December 7, 2025 • 46 mins
It's the end of the year, so I'm getting super reflective and looking ahead to the new year. This week I'm gabbing about the big questions I'm asking myself in order to figure out what I really want from life (beyond just next year) so I can figure out the steps and changes I need to make to get there.
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(00:00):
Hello.
(00:00):
Hello.
Welcome back to Solitary Creature.
I'm Steph i'm documenting the messy winding journey towards living a more intentional and mindful life.
Today I'm asking myself some big questions and I'm so glad you're here.
I named this podcast Solitary Creature because I think healing, self-growth, self-improvement, betterment, whatever you wanna call it.
(00:24):
Is at its core, very solitary.
You have to really get to know yourself.
Last episode I talked a lot about burnout and just feeling really overwhelmed with everything, also just feeling like in shock about being in burnout mode because it's something that's.
So unfamiliar to me.
So to be transparent, I actually recorded that episode, my last episode on November 6th, but I didn't release it until the 16th.
(00:51):
So over a full week late.
I was just so dead, dead.
I've been a total zombie.
And when I recorded that episode, I felt fully depleted.
And, sitting down to record this episode, I still, I don't feel depleted.
I think I'm feeling a little bit more re-energized.
am still feeling.
I have a lot on my mind.
I'm still feeling very bogged down, I guess is probably a better way to describe how I'm feeling than depleted, I'm feeling optimistic about a lot of things that are going on, a lot of things that are like swirling my brain and I was hoping that once I wrapped up some big projects at work, that I would feel a lot better.
(01:29):
And that's happened a little bit.
It hasn't maybe happened to the degree that I was really hoping it would.
So this funk is still here to stay, I'm afraid to say, but I feel like I am.
Not quickly coming out of it, but I feel like I am taking the right steps to try to remedy it a little bit and try to take care of myself a little bit and also think a little bit ahead as well my biggest fear is that I would stay in this funk for a very long time, and this burnout would become like a full-blown depression, and I definitely don't want that to happen to me again.
(02:05):
I.
The last time I dealt with a really serious long battle of depression.
It was very long lasting.
scary honestly, to be perfectly frank.
It was a scary time, and I don't wanna go back to that place.
So I'm trying to find that balance between how do you pull yourself out of a funk? How do you let yourself.
Be in the midst of a burnout and, and not overwork yourself while in a burnout, because that's just gonna, I think, create more burnout.
(02:31):
But there's gotta be a balance.
There's gotta be a little bit of a give and take of like, how do I listen to my body, listen to my mind, give myself what I need, give myself that rest, but also start to take steps towards pulling myself out of this.
Mud that I feel stuck in.
So one piece of advice that I got this week was from my boss, this is actually like probably a week or so ago at this point, but the piece of advice I got from him was simply to take some time off.
(03:00):
On the one hand I thought, okay, like now we're getting somewhere.
But then I was also like.
Hmm.
Was that really helpful advice? And it got me thinking about, the term burnout itself.
And I realized that the term burnout has become so overused that I'm not sure we're all working with the same meaning or definition to my bosses.
(03:25):
I've learned that burnout simply means, oh, I'm tired and stressed, and that can be easily, quickly remedied with some.
R and r, which is fine.
but that's not really what I am dealing with.
I'm dealing, what I'm dealing with is more of like an existential kind of burnout on top of just being like physically tired.
I'm also like existentially tired.
(03:46):
But it's funny that, corporate kind of interpretation of burnout is.
To me, just like out of touch, like the response is basically well take a wellness day, take a day off, which is obviously a nice option to have.
And I'm, so glad to be able to work at a place where I can take a little bit of time off.
As much as I complain about my job, I do know that I am able to take time off and a lot of people don't have that option, so I am thankful for that.
(04:10):
And so we did take advantage of that.
The idea of a wellness day in most cases or, or a vacation day or taking the day off, it doesn't necessarily make me feel well.
Sure, it's nice to have a day off, but every time I want a day off, I end up working really late the rest of the week to get that day off.
So I'm not really getting a day off, I'm just front loading my week with 12 hour days to get to one day off.
(04:34):
it's like when they let us out at 2:00 PM the day before a holiday, and then I have to log, but then I have to log on at 6:00 AM instead of 8:00 AM to make sure everything gets done.
It's, it's a facade.
And these facades, I think add to burnout.
It's oh, I'm looking forward to my day off, but I'm still working 40 hours and I'm just cramming those 40 hours in four days instead of five.
(04:55):
So it's like, where's, where's actually the time off? Or you have so much going on at work that then I can't relax on my day off because I'm just thinking about all the things that could go wrong.
Or is someone gonna text me while I'm out and need me to hop on and do something so it doesn't necessarily feel relaxing.
It feels like I'm still on edge.
Maybe I'm not using the term burnout correctly either.
(05:17):
Maybe I am just using burnout as a euphemism for I fucking hate my life right now.
Like some things I'm missing my life.
It's not necessarily burnout.
It's not like I'm o it's not just that I'm overworked or just that I'm tired, or just that everything's catching up with you.
Maybe I don't like my life.
I don't like where my life is at right now.
I don't like what I'm doing.
I don't like the work I'm doing.
(05:38):
So maybe calling that burnout is not a hundred percent accurate either.
I don't know when this podcast, I feel like this podcast has been feeling very negative the last few weeks.
And in the beginning it was all love and light and wishful thinking.
And now I feel like I'm just crabby and irritable and I think I'm, I'm chalking a lot of that up to the discomfort of growing and the.
(06:03):
More you become aware of your feelings and naming your feelings and what is not aligned properly in your life that maybe I've just been going with the flow for a number of reasons and, and knowing that something's amiss but not fully clocking it, or not fully acknowledging it.
because acknowledging it then means I have to do something in response to the acknowledgement, and that feels really overwhelming.
(06:26):
So I just see that that thing in the distance go oh, that's a tomorrow problem.
So now that I'm in this head space of no, I need to, like really, I need to really start tackling these things, I need to name these feelings.
I need to name the things that don't feel right.
I need to really look closely at these misalignments.
And I think the more I sort through those feelings and the reasons behind those feelings, it just.
(06:49):
Brings up a lot more stuff to sort through and it's uncomfortable and I just wanna be on the other side already, but that's not how growth works.
It's a slow process.
I just, I wanna be on the other side of the self-growth montage, like I'm in a movie and we've done it all and I'm ready to get to the other side, to my act two, my act three kind of thing.
(07:10):
that's not how life works.
I guess that's also part of the reason why I wanna tackle these things is I wanna get the podcast back to a more positive spot.
When I first started it felt uplifting, it felt aspirational, it felt forward looking.
And I feel like the last couple of episodes have been a lot more just like hemming, and hawing, and.
(07:35):
Pity party.
And I think there's a, there's definitely a space for that.
'Cause.
The podcast is really supposed to be about really documenting those ups and downs, and I don't, I don't like anything that just makes it seem very simple to just change everything about your life and make it seem like you can do that with the snap of your fingers.
It's one of the reasons why I wanted to create this podcast was so that people could follow along in this journey and the things I'm learning in real time and the imperfection of that journey and the ups and downs of that journey.
(08:02):
that being said, I also don't want it to become like a glum fest either.
I, I, I look forward to recording this podcast because I always feel like I'm gaining little bits of insight as I go into an episode.
I always have an idea in mind, but of what I'm gonna talk about sometimes I have a few notes written out in advance just to keep myself on track instead of veering off course.
(08:25):
In a, in a, in a very strange, meandering way.
When I record these episodes, there's always something that I get from it.
There's always something that I'm learning.
There's things that as I'm speaking and talking about them in real time, that I'm really, gaining a new perspective I felt like in the last few episodes that that hasn't really been happening.
(08:46):
I feel like I've just been complaining and there's no okay, and then what? And I think I needed that to some extent.
I think you have to be at a place where you're really needing to feel like you need to examine certain things in your life and certain aspects of your life.
I feel like you have to hit your bottom in order to pull yourself up from it and really feel like you're in a place where you could actually, you actually wanna take action.
(09:12):
You have to get to a place where you have no clarity in order to get clear with yourself.
So I am chalking up a lot of that negative energy that I feel has been this dark cloud swarming around me.
I'm really just chalking that up to being a critical aspect of a growth.
(09:34):
Journey and just really coming to terms with the fact that things in my life feel really misaligned and aren't adding up to the life that I want to be living and how I want to be known, and the things that bring me the most happiness and the most joy and things that made me feel like I'm living like a, a fulfilling life.
(09:56):
I told my boss's advice and I basically did nothing.
Last weekend I did a little bit of cleaning and I just let myself be.
I think I took a nap at one point.
I, I sat down one day.
I was just like, I'm just gonna read for an hour or so, I tried to be really mindful about shutting the TV off and being present and doing things and that did help a little bit going into a, a crazy.
(10:18):
Four days before I, I took some time before I took time off work.
But at the same time, it felt like a very superficial surface level kind of bandaid.
It didn't feel like I was really cured of anything.
I still went to work Monday, hating my job.
There were aspects of it that I just felt like.
Did I just waste these two days that I had off.
I didn't accomplish anything that weekend.
(10:41):
I did lessen the bare minimum and there was a part of me that felt like kind of anxious well now am I just gonna have to Make up for all of that relaxation time this week when I'm already gonna be really busy because I'm, I have to make up for the things I didn't do.
Like I normally do my laundry on the weekend.
