to be changed or taken out completely. Make it complete. Don't just leave yourself half thoughts. Complete the entire thought in your voice memos so when you come back to it, you have full context and it doesn't feel overwhelming. Of course, we do all this inside of my program, Chronically You and Profitable. I help build a system that works around what you are capable of doing right now, not against it. I've heard many people talk about this from the context of this being a challenge to create content when you're forced to write. Everybody has all these workbooks and everything, and I always say workbooks are fine, courses are fine. To answer these questions, use your voice, talk it out, record yourself doing so, and then look at the transcript and be like, do I agree with this? Do I want to tweak this? This will make your life better. But not just from the aspect of figuring things out. Your marketing should be around you being able to connect with people faster and convert with more ease. And to me, that has always been podcasting, especially if you're growing through burnout and living with chronic illness. We focus on your voice, your real stories, your natural processing style to create content and offers that connect and convert without burning you out. If you've been pushing through content strategies that don't fit, now is the time to reframe how you work without shame and without guilt and without feeling like you're just not enough and you're just not doing it right. You don't need to write more to sell. You need a system that works for you. Try the Voice First experiment this week. Start small, record one complete thought, and if you want support building a business, that lets you thrive even on your hardest days and make sales while you rest, come join me inside of my Chronically You and Profitable course. Your voice is and always will be enough.

That's a wrap for this episode of Business with Chronic Illness. If you would like to start and grow an online coaching business with me, head to the show notes to click a link to book a sales call and learn how to make money with chronic illness. You can also check out our website at www.craftedtothrive.com for this episode's show notes and join our email list to get exclusive content where I coach you on how to chronically grow a profitable business while living with chronic illness. Until next time, remember, yes, you are crafted to thrive.

When I started my podcast, I was in recovery from a surgery related to my chronic illness, trying to connect with other businesses and searching for a way to keep growing my business without sacrificing my healing or well-being. Podcasting became my most aligned marketing tool. It let me show up consistently without showing up constantly. That's why I created the Start Your Podcast Planner, a digital guide to help you launch a purpose-driven podcast that feels like you. Whether you're starting from scratch or finally ready to get your voice and your story out there, or looking for a sustainable way to grow your business through marketing that converts, this planner gives you everything I wish I had. It's got step-by-step strategies that won't overwhelm you, confidence and building prompts that help you fall in love with your voice and share it with the world, and tools and templates you can use again and again without overworrying or being concerned about the tech. Most importantly, it helps you turn your story into sales or income that actually feels aligned. If you're ready to grow your audience, attract clients, and share your message in a way that works with your capacity, this is where you start. Tap the link in the show notes to grab your Start Your Podcast Planner, or visit thrivewithnikitawilliams.com/podcast-planner. You've waited long enough. Let's get your voice and your story out in the world and build a profitable, sustainable marketing system through podcasting.