I was sitting on the patio of our Airbnb, and instead of being present with my family, I was monitoring my clients' ads and sending their weekly reports because in my head.

If I stopped paying attention even just for one second, everything I had worked so hard to build would crumble into nothing.

Hey friend. Welcome back to In The EllaMents. I am Alishia Egenhoff, Digital Ads Strategist, mentor, and the heart behind Social EllaMents Marketing. Around here we talk about marketing, motherhood, and what it really looks like to build a business while also being a human with limited time, energy, and capacity.

Today we are talking about something I think a lot of us don't want to admit out loud. Burnout. And specifically, why taking a break from your business might be the exact thing you need to actually move forward. I know, I know. If you are anything like me, Type A personality, the idea of stepping away from your business feels absolutely terrifying.

Like, what if everything falls apart? What if I lose momentum? What if my clients forget about me? What if someone else swoops in and takes my spot? But here's what I've learned the hard way, multiple times actually, because apparently I'm a slow learner. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your business is to stop working in it for a minute and give yourself permission to breathe.

So today I want to share my own story with burnout, the good, the bad, and the really uncomfortable parts. Because I think if you're in a season where you're feeling stuck on the hamster wheel, or you're holding on so tight that your knuckles are white, or you're just exhausted, but you're afraid to stop, this episode might be exactly what you need to hear.

Let me take you back to about two years into my business. At this point, I had started to see some real success. I had clients I loved, still love. I was making decent money, and from the outside, everything looked like it was working.

But on the inside, I was running on fumes because here's what was actually happening. I had built this business that I love, but I had also built a prison for myself, and I didn't even realize it. I was working from home with my kids who were younger then, and I had zero boundaries between work time and family time.

My laptop, my office was always open, my phone was always in my hand. I was checking my clients' ads every single day, multiple times a day, even on weekends. And I kept telling myself, this is what it takes. This is what successful business owners do. If I want to keep growing, I cannot let up. But the truth is I wasn't growing.

I was literally surviving, and there is a big difference. I remember after I had had some success, we took our first big family vacation after starting my business. We went to Hawaii. Beautiful, right? Dream vacation, except I spent half of it glued to my laptop. I was sitting on the patio of our Airbnb, and instead of being present with my family, I was monitoring my clients' ads and sending their weekly reports because in my head, if I stopped paying attention even just for one second, everything I had worked so hard to build would crumble into nothing.

And here's the really messed up part. My clients, the ones I still work with today and absolutely adore, they probably wouldn't have cared if I took a week off. Actually, I know they wouldn't have cared because since then I've done just that. But at that time, I had convinced myself that my business would collapse without me constantly watching over it.

So let me tell you how burnout actually looks for me, because I think we all experience it a little bit differently. But for me, I am an avoider. When I get overwhelmed, my instinct is to stick my head in the sand and pretend like it does not exist like an ostrich, right? Just bury my head, and maybe if I ignore it long enough, it'll just go away.

Spoiler alert, it doesn't go away. What happens instead is this emotional roller coaster. I'll avoid the thing that's stressing me out. I'll put off the hard conversations or the decisions I need to make. I'll distract myself with busy work that feels productive, but it's not actually moving anything forward.

And then eventually the pressure builds up so much that I have to put on my big girl pants and just buckle down and get it done. But by that point, I've stressed myself out. I'm resentful. Definitely not doing my best work, and the cycle just keeps repeating. For those of you who can relate to this, you know how exhausting it is. It's not just the work itself that's draining, it's the mental and emotional energy of carrying all that weight around.

I wish I could tell you that there was this big dramatic moment where I realized I needed to take a break and something needed to change, and I made this powerful decision to prioritize myself, but that's not really how life works, or, I mean, I guess not for me, that's not really how it happened.

What actually happened is we went on a family camping trip and I didn't have service. I literally couldn't work, and at first I panicked a little like mild panic, but panicked nonetheless, because what if something actually went wrong? What if a client needed me? What if an ad stopped running and I wasn't there to fix it immediately?

But here's the thing, nothing actually fell apart. My clients were fine, their ads kept running, the world kept turning, and I got to actually be present with my family for the first time in a long time. And when we got back and I had service again and I checked in on everything, you know what I found? Everything was totally fine, better than fine, actually.

That was my first real taste of what it felt like to actually step away. And it was glorious. Terrifying at first, but glorious. And that's when I started to realize something, the story I had been telling myself that my business would fall apart without me constantly hovering over it. That story wasn't true.

Now, I want to be really honest with you. Even though I've had that experience, even though I know logically that taking breaks is good for me and good for my business, I still struggle with guilt when I step away. There is this voice in my head that says, you don't deserve to have a break. You're not working hard enough. Other people are hustling while you're resting, and they're going to get ahead of you.