I didn't do that normally.
I do really deep cleaning.
I didn't do that.
(11:01):
So that has to be fit in at some point this week.
So that gave me a little bit of anxiety.
And then I went to work Monday and.
Taking a weekend off and, and just doing nothing and letting my brain rest.
And I tried not to be on social media too much either, 'cause just like doom scrolling doesn't help anything.
(11:21):
But I felt completely overwhelmed by the first email.
It was like all that relaxation was completely wiped away.
As soon as I.
Sat down on my desk and logged into work on Monday.
that was a bummer and it just, that's why I say it felt like a bandaid because the effects were so short-lived and obviously didn't change my life, but like on at the same time, it's like, what's one weekend gonna do for you? You really have to constantly practice sitting and doing nothing and relaxing in order to really reap any benefit from it.
(11:55):
But I thought it would change my life by just sitting there and having one day off, and not doing anything.
But obviously it didn't change my life.
I am taking this whole Thanksgiving week off.
Which is a, a little bit of a change for me.
I always get Thanksgiving and Black Friday off from work, but I took last Friday through this whole week off, six days off of work, basically, plus the weekend.
(12:21):
I started off creating this really long list of things that I wanted to accomplish this week.
It was called I think I labeled at public my vacation to-do list.
And there were like five or six buckets.
It was like self, I put my self care on my do list, which is such a type A thing to do, but it had self care Career creative and house stuff and everything.
(12:46):
I put a bunch of stuff on there there were just like a lot of things that I wanted to accomplish they weren't anything that was like really crazy.
It wasn't like I thought I was gonna like.
Refinish an entire room or anything like that.
It was nothing like that.
It was just, a lot of my vacations, I end up doing nothing and I end up really regretting it.
And part of that regret is because while I will do nothing on a vacation, even if it's just a staycation, if I'll do nothing, but the nothing that I'm doing is not the good nothing where it's like reading a book or enjoying a magazine or, making bread or trying a new recipe.
(13:22):
Like those kinds of nothing, things like those aren't necessarily, like by definition, productive things.
They're still like relaxation things, they're still restful things for the most part.
But instead of doing things like that that are restful, I'm just like doing swirling on my phone and watching an insane amount of reality television.
those don't make me feel good at the end of that week, even though even if the goal of the vacation week is to do nothing, there are certain restful activities that fill me with a lot of anxiety.
(13:52):
'cause it just does feel like I wasted time.
And I think that's the biggest thing with this burnout is I just feel like I've wasted a lot of time.
I just, I wasted a lot of time and instead of just being like, okay, I'm not gonna waste any more time, I'm gonna move forward more intentional, more mindful, I just end up wasting more time because I'm.
Beating myself up about wasting time.
(14:13):
anyway, so I created this really long list of things that I wanted to accomplish this week with this time off.
Like I said, it wasn't anything crazy, but there have definitely been some things on my mind that I wanted to take care of and wanted to, I wanna feel like I'm at least crossing some things off of my list, even if the thing on my list is getting ahead on Christmas shopping or.
read a book, I wanna make sure I'm reading a book an hour a day.
(14:35):
Just enjoy, I want to get through this book that I've been trying to get through.
They're not, like I said, like they're nothing crazy.
But sometimes just crossing off, even the smallest thing on my list can feel really good and give me that dopamine hit that I am really wanting.
It makes me feel accomplished and like I've got some aspect of my life together.
I thought if I crossed some things off my list, then it would create.
(14:55):
Some space to breathe in my day to day, it would just get, get some, get a few things off my mind it just feels like everything's always building up and building, and building and building.
My list is getting longer and longer and nothing's really getting done, and the only things that are ever getting done are going to work.
Making dinner and doing the same chores every day.
(15:17):
So it's like I'm sweeping, I did the dishes, but I'm not getting to anything beyond those very, very basics.
And so it thought, just feels like I'm getting nowhere fast because I'm just doing the same things day in and day out.
I have done that a little bit.
I had to bring some stuff in from outside and put it in the garage, winterize my yard and.
Things like that.
I did get to cross off some of those things.
(15:38):
I wanna take this time off to relax, but I also wanna take this time off to get my head on straight going into the end of the year and into the new year.
I didn't want it to feel.
Balls to the wall, busy.
But I wanted it to at least feel like I took some time off.
I took time for myself.
I also accomplished a few things.
Like I wanted it to feel like I, a vacation where I had balance, where I didn't just do absolutely nothing or stressed myself out and work myself to the bone, and then I'm.
(16:07):
Completely dead by the time I go back to work.
.33333333So I wanted it to feel like I, I landed somewhere nicely in the middle of all of that because I felt so overwhelmed and nothing is quite working for me and just feeling really aimless, but also very constricted at the same time. 183 00:16:23,808.33333333 --> 00:16:29,213.33333333 I've been asking myself a lot of big questions the last few weeks, a lot to do with this burnout. 184 00:16:30,308.33333333 --> 00:16:32,888.33333333 And just like life stuff in general. 185 00:16:32,988.33333333 --> 00:16:42,936.6666667 And big questions like the biggest questions, not questions that are easy to answer, not questions that they're probably questions where the answers should come really quickly, but. 186 00:16:43,303.3333333 --> 00:16:52,990 I have such a hard time answering big questions easily, which I, which I think speaks to there being a, a bigger problem that needs to be addressed.
(16:52):
So when I say big questions, I'm talking about what makes me happy, like truly, really happy.
Where do I want to be a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now? What do I want my life to look like? What do I want it to feel like? What energizes me? What activities help me lose track of time? What do I like most about myself? What don't I like about myself that I wanna work on? What does my ideal life look like? What would bring me contentment? What would make me feel like I lived a good, happy life? I think I've always.
(17:25):
Dreamed of a nice slow life.
I want comfort.
I want stability.
I just, I want just enough.
I'm not someone striving for the big fancy cars or a huge house.
I think the life I really want is actually quite a small life, but a full life.
I want a full lived, well-rounded life.
I was listening to an episode of the Mel Robbins podcast, and she was talking with Kelly Gerardi, who's an astronaut and bio astronautics researcher, and she had a really good piece of advice for building the life you want.
(18:01):
She suggested that you write down the adjectives.
You wanna be known for and put in the work that makes those behaviors true, and I thought that was a really interesting way to approach this problem.
I'm usually more of a, what's the end, end deliverable kind of person, you know that that's probably being type A.
And that's probably also just being a project manager.
(18:21):
I'm so used to like, okay, what am I supposed to be delivering at the end of this thing? And then working backwards and figuring out how to get there and get that thing that I want.
I wanna create this thing, whether it's more money or a particular motion, or a project or a goal.
And then, and then I figure out what to do to achieve it.
But thinking about the adjectives that I wanna be known for was a different way to go about that for me, because it was less individual activity or individual motion, or individual project or goal.
(18:48):
And it was more like, let's look at my life more holistically.
Let's look at myself in a holistic way.
Because it's the end of the year.
It's been a time to get really reflective and figure out what the hell I'm doing with my life.
Because when it all boils down, I'm just feeling really disconnected from my own life.
I don't recognize this life of mine.
I see it.
I see myself in bits and pieces of it.
(19:10):
When I examine it really closely, there's like trace evidence of Stephanie there.
But when I take a step back and look at the whole picture.
It's I don't recognize it.
This is not like a life.
I would have pictures for myself.
There are things that feel almost if you've ever seen this episode of Seinfeld where it's like bizarro Seinfeld, they like, it's almost like Seinfeld, but there's creamer's just like slightly different and they're at a slightly different diner.
(19:39):
George, the Bizaro George is like a little bit different from regular George Costanza, and that's how I feel like when I look at my life, I feel like it's like looking at a bizaro version of my life.
It's like almost quite there.
But there are things that feel off and things that don't feel true.
And part of that is that I'm definitely still getting to know who I am.
(20:03):
I'm still learning about myself.
I've talked a bit about self-esteem in the past, and the thing is, when you don't love yourself, it's really hard to give yourself permission to try new things.
It's hard to face fears head on.
It's hard to make moves because I just don't trust that I'm actually going to figure it out.
I don't trust that I'm going to follow through.
(20:24):
I don't trust that I know what's best or what's good for me.
I don't trust my gut.
Most of the time I've, I've spent a large part of my life.
Dutifully doing what people tell me following the path of leaf resistance, giving up on dreams because they seem hard or because the first step into that dream seems counterproductive to other things I want in my life.
(20:50):
For instance, teaching is a great example.
I got a degree in education.
I read all the books.
I studied all the things I wrote and defended a thesis about arts education.
I was on the board of an arts-based charter school before I was 30.
I used to be so passionate about the arts and books and teaching, but a few people told me that it would be.
(21:16):
Hard for me to find work because I had too many degrees and no one was going to pay someone right out of student teaching the kind of money that they might have to pay me based on a pay scale matrix, which at the time at least was like how they were paying people where I live.
Like look at what's your experience level, number of years teaching.
But they also, they have another access that's for the degree level that you have, and then they look and see where it's in.
(21:42):
Because I had so many degrees, but zero, but still had zero years of education.
I was still gonna do paid at the time, what I thought was like a crazy amount of money and no one was gonna pay someone just outta school that amount of money when they had zero years of teaching under them.
I.
(22:03):
I was scared to take a leap of faith and take a break from my job to do student teaching full-time in order to get my teaching certification.
