Amber Hawley is my guest on next Wednesday’s episode (ep 28). I love what she shared with us about burnout, managing our energy levels, and shiny object syndrome.
She is a wealth of knowledge and a joy to know. Listen to the podcast and connect with her for all the strategies and fun.
I was reminded of my journey as she shared some great ways to recognize burnout.
I believe every one of us is born with specific interests and talents.
You know the things you do well. Sometimes it’s part of your work, or you use it in a way that helps others. It’s your gift. I believe we all have those insides of us, and we can use them to help others.
But, I also believe some things are inside of us as individuals that, when allowed to use them, bring us pure joy. The things that you can get lost doing for hours. The things that you look forward to doing or seeing.
I believe it’s God’s gift to us. That’s why I call it my gift. One of my particular gifts includes finding treasure and quality in things others have decided obsolete and matching patterns & colors in unique ways.
I could spend hours in junk stores or a fabric store dreaming up things that could be made and finished in different colors and pattern combinations. Decorate, playhouse, and repurpose bring me joy!
I can get excited (pure joy) about a $5 lamp. It truly is a gift if there are things you can find joy doing and it causes no one any harm or concern.
But my gift went missing a few years ago. I thought my gift was gone. My imagination and drive, which I once had taken for granted, was gone.
I bought furniture, accessories, and fabric only to bring it home and hate it. But, I lived in a beautiful home in what had once been my dream neighborhood. But, I found myself not enjoying it at all. I felt like I was living in a hotel. It was nice, it was clean, and I couldn’t make it ours.
I was discouraged and sad! I was at a loss at home and work!
My work has always been a blessing; I love it. I enjoyed selling and then being an entrepreneur. The flexibility blessed me. It allowed me as a wife, mom, and daughter.
But, somewhere between beginning a business with my boys being 2 and 5 to growing a business to more than we imagined, all kinds of things had gotten out of control.
I was all out of sorts in all directions.
My home and my work were both in what, to me, was in shambles. I was stuck in the mud and couldn’t budge.
I felt like nothing I was doing was right. The fire that would keep going with energy to figure out a project was all but gone.
I didn’t know what to do. I started praying, journaling, reading more books (lots of books), listening to hundreds of podcasts, and doing anything else I could think of to produce different results.
Then during the search for my gift and amid all the information overload, I became a victim of shiny object syndrome. Everything seemed to be the next best answer to find my gift.
We looked at house after house. We bought a different car. I even became a licensed real estate agent. Nothing made any difference.
Thankfully Earl and the boys stuck by me as I tried to search out my gift. I am blessed. They not only stuck by me but encouraged me to stick with the search.
Ben was in high school at the time, and I’ll never forget I had just told him my gift was gone. He reminded me, “Mom, God won’t give you a gift and take it away.”
Well, that sounded reasonable, but it sure feels like it’s gone, and in that case, it must be me. I did something that made it leave.
If you’ve been following my blog for the last few weeks, you will see how this came about because I had lost sight of my why, got carried away working toward the wrong goals, and ultimately caused my gift to go missing.
I finally recovered my gift. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t quick. But, once I discovered my why, my vision, and began searching inside instead of outside for fulfillment, it eventually returned.
You may call what I had burnout. My light certainly wasn’t shining. I’ll always refer to it as the time my gift was gone. My missing gift was a symptom. I had missed all the clues that shouted to me the years before the gift went missing. I just carried on through lots of hard things, lots of challenges, and tragedies. But finally, the lost gift helped me realize the person I was and wanted to be was not what was showing up in the world.
It breaks my heart to know I spent so much time not being my best self for my family, friends, and employees because the missing gift was only a tiny part of all that was missing.
I try to focus now on never letting this happen again.
This experience is why my vision board workshops are so valuable. I will lead you through finding, keeping, and appreciating your gifts and joy in life.
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