And I think part of it is because my work isn't a traditional like nine to five, I clock in, I clock out type of job. So I don't always know how to differentiate time for myself. Like when am I officially off work? When am I allowed to stop thinking about my business? It's something I'm still working on to be completely transparent, but I've gotten better.

When I first started my business, I was obsessive about checking my clients' ads every single day, like every single day, weekends, holidays. It did not matter. And it's not that I don't care, but now I actually don't work on weekends most of the time. I try really hard to keep Saturdays and Sundays sacred when my kids are home from school and I block off time for holidays, like Christmas and Thanksgiving breaks and family vacations, and crazy enough, nothing has actually happened during those times that was like detrimental to my clients' accounts or like a life or death situation. Crazy. I know, right?

And in the end, am I perfect at it? Taking those breaks and like stepping away? Absolutely not. I'm not always great about respecting my own calendar. I am human after all, but I try to set that time apart. And whether I choose to respect that or not, that's progress or at least progress for me.

So let me paint you a picture of what my day to day looks like, because I think this is something a lot of you can relate to. I work from home. A lot of you listening probably work from home too. My kids right now are 13 and 11 and yes, they absolutely interrupt me all the time. Summers and school holidays are especially hard because they're home. They're bored. They want my attention, and I'm trying to run a business in the same space where they're asking me for snacks and arguing with each other and asking if they can have screen time.

So last summer we had to lay out some ground rules after two summers of being in that whirlwind. Ground rules had to be placed, and it was things like screen time had to be earned. They were responsible for working towards that each day without interrupting me while I was working, reading, outside activities, helping out around the house. Those all counted.

And here's the thing. Where I'm at in life, my kids are old enough now to be helpers, so we're building those skills, teaching them responsibility. And honestly, it takes some of the stress off of me too, but it's still a lot managing the mental load of running a business while also being a present mom is a constant balancing act. And I've talked about that before where I try to have rhythm rather than balance, and some days I do it better than others.

And I think that's why burnout is so common for those of us who work from home, especially if we're moms or dads or whatever your role is, because there's no physical separation between work and life. It all just bleeds together.

So what I've learned from going through multiple seasons of burnout, because like I said, I'm apparently a slow learner and I've been through this more than once. First, I've learned that fear changes depending on where you are in your business journey. In the beginning, my fear was I'll lose what I've worked so hard to build. I was absolutely terrified that if I took my foot off the gas, everything would disappear.

Now my fear is different. It's more about getting behind or off track. It's about keeping all the plates spinning because the more successful your business becomes, the more plates there are to spin, right? And I like to just like add things to my plates too. Like, you know, starting a podcast sometimes the best thing you can do when you're feeling stuck on that hamster wheel is to just jump off.

When you're in it, when you're in the thick of it every single day, you lose perspective. And we are so like we are working so close to our business all the time. You can't see the forest for the trees. You start making decisions out of fear or exhaustion instead of out of clarity and alignment.

When you step away, even just for a few days, you give your brain space to breathe. You give yourself permission to think beyond the immediate task and the to-do list, and that's when the clarity actually comes. I can't tell you how many times I've come back from a break with a solution to a problem I'd been stuck on, or with a new idea I wouldn't have thought of if I just kept grinding.

Rest isn't just about recovery. It's about opening your mind to new possibilities. And I know there's research that backs this up. Studies show that our brains need downtime to process information and make connections. That's when creativity happens. That's when breakthrough ideas come. It's like, you know, when you actually take a moment to take a hot shower without interruption and you have all these grand ideas, but we've been conditioned to believe that rest is lazy, that if we're not constantly producing, we're not valuable, and that's not true.

Brené Brown talks about this in Dare to Lead. She talks about how we've glorified exhaustion in our culture. Like whoever is the most tired, whoever sacrificed the most, whoever worked the hardest, they're the winner. But honestly, that's not sustainable and it's not healthy.

So let's get really practical for a second, and you're probably listening to this and like, cool, but like what now, how do I actually schedule breaks? For me, and I don't have anything else to relate this to other than like what has worked for myself. I try to block off time in advance and I put it on my calendar just like I would a client meeting or a deadline.

I usually block off like Christmas and Thanksgiving breaks when my kids are off school. I block off our family vacations and I just don't work weekends as much as possible. Like if I work a weekend, I'm choosing to work a weekend. And here is the key component to this is if you're working with other people, you want to communicate this ahead of time.

I always communicate it to my clients ahead of time. They always know where I'm at, what I'm doing. And same goes for them. They communicate it to me. So usually I'll send them an email or when we meet for our biweekly meetings, we'll talk about it. But I'll just let them know, Hey, I'm going to be out of the office from this date to this date. Here's what to expect while I'm gone. Here's how you can reach me in case there's an emergency, but unless it's urgent, I'll follow up with you when I'm back.