Like when I think back to those times, it's yes, the pay scale stuff was nerve-wracking, but it was a convenient excuse because what I was really scared about was taking that leap of faith and doing, doing the student teaching and.
(22:29):
Using up money that I had in savings 'cause I wasn't gonna be getting paid during that time and, and all this stuff.
So I was too afraid to take that leap of faith because I didn't believe in myself.
I believed that it just wouldn't, it wasn't gonna happen.
I just believed I had all these negative thoughts.
I just thought it's, no, there's no way this is gonna work out for me.
It might work out for that other person who's taking the same, a very similar path to me.
(22:52):
It might work out for them, but it will not work out for me.
I felt I made decisions.
I have made a lot of decisions in my life based on feeling like I have no control over the outcome of what happens in my own life, and feeling like I'm always gonna get the bum deal out of the whole thing.
That I'm always gonna be the person that gets the, I gets the.
(23:15):
Worst version of an outcome.
I just figured like that's always just gonna be what happens to me.
No matter how much I try, no matter what connections I have, no matter how knowledgeable I am, I'm always gonna get the shit end of the deal.
And I figured teachers get paid shit and I'm never going to be the innovative kinda teacher that would get to go to work at like a KIPP school or something and make, 70 KA year right out of the gate.
(23:41):
So why bother? I knew someone who I went to high school with and she moved out to California and she started working at a KIPP school, which in the mid 2010s was in late.
Aunts, early 2010s, it would, they were these school, they still, they still exist, but they were sort of these things where like they were taking the best and brightest of teacher, of young teachers, and like they were paying people a lot of money and She was someone who was like the class vice president and a straight A student, went to a really good school, got straight A's there was like in a sorority, and did all this community service.
(24:21):
Like she just had she checked every box of a good.
Person of a well educated person, and I was just like, I'm not her.
That's the kind of person they want at these schools.
And those are the kind of teachers that are, making 70, 80, 90, a hundred thousand dollars a year at some of them, which is crazy amount of money for a teacher.
She was, they were getting it right out of the gate, and I just thought I would not be one of those persons.
(24:44):
So in my head I thought I might as well stick to marketing, climb the ladder, and maybe I'd get to buy a house one day.
Like eventually I put in the work and stick it out, and eventually I'd, I'd get where I needed to go.
That seemed like the practical choice at the time.
It made my heart sink because I wasn't following.
What I knew would maybe make me happy, but financially it made more sense.
(25:08):
Looking back, I know I would've been a great teacher and I would've changed a lot of lives, and I probably would've eventually been a highly sought after teacher, and I probably could have parlayed my teaching experience into education consulting, or something down the line that would've paid me what I ultimately wanted to get paid, but I just didn't believe in myself.
(25:30):
What I was looking to get out of life and myself was not necessarily extraordinary, but it required belief in myself.
Imposter syndrome is real and it is devastating, and it is crippling, and it is crippled me most of my life, feeling like I don't.
I haven't earned a seat at the table.
I don't have anything to offer this group of people, whatever the situation is, It just has always been a lack of confidence and.
(25:56):
It doesn't matter what seat at the table I'm thinking about, I just.
I just have always thought whatever the scenario is, I'm not good enough and there's a million people out there that are better, they're always gonna pick those people over me.
Why try if you're gonna be constantly disappointed? And for a long time, I thought that that made a lot of rational sense.
(26:17):
Yeah, if you know you're not gonna succeed, why bother trying? Like why live in a ated disappointment? What I realize now is that it is just.
That's just a, a myth.
I've told myself there was nothing to make me believe that I wouldn't deserve a seat at the table, that I wouldn't have something to contribute.
It was just easier to knock myself down a peg than to actually try.
(26:39):
'cause trying is scary.
The irony is that when I have tried for things, I have usually gotten the things that I've wanted.
Whenever I've submitted a story to be published, it has gotten published.
Knock on wood, but I know it's gonna happen at some point.
I've never received a rejection letter for my writing.
It's always been accepted.
When I put myself out there to be like, and reached out to someone and said, Hey, I saw you starting this arts based charter school.
(27:06):
I'd love to be a part of it.
In whatever capacity you'll have me.
They invited me immediately to join the board of trustees.
It was crazy, I was, I think 28 at the time, they saw value in me that I didn't even see in myself, and they looked to me a lot.
I was there for a year.
I did a year of service from the board of trustees and.
(27:26):
They looked at me, they wanted me to run again.
There were some weird financial things and I said, I don't wanna be part of this.
But but they looked to me for advice.
They, they, a group of full professional people, sometimes twice my age or more.
And they were looking to me for my advice, and that's crazy.
(27:47):
I didn't.
I didn't appreciate it at the time, any of those things that were happening.
So this imposter syndrome, my lack of belief in myself has kept me from pursuing so many of the things that I feel make life worth living has kept me from applying for the job that feels.
That's just a little bit out of reach for showing up more at the job I currently have and feeling like I'm allowed to take up space there.
(28:14):
Advice a lot of career coaches give is to use the one-on-one time that you have with your bosses to show the value you bring, to steer the conversation towards the wins you've created, the goals you've met, and how you're moving in the right direction on others.
And I suck at doing that.
I do.
I love talking about myself in the esoteric, in the philosophical and the big headiness of life like I do on this podcast.
(28:41):
But I hate talking about myself in the workplace.
I hate converting my day into metrics.
I hate validating why my position exists.
I hate.
I hate all of that.
I hate trying to articulate to someone how I am creating value in, in my role.
And when I do, I don't speak with confidence about my work, so I probably come across as unsure, and that probably plants a seed of doubt about my efficacy.
(29:10):
Like I, if, if, if I was on the other side of me talking, listening to me, talk about myself and my work.
I would probably be like, what? What is she saying? What is she accomplished? What is she doing? So going back to the advice from Kelly Girardi from that Mel Robbins podcast, what adjectives do I wanna be known for? And so I was really thinking about this a lot and it's, it's something that has stuck with me for a couple weeks and You don't want it to be like a crazy exhaustive list that feels overwhelming, but I wanted to share with you some of the first ones that came to mind, and I'm still contemplating all of this, but some of the first ones that came to my mind, I wanna share it with you in case it's helpful for you and if you, if you're thinking about these same questions for yourself.
(29:59):
The adjectives I wanna be known for are I wanna be known as well-rounded or multifaceted.
I wanna have hobbies.
I want, I'm not necessarily like an adventurous person, but I wanna try new things.
I wanna.
Find, I wanna learn more about the things I like, the things I don't know whether or not I like yet, and spend more time doing the things that I do like and becoming well-versed in those things.
(30:25):
I love when I read about people who have a million hobbies.
Not that I wanna be a hobby hoarder, but I used to love tennis.
I would love to like.
Go to a tennis club every Saturday and go play tennis for a couple hours.
I would love to join a book club and have a reliable place every week or every month to be able to share what we're reading.
(30:47):
I wanna be seen as open-minded.
And, and similar to that, I wanna be seen as curious.
I think I've always been a very curious person and I wanna continue to cultivate curiosity, but I think curiosity is something that is innate in me.
Like I ask a lot of questions and I think about things and I'm just, I love learning.
(31:08):
But I think you also have to put yourself in positions where.
Curiosity is being sparked, whether it's like making the effort to go to a museum or go for a new walk in the woods, or again, learning a new hobby.
Like being curious like I've never been to just do things I've never done.
I've never been to like to a pottery painting class.
(31:29):
when I lived in Southern New Hampshire, we had a really, really great adult education program through the rec department.
In that program, I actually taught writing fiction and memoir classes, but there were so many cool classes that I never got to do, but like I would love at this point to maybe teach another writing class again, or maybe join a writing class instead of having to teach it.
(31:53):
I would love to join like a writer's workshop.
I, I was reading about they were doing a couple of well-known writers that I love were doing in October.
They did like a writing retreat for, I think it was like a long weekend and they were actually doing it not too far from my house.
They were actually doing it like maybe 30, 40 minutes away or so.
(32:16):
And I felt oh, that would be so cool.
I would love to get together with another group of writers.
They were also having a different group, but this past fall, I think it was, I.
They were having some sort of like writer's convention at the Mount Washington Hotel, and I thought oh, that would be like a really cool thing to go to sometime.
I would love to get out there and, and go meet like minded people.
(32:39):
I would love to go to a a writing, like a, a book, a book con or something, other adjectives, like I would really like to be known for being reliable, dependable, steady, just someone you can count on and someone that other people can count on me.
But I also wanna be known for someone who can like, count on herself.
I wanna be seen as creative.
(33:00):
I used to think of myself as such a creative person.
I still am like a creative person.
I don't think that like ever leaves you, but.
I don't practice my creativity.
I'm not like doing things that spark creativity throughout my day.
I wanna be better about that.
I wanna be seen as compassion, empathetic.
I think I am to an extent, but I also wanna be seen as generous.
(33:20):
Not just generous with money, but generous with time and patience and help and care.
I want to be someone people feel like they can reach out to for support.
I wanna be seen as authentic, like that.
I'm living an authentic life.
I wanna be seen as disciplined, which I guess maybe goes with reliable and dependable.
I also wanna be seen as someone who lives with purpose, that I'm purposeful, that I have, I've dedicated myself to something.
(33:47):
I wanna be seen as proactive.
I, I've lived a lot of my life being reactive.
I'm very proactive in work situations.
As a project manager, you have to be very proactive.
But in my own life, I'm very reactive.
I feel like I'm always a step behind my own life in my response to things.
I wanna be outspoken and honest.
(34:08):
And I think with that comes, I wanna be seen as confident.
I would like, I don't know that people look at me and go, she's confident.
I would like people to go, wow, I wanna be as confident as Stephanie.
I wanna be seen as determined.
I wanna be seen as someone who, like a go-getter, like she wanted this thing, she went out and she found a way to get it.
(34:28):
This is gonna sound like such a stupid, a through way or like connecting thought.
I talk about Taylor Swift a lot on this podcast, but I do, she really does inspire me.
If you don't follow Taylor Swift's love life.
As closely as I do.
Obviously, she is now engaged to Travis Kelsey, a football player, The whole story of how they got together was like, he wanted to meet her at a concert.
(34:52):
He wanted to give her one of a friendship grace that he made.
She didn't get to meet him, and then they obviously ended up like meeting eventually.
They're obviously together now, Swifties are always talking about how like he manifested that for himself, that he spoke it into the world.
He said what he wanted, he wanted her, he wanted a chance with her, and, and he got it.
(35:13):
I wanna have that level of diluted determination.
Like I wanna be so delusional in my determination that I am going after my biggest dreams possible.
Even if, even though like to other people, my dreams are probably very, very small.
I'm not trying to be a Hollywood actress.
I'm not trying to be a gajillionaire, I, I'm not trying to go after those things.
(35:37):
I just, so to some people they'd be like, wow, that's dreaming very, your dreams are very small, I wanna feel like someone who's like going after it, who's like really doing the damn thing and getting it.
Some of these adjectives are more aspirational than others.
Some I think I do a pretty good job of already some of them.
Some of them need more consistency.
(35:59):
Others like being confident and well-rounded are stretch goals and they need some definite work.
We need to figure out how to put some structure around those adjectives.
I guess part of why I like this exercise is that it's not about any particular thing or any one goal.
It's really about how you're living your life, how you're showing up as your best self to anything.
(36:20):
It's the question of.
If I were at my own funeral, like Tom Sawyer style and someone said these things about me, if they described me this way, would I feel like I lived a good life? Would I be pleased with myself? Would I be pleased about how people are talking about me? Would I feel like I left a good impact on the small piece of the world that I interacted with? I've seen a lot of videos on social.
(36:46):
Where therapists and motivational speakers make the point that like most of us can't name our family back even four or five generations.
And if we can name the people we can't, we don't know anything about them.
the point is that in a hundred years, even people in your own family or the people that you're closest to right now.
No one's gonna really know a single thing about you.
(37:09):
And that was really humbling, that like our most people's legacy is just one or two generations if that.
That's like if you have kids, if you have family, most of us are really only going to impact a very, very, very small slice of the world.
And so what do I want that to feel and mean? when I said I was thinking about some really big questions, I wasn't kidding.
(37:34):
These are the big things that I'm asking myself because I wanna figure out where I'm going.
I'm, I'm 38, which I know is still relatively young, but at the same time, I've spent a lot of time meandering and second guessing and half trying.
I'm sick of it.
I'm sick of feeling disappointed in myself.
I'm sick of another birthday or another New Year's or another, whatever the milestone is passing me by and feeling like I'm barely scraping by in life.
(38:02):
And again, I don't mean scraping by as in monetarily.
Just getting through life, giving it the bare minimum effort.
I'm living a bare minimum life and I don't like that.
I don't want that for myself.
I don't wanna feel like I'm living.
To my bare minimum, I'm sick of not feeling like I'm living a life that feels like mine.
(38:24):
I, I don't feel at home in this life.
I feel comfortable, probably too comfortable, but I don't really feel like it's my life.
I don't, I don't know who's life it is, but it's not.
Fulfilling me.
I was having lunch with my friend the other day and she just came back from a vacation in Puerto Rico and her younger sister lives there at least part-time right now with her boyfriend, and I think her sister's about 25.
(38:52):
And for the last couple of years, her and her boyfriend will work at a hotel for a few months in Puerto Rico, save up their money, stay on the, get, stay on the island for a few months, rent an Airbnb.
And just hang out and then come back to the States for a few months and then do it all over again.
And they've recently bought a small piece of land in Puerto Rico, and they're going to put a small trailer, or like a tiny home or some small dwelling on it and live there for part of the year and then come back up to the states for a little bit.
(39:23):
Or go work at a hotel or whatever.
And while they're up here, they're going to rent it out and have the house and the land paid off in a couple of years.
And so to me, they're living a well lived life.
They have created, they know what they want from life, and I'm so impressed that at 25, she's really created a dream life for herself.
(39:46):
She got there by taking what seems to me like a leap of faith.
She decided to give working there a try and see how it panned out and it's become a home to her now.
It's really impressive.
And normally I would be seething with jealousy at this story.
And I'd be angry and I'd be angry at myself.
I'd be angry at this, 25-year-old who figured something out better in life than I did, but instead, which I think shows a little bit of growth, but instead of being jealous, I just walked away from my friend story really impressed and thinking that could be you, Steph.
(40:21):
That could be you.
Not that I wanna live in Puerto Rico.
Creating a small, well-designed life that aligns with what I really want for myself and taking a couple of risks that pay off and, and truthfully, I am really not that far off from the life that I want.
(40:41):
it.
It's really just that I need to get clear and put a plan into action.
It's absolutely doable and I need to stop.
I need to get out of this broken record that I'm on where I'm just saying a constant negative track to myself that that's not for you, that life's not for you, that dream's not for you.
(41:01):
You can't do that.
When I close my eyes and think about the life I want, which I've mentioned a little bit in earlier episodes, I just want to live in a small house in the woods at the bottom of a beautiful mountain with a river in my backyard, and beautiful porch surrounded by cats, some land for a garden, and maybe a couple of small farm animals like a goat.
(41:25):
I've always wanted chickens and not.
To have this nine to five grind kind of job.
I don't wanna climb a corporate ladder.
I don't wanna feel like I have to sell my soul for a paycheck.
I wanna be a writer.
I wanna be published, I wanna write full time.
(41:46):
I wanna fill the world with my stories, whether they're true stories about myself or fictionalized stories.
I'm realizing that all I really need is some consistency and patience to get there.
And that goes back to the adjective exercise.
It's one thing to dream about something, but it's another thing to act on it and try for it and go after it.
(42:06):
That's where those behaviors, that beget those adjectives come into play.
And it's the behavior and looking at what I want for myself in a more holistic way.
And, and at the when, if I were, when I'm being put in the ground, how do I want people to have talked about the life that I lived so I just think like asking myself some of those big questions the past couple of weeks has been really helpful.
(42:31):
I'm not trying to put pressure on myself, but I, I know, but for me, in my particular case of burnout, I know that feeling burnt out comes from feeling aimless and feeling like, what am I doing with my life? And I'm just going through the same day in, day out, mundane.
(42:52):
Things, and it doesn't feel like any part of my life.
It doesn't feel like any part of my day to day is being lived for myself.
It's being lived because I need this job.
So I have money in my bank account so I can pay my mortgage so I have a place to lay my head at night.
I am making this food because it's easy for me tonight.
(43:12):
It's not necessarily what I wanna eat, but it's easy so that I can just sit down and go to bed quickly.
It's like it, there's no.
In my life, there's no excitement and I don't need excitement.
Like fast cars.
Fast life, doing a different activity every night.
I just mean like I'm feel like I'm doing nothing with my life.
(43:33):
In big and small ways, I'm doing nothing and I just wanna infuse my day-to-day life with things that feel meaningful and purposeful to me, and feel like I can go to bed at night and go, that was like a real, I had a really good day today.
I just want more days where I'm going to bed going.
I had a good day and that was a fun day, and I'm glad I had today and I made the most of my day.
(44:00):
It doesn't mean that I have to be like productive in order to make the most of my day.
I just mean just wanna feel like I did more with my day than sit around feeling sorry for myself working a job I hated and then going to bed.
I wanna make sure I'm carving out time for myself every day to be like I'm getting one step closer to my dream.
One step closer to feeling like I'm living a life.
(44:21):
I enjoy, I am.
Even if that's just as something as simple as I read my book for 30 minutes before bed and that was, that was a nice me time.
anyways, I feel like I'm coming out on the other side of the burnout.
Hopefully.
I think there's still a lot more to be done.
We're coming towards the end of the year, and so I think a lot of the episodes that come are gonna be a lot of the same thing of just.
(44:44):
Really trying, me trying to get clear on what it is I'm trying to achieve in this next year and how I'm going to get there and what I need to do and what all of that looks and why I'm setting these goals for myself, because I think that's another big piece of it.
I set goals for myself, but I don't know sometimes if I'm really asking myself why or is this reasonable or is this like actionable and doable? Or am I just creating.
(45:10):
Am I'm making a goal that feels so big right out of the gate that like, I don't even know where to get started.
so those are some things that are big on my mind right now.
I would love to know what big questions you've been asking yourself.
Maybe there's something or they're an exercise that has helped you get clarity.
You can find me on Instagram at solitary Creature Pod.
(45:31):
Send me a message, let me know where you're at.
Are you feeling burnt out? Is this just like something that happens in fall going into winter? And maybe I just haven't been as aware in the past.
How have you been in burnt out? Have you gotten yourself out of it? And yeah, anything that like you're looking forward to for the new year, anything that you're working on I would love to know.