And you know what, no one has ever actually been upset about it, not once, like they leave me alone. Like they didn't even need me for anything. And because of that, I've realized my clients also don't want me to burn out. They want me to be at my best, and they understand that in order for me to show up as my best self, I need to take care of myself too. And I'm allowed to take breaks just like they take breaks for themselves.

And am I perfect at this? No. Like I said, I'm not always great about respecting my own boundaries. Sometimes I'll check my email when I told myself I wouldn't. Sometimes I work on a Saturday because I feel behind, but I'm getting better and I'm learning and I'm growing and that's what matters.

So here's what I want to challenge you to do, and I'm going to be really specific here because I want you to actually take action, not just listen and think, that's nice, maybe someday.

Number one, I want you to look at your calendar right now and block off time for yourself. Even if it's just a weekend, even if it's just one day, put it on your calendar, make it official, and then communicate it to your clients or your team or your audience or whoever needs to know.

Number two, if you work from home like I do, I want you to schedule time away from your house. Because here's the thing, if you're in the same space where you work all the time, it's really hard to actually decompress, like go to a coffee shop and read a book. Go for a walk. It doesn't have to be this grand thing. Go visit a friend. Get out of the environment where your brain is trained to be in work mode. Like you don't need to go spend the weekend in a hotel, like just get out of the house for yourself. Go get your hair done.

Number three, and this is the hardest one. I want you to notice the stories that you're telling yourself about why you can't take a break. Are you telling yourself that you'll lose momentum? That your clients will leave, that you'll fall behind, that you don't deserve it? Write those stories down. Look at them, and then ask yourself, is this actually true or is this just fear talking and taking over? I'm willing to bet that most of the stories aren't based in reality. They're based in the anxiety and the pressure that we put on ourselves.

And number four, give yourself permission to rest without guilt. This is one that I still struggle with, but I'm going to say it to you and I'm saying it to myself. Rest is not a reward that you have to earn. Rest is a requirement for doing good work. You are not a machine. You are a human being with limited time, energy, and capacity. And if you burn yourself out, you won't have anything left to give to your business or your family or yourself.

I want to bring this back to your business for just a second because I know some of you are listening and thinking, okay, Alicia, this sounds great, but I have bills to pay. I have clients who need me. I have goals I'm trying to hit. I can't just stop and I get it. I like really, truly, honestly, deep to my core, get it.

Here's what I have learned is that taking breaks doesn't slow down your business. It actually makes your business better and yourself better, because when you're burnt out, you're not making good decisions. You're reacting instead of being strategic, you're saying yes to things you should say no to because you're desperate or you're scared. You're not seeing opportunities because you're too exhausted to think clearly.

When you give yourself space to rest and recharge, you come back with clarity. You can see what's actually working and what's not. You can make decisions that are aligned with where you want to go, not just based on what feels urgent in the moment right now. And that clarity is what allows you to build a business that's sustainable, not just financially sustainable, but emotionally and mentally sustainable.

Because what's the point of building a successful business if it makes you feel absolutely miserable? Like what's the point of making good money if you're too burnt out to enjoy it? I did not start my business to trade one kind of stress for another. I started it because I wanted freedom. I wanted flexibility. I wanted to build something that supported my life, not consumed it. And I'm guessing you probably want that too.

So if you are in a season right now where you're feeling stuck, where you are just exhausted, where you're just trying to keep all the plates spinning and you're afraid that if you stop even for one second, everything will fall apart. I want you to hear this like, come back to me if you like, kind of tuned out. Come back to me here. Sometimes a break is exactly what you need. Not someday when things calm down, not when you hit the next goal or the next milestone, like now, because the clarity you are looking for, the solution to the problem that you're stuck on, the next right step for your business. It might be waiting for you on the other side of rest.

So let's just do a quick recap about what we talked about today. We talked about my own journey with burnout and how even when my business was successful on paper, I was running myself into the ground. We talked about the patterns of burnout, how it shows up differently for everyone, and how, for me, it looks like avoidance and the panic, and then just powering through, and we talked about the fear that keeps us from taking breaks. The fear that everything will fall apart, that we'll lose what we've built and that we'll get behind.

And then we talked about why those fears usually aren't based in actual reality and how those breaks actually make us a better business owner, not worse off. So here's my challenge to you again. Block off time for yourself, schedule it, communicate it, and then actually take it even if it feels scary, even if your brain is telling you all the reasons why you can't do it anyway. Because you deserve a business that supports your life, and that starts with taking care of yourself.

If you want to stay connected, I'd love to have you on my email list. I send two to four emails a month with encouragement, clarity, and honest thoughts about marketing and business, the kind of content that doesn't always fit on social media. You can join through the link in the show notes, and I want to thank you for spending time with me in the elements. Until next time, keep building with intention and give yourself grace as you grow.