(45:54):
It for now.
Thank you so much for joining me.
I'll see you in the next episode.
Okay, thanks.
Hello.
(00:00):
Hello.
Welcome back to Solitary Creature.
I'm Steph i'm documenting the messy winding journey towards living a more intentional and mindful life.
Today I'm asking myself some big questions and I'm so glad you're here.
I named this podcast Solitary Creature because I think healing, self-growth, self-improvement, betterment, whatever you wanna call it.
(00:24):
Is at its core, very solitary.
You have to really get to know yourself.
Last episode I talked a lot about burnout and just feeling really overwhelmed with everything, also just feeling like in shock about being in burnout mode because it's something that's.
So unfamiliar to me.
So to be transparent, I actually recorded that episode, my last episode on November 6th, but I didn't release it until the 16th.
(00:51):
So over a full week late.
I was just so dead, dead.
I've been a total zombie.
And when I recorded that episode, I felt fully depleted.
And, sitting down to record this episode, I still, I don't feel depleted.
I think I'm feeling a little bit more re-energized.
am still feeling.
I have a lot on my mind.
I'm still feeling very bogged down, I guess is probably a better way to describe how I'm feeling than depleted, I'm feeling optimistic about a lot of things that are going on, a lot of things that are like swirling my brain and I was hoping that once I wrapped up some big projects at work, that I would feel a lot better.
(01:29):
And that's happened a little bit.
It hasn't maybe happened to the degree that I was really hoping it would.
So this funk is still here to stay, I'm afraid to say, but I feel like I am.
Not quickly coming out of it, but I feel like I am taking the right steps to try to remedy it a little bit and try to take care of myself a little bit and also think a little bit ahead as well my biggest fear is that I would stay in this funk for a very long time, and this burnout would become like a full-blown depression, and I definitely don't want that to happen to me again.
(02:05):
I.
The last time I dealt with a really serious long battle of depression.
It was very long lasting.
scary honestly, to be perfectly frank.
It was a scary time, and I don't wanna go back to that place.
So I'm trying to find that balance between how do you pull yourself out of a funk? How do you let yourself.
Be in the midst of a burnout and, and not overwork yourself while in a burnout, because that's just gonna, I think, create more burnout.
(02:31):
But there's gotta be a balance.
There's gotta be a little bit of a give and take of like, how do I listen to my body, listen to my mind, give myself what I need, give myself that rest, but also start to take steps towards pulling myself out of this.
Mud that I feel stuck in.
So one piece of advice that I got this week was from my boss, this is actually like probably a week or so ago at this point, but the piece of advice I got from him was simply to take some time off.
(03:00):
On the one hand I thought, okay, like now we're getting somewhere.
But then I was also like.
Hmm.
Was that really helpful advice? And it got me thinking about, the term burnout itself.
And I realized that the term burnout has become so overused that I'm not sure we're all working with the same meaning or definition to my bosses.
(03:25):
I've learned that burnout simply means, oh, I'm tired and stressed, and that can be easily, quickly remedied with some.
R and r, which is fine.
but that's not really what I am dealing with.
I'm dealing, what I'm dealing with is more of like an existential kind of burnout on top of just being like physically tired.
I'm also like existentially tired.
(03:46):
But it's funny that, corporate kind of interpretation of burnout is.
To me, just like out of touch, like the response is basically well take a wellness day, take a day off, which is obviously a nice option to have.
And I'm, so glad to be able to work at a place where I can take a little bit of time off.
As much as I complain about my job, I do know that I am able to take time off and a lot of people don't have that option, so I am thankful for that.
(04:10):
And so we did take advantage of that.
The idea of a wellness day in most cases or, or a vacation day or taking the day off, it doesn't necessarily make me feel well.
Sure, it's nice to have a day off, but every time I want a day off, I end up working really late the rest of the week to get that day off.
So I'm not really getting a day off, I'm just front loading my week with 12 hour days to get to one day off.
(04:34):
it's like when they let us out at 2:00 PM the day before a holiday, and then I have to log, but then I have to log on at 6:00 AM instead of 8:00 AM to make sure everything gets done.
It's, it's a facade.
And these facades, I think add to burnout.
It's oh, I'm looking forward to my day off, but I'm still working 40 hours and I'm just cramming those 40 hours in four days instead of five.
(04:55):
So it's like, where's, where's actually the time off? Or you have so much going on at work that then I can't relax on my day off because I'm just thinking about all the things that could go wrong.
Or is someone gonna text me while I'm out and need me to hop on and do something so it doesn't necessarily feel relaxing.
It feels like I'm still on edge.
Maybe I'm not using the term burnout correctly either.
(05:17):
Maybe I am just using burnout as a euphemism for I fucking hate my life right now.
Like some things I'm missing my life.
It's not necessarily burnout.
It's not like I'm o it's not just that I'm overworked or just that I'm tired, or just that everything's catching up with you.
Maybe I don't like my life.
I don't like where my life is at right now.
I don't like what I'm doing.
I don't like the work I'm doing.
(05:38):
So maybe calling that burnout is not a hundred percent accurate either.
I don't know when this podcast, I feel like this podcast has been feeling very negative the last few weeks.
And in the beginning it was all love and light and wishful thinking.
And now I feel like I'm just crabby and irritable and I think I'm, I'm chalking a lot of that up to the discomfort of growing and the.
(06:03):
More you become aware of your feelings and naming your feelings and what is not aligned properly in your life that maybe I've just been going with the flow for a number of reasons and, and knowing that something's amiss but not fully clocking it, or not fully acknowledging it.
because acknowledging it then means I have to do something in response to the acknowledgement, and that feels really overwhelming.
(06:26):
So I just see that that thing in the distance go oh, that's a tomorrow problem.
So now that I'm in this head space of no, I need to, like really, I need to really start tackling these things, I need to name these feelings.
I need to name the things that don't feel right.
I need to really look closely at these misalignments.
And I think the more I sort through those feelings and the reasons behind those feelings, it just.
(06:49):
Brings up a lot more stuff to sort through and it's uncomfortable and I just wanna be on the other side already, but that's not how growth works.
It's a slow process.
I just, I wanna be on the other side of the self-growth montage, like I'm in a movie and we've done it all and I'm ready to get to the other side, to my act two, my act three kind of thing.
(07:10):
that's not how life works.
I guess that's also part of the reason why I wanna tackle these things is I wanna get the podcast back to a more positive spot.
When I first started it felt uplifting, it felt aspirational, it felt forward looking.
And I feel like the last couple of episodes have been a lot more just like hemming, and hawing, and.
(07:35):
Pity party.
And I think there's a, there's definitely a space for that.
'Cause.
The podcast is really supposed to be about really documenting those ups and downs, and I don't, I don't like anything that just makes it seem very simple to just change everything about your life and make it seem like you can do that with the snap of your fingers.
It's one of the reasons why I wanted to create this podcast was so that people could follow along in this journey and the things I'm learning in real time and the imperfection of that journey and the ups and downs of that journey.
(08:02):
that being said, I also don't want it to become like a glum fest either.
I, I, I look forward to recording this podcast because I always feel like I'm gaining little bits of insight as I go into an episode.
I always have an idea in mind, but of what I'm gonna talk about sometimes I have a few notes written out in advance just to keep myself on track instead of veering off course.
(08:25):
In a, in a, in a very strange, meandering way.
When I record these episodes, there's always something that I get from it.
There's always something that I'm learning.
There's things that as I'm speaking and talking about them in real time, that I'm really, gaining a new perspective I felt like in the last few episodes that that hasn't really been happening.
(08:46):
I feel like I've just been complaining and there's no okay, and then what? And I think I needed that to some extent.
I think you have to be at a place where you're really needing to feel like you need to examine certain things in your life and certain aspects of your life.
I feel like you have to hit your bottom in order to pull yourself up from it and really feel like you're in a place where you could actually, you actually wanna take action.
(09:12):
You have to get to a place where you have no clarity in order to get clear with yourself.
So I am chalking up a lot of that negative energy that I feel has been this dark cloud swarming around me.
I'm really just chalking that up to being a critical aspect of a growth.
(09:34):
Journey and just really coming to terms with the fact that things in my life feel really misaligned and aren't adding up to the life that I want to be living and how I want to be known, and the things that bring me the most happiness and the most joy and things that made me feel like I'm living like a, a fulfilling life.
(09:56):
I told my boss's advice and I basically did nothing.
Last weekend I did a little bit of cleaning and I just let myself be.
I think I took a nap at one point.
I, I sat down one day.
I was just like, I'm just gonna read for an hour or so, I tried to be really mindful about shutting the TV off and being present and doing things and that did help a little bit going into a, a crazy.
(10:18):
Four days before I, I took some time before I took time off work.
But at the same time, it felt like a very superficial surface level kind of bandaid.
It didn't feel like I was really cured of anything.
I still went to work Monday, hating my job.
There were aspects of it that I just felt like.
Did I just waste these two days that I had off.
I didn't accomplish anything that weekend.
(10:41):
I did lessen the bare minimum and there was a part of me that felt like kind of anxious well now am I just gonna have to Make up for all of that relaxation time this week when I'm already gonna be really busy because I'm, I have to make up for the things I didn't do.
Like I normally do my laundry on the weekend.
I didn't do that normally.
I do really deep cleaning.
I didn't do that.
(11:01):
So that has to be fit in at some point this week.
So that gave me a little bit of anxiety.
And then I went to work Monday and.
Taking a weekend off and, and just doing nothing and letting my brain rest.
And I tried not to be on social media too much either, 'cause just like doom scrolling doesn't help anything.
(11:21):
But I felt completely overwhelmed by the first email.
It was like all that relaxation was completely wiped away.
As soon as I.
Sat down on my desk and logged into work on Monday.
that was a bummer and it just, that's why I say it felt like a bandaid because the effects were so short-lived and obviously didn't change my life, but like on at the same time, it's like, what's one weekend gonna do for you? You really have to constantly practice sitting and doing nothing and relaxing in order to really reap any benefit from it.
(11:55):
But I thought it would change my life by just sitting there and having one day off, and not doing anything.
But obviously it didn't change my life.
I am taking this whole Thanksgiving week off.
Which is a, a little bit of a change for me.
I always get Thanksgiving and Black Friday off from work, but I took last Friday through this whole week off, six days off of work, basically, plus the weekend.
(12:21):
I started off creating this really long list of things that I wanted to accomplish this week.
It was called I think I labeled at public my vacation to-do list.
And there were like five or six buckets.
It was like self, I put my self care on my do list, which is such a type A thing to do, but it had self care Career creative and house stuff and everything.
(12:46):
I put a bunch of stuff on there there were just like a lot of things that I wanted to accomplish they weren't anything that was like really crazy.
It wasn't like I thought I was gonna like.
Refinish an entire room or anything like that.
It was nothing like that.
It was just, a lot of my vacations, I end up doing nothing and I end up really regretting it.
And part of that regret is because while I will do nothing on a vacation, even if it's just a staycation, if I'll do nothing, but the nothing that I'm doing is not the good nothing where it's like reading a book or enjoying a magazine or, making bread or trying a new recipe.
(13:22):
Like those kinds of nothing, things like those aren't necessarily, like by definition, productive things.
They're still like relaxation things, they're still restful things for the most part.
But instead of doing things like that that are restful, I'm just like doing swirling on my phone and watching an insane amount of reality television.
those don't make me feel good at the end of that week, even though even if the goal of the vacation week is to do nothing, there are certain restful activities that fill me with a lot of anxiety.
(13:52):
'cause it just does feel like I wasted time.
And I think that's the biggest thing with this burnout is I just feel like I've wasted a lot of time.
I just, I wasted a lot of time and instead of just being like, okay, I'm not gonna waste any more time, I'm gonna move forward more intentional, more mindful, I just end up wasting more time because I'm.
Beating myself up about wasting time.
(14:13):
anyway, so I created this really long list of things that I wanted to accomplish this week with this time off.
Like I said, it wasn't anything crazy, but there have definitely been some things on my mind that I wanted to take care of and wanted to, I wanna feel like I'm at least crossing some things off of my list, even if the thing on my list is getting ahead on Christmas shopping or.
read a book, I wanna make sure I'm reading a book an hour a day.
(14:35):
Just enjoy, I want to get through this book that I've been trying to get through.
They're not, like I said, like they're nothing crazy.
But sometimes just crossing off, even the smallest thing on my list can feel really good and give me that dopamine hit that I am really wanting.
It makes me feel accomplished and like I've got some aspect of my life together.
I thought if I crossed some things off my list, then it would create.
(14:55):
Some space to breathe in my day to day, it would just get, get some, get a few things off my mind it just feels like everything's always building up and building, and building and building.
My list is getting longer and longer and nothing's really getting done, and the only things that are ever getting done are going to work.
Making dinner and doing the same chores every day.
(15:17):
So it's like I'm sweeping, I did the dishes, but I'm not getting to anything beyond those very, very basics.
And so it thought, just feels like I'm getting nowhere fast because I'm just doing the same things day in and day out.
I have done that a little bit.
I had to bring some stuff in from outside and put it in the garage, winterize my yard and.
Things like that.
I did get to cross off some of those things.
(15:38):
I wanna take this time off to relax, but I also wanna take this time off to get my head on straight going into the end of the year and into the new year.
I didn't want it to feel.
Balls to the wall, busy.
But I wanted it to at least feel like I took some time off.
I took time for myself.
I also accomplished a few things.
Like I wanted it to feel like I, a vacation where I had balance, where I didn't just do absolutely nothing or stressed myself out and work myself to the bone, and then I'm.
(16:07):
Completely dead by the time I go back to work.
.33333333So I wanted it to feel like I, I landed somewhere nicely in the middle of all of that because I felt so overwhelmed and nothing is quite working for me and just feeling really aimless, but also very constricted at the same time. 183 00:16:23,808.33333333 --> 00:16:29,213.33333333 I've been asking myself a lot of big questions the last few weeks, a lot to do with this burnout. 184 00:16:30,308.33333333 --> 00:16:32,888.33333333 And just like life stuff in general. 185 00:16:32,988.33333333 --> 00:16:42,936.6666667 And big questions like the biggest questions, not questions that are easy to answer, not questions that they're probably questions where the answers should come really quickly, but. 186 00:16:43,303.3333333 --> 00:16:52,990 I have such a hard time answering big questions easily, which I, which I think speaks to there being a, a bigger problem that needs to be addressed.
(16:52):
So when I say big questions, I'm talking about what makes me happy, like truly, really happy.
Where do I want to be a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now? What do I want my life to look like? What do I want it to feel like? What energizes me? What activities help me lose track of time? What do I like most about myself? What don't I like about myself that I wanna work on? What does my ideal life look like? What would bring me contentment? What would make me feel like I lived a good, happy life? I think I've always.
(17:25):
Dreamed of a nice slow life.
I want comfort.
I want stability.
I just, I want just enough.
I'm not someone striving for the big fancy cars or a huge house.
I think the life I really want is actually quite a small life, but a full life.
I want a full lived, well-rounded life.
I was listening to an episode of the Mel Robbins podcast, and she was talking with Kelly Gerardi, who's an astronaut and bio astronautics researcher, and she had a really good piece of advice for building the life you want.
(18:01):
She suggested that you write down the adjectives.
You wanna be known for and put in the work that makes those behaviors true, and I thought that was a really interesting way to approach this problem.
I'm usually more of a, what's the end, end deliverable kind of person, you know that that's probably being type A.
And that's probably also just being a project manager.
(18:21):
I'm so used to like, okay, what am I supposed to be delivering at the end of this thing? And then working backwards and figuring out how to get there and get that thing that I want.
I wanna create this thing, whether it's more money or a particular motion, or a project or a goal.
And then, and then I figure out what to do to achieve it.
But thinking about the adjectives that I wanna be known for was a different way to go about that for me, because it was less individual activity or individual motion, or individual project or goal.
(18:48):
And it was more like, let's look at my life more holistically.
Let's look at myself in a holistic way.
Because it's the end of the year.
It's been a time to get really reflective and figure out what the hell I'm doing with my life.
Because when it all boils down, I'm just feeling really disconnected from my own life.
I don't recognize this life of mine.
I see it.
I see myself in bits and pieces of it.
(19:10):
When I examine it really closely, there's like trace evidence of Stephanie there.
But when I take a step back and look at the whole picture.
It's I don't recognize it.
This is not like a life.
I would have pictures for myself.
There are things that feel almost if you've ever seen this episode of Seinfeld where it's like bizarro Seinfeld, they like, it's almost like Seinfeld, but there's creamer's just like slightly different and they're at a slightly different diner.
(19:39):
George, the Bizaro George is like a little bit different from regular George Costanza, and that's how I feel like when I look at my life, I feel like it's like looking at a bizaro version of my life.
It's like almost quite there.
But there are things that feel off and things that don't feel true.
And part of that is that I'm definitely still getting to know who I am.
(20:03):
I'm still learning about myself.
I've talked a bit about self-esteem in the past, and the thing is, when you don't love yourself, it's really hard to give yourself permission to try new things.
It's hard to face fears head on.
It's hard to make moves because I just don't trust that I'm actually going to figure it out.
I don't trust that I'm going to follow through.
(20:24):
I don't trust that I know what's best or what's good for me.
I don't trust my gut.
Most of the time I've, I've spent a large part of my life.
Dutifully doing what people tell me following the path of leaf resistance, giving up on dreams because they seem hard or because the first step into that dream seems counterproductive to other things I want in my life.
(20:50):
For instance, teaching is a great example.
I got a degree in education.
I read all the books.
I studied all the things I wrote and defended a thesis about arts education.
I was on the board of an arts-based charter school before I was 30.
I used to be so passionate about the arts and books and teaching, but a few people told me that it would be.
(21:16):
Hard for me to find work because I had too many degrees and no one was going to pay someone right out of student teaching the kind of money that they might have to pay me based on a pay scale matrix, which at the time at least was like how they were paying people where I live.
Like look at what's your experience level, number of years teaching.
But they also, they have another access that's for the degree level that you have, and then they look and see where it's in.
(21:42):
Because I had so many degrees, but zero, but still had zero years of education.
I was still gonna do paid at the time, what I thought was like a crazy amount of money and no one was gonna pay someone just outta school that amount of money when they had zero years of teaching under them.
I.
(22:03):
I was scared to take a leap of faith and take a break from my job to do student teaching full-time in order to get my teaching certification.
Like when I think back to those times, it's yes, the pay scale stuff was nerve-wracking, but it was a convenient excuse because what I was really scared about was taking that leap of faith and doing, doing the student teaching and.
(22:29):
Using up money that I had in savings 'cause I wasn't gonna be getting paid during that time and, and all this stuff.
So I was too afraid to take that leap of faith because I didn't believe in myself.
I believed that it just wouldn't, it wasn't gonna happen.
I just believed I had all these negative thoughts.
I just thought it's, no, there's no way this is gonna work out for me.
It might work out for that other person who's taking the same, a very similar path to me.
(22:52):
It might work out for them, but it will not work out for me.
I felt I made decisions.
I have made a lot of decisions in my life based on feeling like I have no control over the outcome of what happens in my own life, and feeling like I'm always gonna get the bum deal out of the whole thing.
That I'm always gonna be the person that gets the, I gets the.
(23:15):
Worst version of an outcome.
I just figured like that's always just gonna be what happens to me.
No matter how much I try, no matter what connections I have, no matter how knowledgeable I am, I'm always gonna get the shit end of the deal.
And I figured teachers get paid shit and I'm never going to be the innovative kinda teacher that would get to go to work at like a KIPP school or something and make, 70 KA year right out of the gate.
(23:41):
So why bother? I knew someone who I went to high school with and she moved out to California and she started working at a KIPP school, which in the mid 2010s was in late.
Aunts, early 2010s, it would, they were these school, they still, they still exist, but they were sort of these things where like they were taking the best and brightest of teacher, of young teachers, and like they were paying people a lot of money and She was someone who was like the class vice president and a straight A student, went to a really good school, got straight A's there was like in a sorority, and did all this community service.
(24:21):
Like she just had she checked every box of a good.
Person of a well educated person, and I was just like, I'm not her.
That's the kind of person they want at these schools.
And those are the kind of teachers that are, making 70, 80, 90, a hundred thousand dollars a year at some of them, which is crazy amount of money for a teacher.
She was, they were getting it right out of the gate, and I just thought I would not be one of those persons.
(24:44):
So in my head I thought I might as well stick to marketing, climb the ladder, and maybe I'd get to buy a house one day.
Like eventually I put in the work and stick it out, and eventually I'd, I'd get where I needed to go.
That seemed like the practical choice at the time.
It made my heart sink because I wasn't following.
What I knew would maybe make me happy, but financially it made more sense.
(25:08):
Looking back, I know I would've been a great teacher and I would've changed a lot of lives, and I probably would've eventually been a highly sought after teacher, and I probably could have parlayed my teaching experience into education consulting, or something down the line that would've paid me what I ultimately wanted to get paid, but I just didn't believe in myself.
(25:30):
What I was looking to get out of life and myself was not necessarily extraordinary, but it required belief in myself.
Imposter syndrome is real and it is devastating, and it is crippling, and it is crippled me most of my life, feeling like I don't.
I haven't earned a seat at the table.
I don't have anything to offer this group of people, whatever the situation is, It just has always been a lack of confidence and.
(25:56):
It doesn't matter what seat at the table I'm thinking about, I just.
I just have always thought whatever the scenario is, I'm not good enough and there's a million people out there that are better, they're always gonna pick those people over me.
Why try if you're gonna be constantly disappointed? And for a long time, I thought that that made a lot of rational sense.
(26:17):
Yeah, if you know you're not gonna succeed, why bother trying? Like why live in a ated disappointment? What I realize now is that it is just.
That's just a, a myth.
I've told myself there was nothing to make me believe that I wouldn't deserve a seat at the table, that I wouldn't have something to contribute.
It was just easier to knock myself down a peg than to actually try.
(26:39):
'cause trying is scary.
The irony is that when I have tried for things, I have usually gotten the things that I've wanted.
Whenever I've submitted a story to be published, it has gotten published.
Knock on wood, but I know it's gonna happen at some point.
I've never received a rejection letter for my writing.
It's always been accepted.
When I put myself out there to be like, and reached out to someone and said, Hey, I saw you starting this arts based charter school.
(27:06):
I'd love to be a part of it.
In whatever capacity you'll have me.
They invited me immediately to join the board of trustees.
It was crazy, I was, I think 28 at the time, they saw value in me that I didn't even see in myself, and they looked to me a lot.
I was there for a year.
I did a year of service from the board of trustees and.
(27:26):
They looked at me, they wanted me to run again.
There were some weird financial things and I said, I don't wanna be part of this.
But but they looked to me for advice.
They, they, a group of full professional people, sometimes twice my age or more.
And they were looking to me for my advice, and that's crazy.
(27:47):
I didn't.
I didn't appreciate it at the time, any of those things that were happening.
So this imposter syndrome, my lack of belief in myself has kept me from pursuing so many of the things that I feel make life worth living has kept me from applying for the job that feels.
That's just a little bit out of reach for showing up more at the job I currently have and feeling like I'm allowed to take up space there.
(28:14):
Advice a lot of career coaches give is to use the one-on-one time that you have with your bosses to show the value you bring, to steer the conversation towards the wins you've created, the goals you've met, and how you're moving in the right direction on others.
And I suck at doing that.
I do.
I love talking about myself in the esoteric, in the philosophical and the big headiness of life like I do on this podcast.
(28:41):
But I hate talking about myself in the workplace.
I hate converting my day into metrics.
I hate validating why my position exists.
I hate.
I hate all of that.
I hate trying to articulate to someone how I am creating value in, in my role.
And when I do, I don't speak with confidence about my work, so I probably come across as unsure, and that probably plants a seed of doubt about my efficacy.
(29:10):
Like I, if, if, if I was on the other side of me talking, listening to me, talk about myself and my work.
I would probably be like, what? What is she saying? What is she accomplished? What is she doing? So going back to the advice from Kelly Girardi from that Mel Robbins podcast, what adjectives do I wanna be known for? And so I was really thinking about this a lot and it's, it's something that has stuck with me for a couple weeks and You don't want it to be like a crazy exhaustive list that feels overwhelming, but I wanted to share with you some of the first ones that came to mind, and I'm still contemplating all of this, but some of the first ones that came to my mind, I wanna share it with you in case it's helpful for you and if you, if you're thinking about these same questions for yourself.
(29:59):
The adjectives I wanna be known for are I wanna be known as well-rounded or multifaceted.
I wanna have hobbies.
I want, I'm not necessarily like an adventurous person, but I wanna try new things.
I wanna.
Find, I wanna learn more about the things I like, the things I don't know whether or not I like yet, and spend more time doing the things that I do like and becoming well-versed in those things.
(30:25):
I love when I read about people who have a million hobbies.
Not that I wanna be a hobby hoarder, but I used to love tennis.
I would love to like.
Go to a tennis club every Saturday and go play tennis for a couple hours.
I would love to join a book club and have a reliable place every week or every month to be able to share what we're reading.
(30:47):
I wanna be seen as open-minded.
And, and similar to that, I wanna be seen as curious.
I think I've always been a very curious person and I wanna continue to cultivate curiosity, but I think curiosity is something that is innate in me.
Like I ask a lot of questions and I think about things and I'm just, I love learning.
(31:08):
But I think you also have to put yourself in positions where.
Curiosity is being sparked, whether it's like making the effort to go to a museum or go for a new walk in the woods, or again, learning a new hobby.
Like being curious like I've never been to just do things I've never done.
I've never been to like to a pottery painting class.
(31:29):
when I lived in Southern New Hampshire, we had a really, really great adult education program through the rec department.
In that program, I actually taught writing fiction and memoir classes, but there were so many cool classes that I never got to do, but like I would love at this point to maybe teach another writing class again, or maybe join a writing class instead of having to teach it.
(31:53):
I would love to join like a writer's workshop.
I, I was reading about they were doing a couple of well-known writers that I love were doing in October.
They did like a writing retreat for, I think it was like a long weekend and they were actually doing it not too far from my house.
They were actually doing it like maybe 30, 40 minutes away or so.
(32:16):
And I felt oh, that would be so cool.
I would love to get together with another group of writers.
They were also having a different group, but this past fall, I think it was, I.
They were having some sort of like writer's convention at the Mount Washington Hotel, and I thought oh, that would be like a really cool thing to go to sometime.
I would love to get out there and, and go meet like minded people.
(32:39):
I would love to go to a a writing, like a, a book, a book con or something, other adjectives, like I would really like to be known for being reliable, dependable, steady, just someone you can count on and someone that other people can count on me.
But I also wanna be known for someone who can like, count on herself.
I wanna be seen as creative.
(33:00):
I used to think of myself as such a creative person.
I still am like a creative person.
I don't think that like ever leaves you, but.
I don't practice my creativity.
I'm not like doing things that spark creativity throughout my day.
I wanna be better about that.
I wanna be seen as compassion, empathetic.
I think I am to an extent, but I also wanna be seen as generous.
(33:20):
Not just generous with money, but generous with time and patience and help and care.
I want to be someone people feel like they can reach out to for support.
I wanna be seen as authentic, like that.
I'm living an authentic life.
I wanna be seen as disciplined, which I guess maybe goes with reliable and dependable.
I also wanna be seen as someone who lives with purpose, that I'm purposeful, that I have, I've dedicated myself to something.
(33:47):
I wanna be seen as proactive.
I, I've lived a lot of my life being reactive.
I'm very proactive in work situations.
As a project manager, you have to be very proactive.
But in my own life, I'm very reactive.
I feel like I'm always a step behind my own life in my response to things.
I wanna be outspoken and honest.
(34:08):
And I think with that comes, I wanna be seen as confident.
I would like, I don't know that people look at me and go, she's confident.
I would like people to go, wow, I wanna be as confident as Stephanie.
I wanna be seen as determined.
I wanna be seen as someone who, like a go-getter, like she wanted this thing, she went out and she found a way to get it.
(34:28):
This is gonna sound like such a stupid, a through way or like connecting thought.
I talk about Taylor Swift a lot on this podcast, but I do, she really does inspire me.
If you don't follow Taylor Swift's love life.
As closely as I do.
Obviously, she is now engaged to Travis Kelsey, a football player, The whole story of how they got together was like, he wanted to meet her at a concert.
(34:52):
He wanted to give her one of a friendship grace that he made.
She didn't get to meet him, and then they obviously ended up like meeting eventually.
They're obviously together now, Swifties are always talking about how like he manifested that for himself, that he spoke it into the world.
He said what he wanted, he wanted her, he wanted a chance with her, and, and he got it.
(35:13):
I wanna have that level of diluted determination.
Like I wanna be so delusional in my determination that I am going after my biggest dreams possible.
Even if, even though like to other people, my dreams are probably very, very small.
I'm not trying to be a Hollywood actress.
I'm not trying to be a gajillionaire, I, I'm not trying to go after those things.
(35:37):
I just, so to some people they'd be like, wow, that's dreaming very, your dreams are very small, I wanna feel like someone who's like going after it, who's like really doing the damn thing and getting it.
Some of these adjectives are more aspirational than others.
Some I think I do a pretty good job of already some of them.
Some of them need more consistency.
(35:59):
Others like being confident and well-rounded are stretch goals and they need some definite work.
We need to figure out how to put some structure around those adjectives.
I guess part of why I like this exercise is that it's not about any particular thing or any one goal.
It's really about how you're living your life, how you're showing up as your best self to anything.
(36:20):
It's the question of.
If I were at my own funeral, like Tom Sawyer style and someone said these things about me, if they described me this way, would I feel like I lived a good life? Would I be pleased with myself? Would I be pleased about how people are talking about me? Would I feel like I left a good impact on the small piece of the world that I interacted with? I've seen a lot of videos on social.
(36:46):
Where therapists and motivational speakers make the point that like most of us can't name our family back even four or five generations.
And if we can name the people we can't, we don't know anything about them.
the point is that in a hundred years, even people in your own family or the people that you're closest to right now.
No one's gonna really know a single thing about you.
(37:09):
And that was really humbling, that like our most people's legacy is just one or two generations if that.
That's like if you have kids, if you have family, most of us are really only going to impact a very, very, very small slice of the world.
And so what do I want that to feel and mean? when I said I was thinking about some really big questions, I wasn't kidding.
(37:34):
These are the big things that I'm asking myself because I wanna figure out where I'm going.
I'm, I'm 38, which I know is still relatively young, but at the same time, I've spent a lot of time meandering and second guessing and half trying.
I'm sick of it.
I'm sick of feeling disappointed in myself.
I'm sick of another birthday or another New Year's or another, whatever the milestone is passing me by and feeling like I'm barely scraping by in life.
(38:02):
And again, I don't mean scraping by as in monetarily.
Just getting through life, giving it the bare minimum effort.
I'm living a bare minimum life and I don't like that.
I don't want that for myself.
I don't wanna feel like I'm living.
To my bare minimum, I'm sick of not feeling like I'm living a life that feels like mine.
(38:24):
I, I don't feel at home in this life.
I feel comfortable, probably too comfortable, but I don't really feel like it's my life.
I don't, I don't know who's life it is, but it's not.
Fulfilling me.
I was having lunch with my friend the other day and she just came back from a vacation in Puerto Rico and her younger sister lives there at least part-time right now with her boyfriend, and I think her sister's about 25.
(38:52):
And for the last couple of years, her and her boyfriend will work at a hotel for a few months in Puerto Rico, save up their money, stay on the, get, stay on the island for a few months, rent an Airbnb.
And just hang out and then come back to the States for a few months and then do it all over again.
And they've recently bought a small piece of land in Puerto Rico, and they're going to put a small trailer, or like a tiny home or some small dwelling on it and live there for part of the year and then come back up to the states for a little bit.
(39:23):
Or go work at a hotel or whatever.
And while they're up here, they're going to rent it out and have the house and the land paid off in a couple of years.
And so to me, they're living a well lived life.
They have created, they know what they want from life, and I'm so impressed that at 25, she's really created a dream life for herself.
(39:46):
She got there by taking what seems to me like a leap of faith.
She decided to give working there a try and see how it panned out and it's become a home to her now.
It's really impressive.
And normally I would be seething with jealousy at this story.
And I'd be angry and I'd be angry at myself.
I'd be angry at this, 25-year-old who figured something out better in life than I did, but instead, which I think shows a little bit of growth, but instead of being jealous, I just walked away from my friend story really impressed and thinking that could be you, Steph.
(40:21):
That could be you.
Not that I wanna live in Puerto Rico.
Creating a small, well-designed life that aligns with what I really want for myself and taking a couple of risks that pay off and, and truthfully, I am really not that far off from the life that I want.
(40:41):
it.
It's really just that I need to get clear and put a plan into action.
It's absolutely doable and I need to stop.
I need to get out of this broken record that I'm on where I'm just saying a constant negative track to myself that that's not for you, that life's not for you, that dream's not for you.
(41:01):
You can't do that.
When I close my eyes and think about the life I want, which I've mentioned a little bit in earlier episodes, I just want to live in a small house in the woods at the bottom of a beautiful mountain with a river in my backyard, and beautiful porch surrounded by cats, some land for a garden, and maybe a couple of small farm animals like a goat.
(41:25):
I've always wanted chickens and not.
To have this nine to five grind kind of job.
I don't wanna climb a corporate ladder.
I don't wanna feel like I have to sell my soul for a paycheck.
I wanna be a writer.
I wanna be published, I wanna write full time.
(41:46):
I wanna fill the world with my stories, whether they're true stories about myself or fictionalized stories.
I'm realizing that all I really need is some consistency and patience to get there.
And that goes back to the adjective exercise.
It's one thing to dream about something, but it's another thing to act on it and try for it and go after it.
(42:06):
That's where those behaviors, that beget those adjectives come into play.
And it's the behavior and looking at what I want for myself in a more holistic way.
And, and at the when, if I were, when I'm being put in the ground, how do I want people to have talked about the life that I lived so I just think like asking myself some of those big questions the past couple of weeks has been really helpful.
(42:31):
I'm not trying to put pressure on myself, but I, I know, but for me, in my particular case of burnout, I know that feeling burnt out comes from feeling aimless and feeling like, what am I doing with my life? And I'm just going through the same day in, day out, mundane.
(42:52):
Things, and it doesn't feel like any part of my life.
It doesn't feel like any part of my day to day is being lived for myself.
It's being lived because I need this job.
So I have money in my bank account so I can pay my mortgage so I have a place to lay my head at night.
I am making this food because it's easy for me tonight.
(43:12):
It's not necessarily what I wanna eat, but it's easy so that I can just sit down and go to bed quickly.
It's like it, there's no.
In my life, there's no excitement and I don't need excitement.
Like fast cars.
Fast life, doing a different activity every night.
I just mean like I'm feel like I'm doing nothing with my life.
(43:33):
In big and small ways, I'm doing nothing and I just wanna infuse my day-to-day life with things that feel meaningful and purposeful to me, and feel like I can go to bed at night and go, that was like a real, I had a really good day today.
I just want more days where I'm going to bed going.
I had a good day and that was a fun day, and I'm glad I had today and I made the most of my day.
(44:00):
It doesn't mean that I have to be like productive in order to make the most of my day.
I just mean just wanna feel like I did more with my day than sit around feeling sorry for myself working a job I hated and then going to bed.
I wanna make sure I'm carving out time for myself every day to be like I'm getting one step closer to my dream.
One step closer to feeling like I'm living a life.
(44:21):
I enjoy, I am.
Even if that's just as something as simple as I read my book for 30 minutes before bed and that was, that was a nice me time.
anyways, I feel like I'm coming out on the other side of the burnout.
Hopefully.
I think there's still a lot more to be done.
We're coming towards the end of the year, and so I think a lot of the episodes that come are gonna be a lot of the same thing of just.
(44:44):
Really trying, me trying to get clear on what it is I'm trying to achieve in this next year and how I'm going to get there and what I need to do and what all of that looks and why I'm setting these goals for myself, because I think that's another big piece of it.
I set goals for myself, but I don't know sometimes if I'm really asking myself why or is this reasonable or is this like actionable and doable? Or am I just creating.
(45:10):
Am I'm making a goal that feels so big right out of the gate that like, I don't even know where to get started.
so those are some things that are big on my mind right now.
I would love to know what big questions you've been asking yourself.
Maybe there's something or they're an exercise that has helped you get clarity.
You can find me on Instagram at solitary Creature Pod.
(45:31):
Send me a message, let me know where you're at.
Are you feeling burnt out? Is this just like something that happens in fall going into winter? And maybe I just haven't been as aware in the past.
How have you been in burnt out? Have you gotten yourself out of it? And yeah, anything that like you're looking forward to for the new year, anything that you're working on I would love to know.
(45:54):
It for now.
Thank you so much for joining me.
I'll see you in the next episode.
Okay, thanks.
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