[00:00:00] Hey friend, welcome back to In the EllaMents. I'm Alishia Egenhoff, digital ad 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.

Can we just talk about how exhausting it is to try and do it all? Because I am sitting here in late August, and I am burnt out, like bone-deep burnt out, and it's not just that I'm tired, it's that my brain is just like mush. I'm snapping at my family over little things. I'm just emotionally done even when good things are happening.

I look at my list of things, my to-do list, and I feel nothing because I'm just absolutely depleted, and client work, and meetings, and Ubering my kids to dance and football [00:01:00] and marching band, keeping the house from looking like a disaster, making dinner, grocery shopping, back to school shopping, trying to fit in exercise, running my own business, and somehow also being present.

And then I wonder, "Why am I burnt out?" So today, I want to talk about something that I think we all just need to hear sometimes, is that you, you don't have to do it all. Your capacity is probably going to change with the seasons of your life, and more importantly, you get to make active choices about what you are going to carry.

Let me be totally honest with you about something that I think that we need to talk about more modern motherhood is asking women to carry an overwhelming amount of emotional, mental, and physical responsibility all at once.

And I'm not just talking about the tasks, I'm talking about the [00:02:00] mental load, the invisible labor, the emotional weight, the, like, things that are going on in our brains 24/7. I'm the one tracking what groceries we need. I'm the one thinking about what we're going to eat for dinner. I'm making sure everyone has clean clothes to start the week. I'm the one noticing when we're running out of toilet paper.

But it's more than that. I'm the one holding the emotional space for my kids. I'm checking in on how they're feeling. I'm managing their anxieties, their emotions. I'm the one who knows which teacher is struggling with which kid. I'm the one thinking about their social dy- dynamics at school, and that's just my kids. That's not even counting my business, my clients, and my own personal goals. Nobody else is thinking about all these things at once. It's just me, and not to downplay my husband, but I'm the one mostly constantly holding that all together, that emotional weight.

And I think a lot of us women were [00:03:00] conditioned to believe that this was the normal, that this is what being a good mom, a good partner, a good business owner was supposed to look like. We watched our moms do it. They worked full-time. Like, if you're from my generation, my mom, she worked full-time. She managed a household. And we internalized that that was the goal, that we needed to go to college, we needed to get a good job, get married, start a family, and then somehow we're supposed to hold it all together with a big old smile and just be grateful for everything that we have. But here's what they didn't tell us. It's just not sustainable. That's not normal. That's actually a recipe for burnout. And I think that from our parents' generation to the generation that we live in now, the expectations have, like, exploded. It's gotten even more so with, you know, comparison and social media.

So what I wanna say is that burnout doesn't [00:04:00] always look like some dramatic breakdown. Sometimes it looks like you waking up and feeling nothing, like looking at your beautiful kids or your business that you worked so hard to build and feeling empty. Like you're just drained. You've got nothing left in the, the tap, and you're going through the motions, but you're not actually there.

And sometimes it looks like irritability. It could be snapping at your kids for spilling milk, getting frustrated at your partner for asking you a simple question, or feeling anger bubbling up for no reason at all.

Sometimes it looks like brain fog, and I feel like this is where mine lands most of the time. You can't think straight. You can't make decisions. You're reading the same email three times and still not understanding it. You're in client calls, and your mind is somewhere else entirely.

And sometimes it looks like emotional numbness when, even when good things are happening, you can't access that joy. You're supposed to be excited, but you're just exhausted.[00:05:00] 

For me, it has been a combination of all of those things. I feel like I'm running on fumes sometimes, and the worst part is even when I have a moment to myself, I'm too exhausted to actually enjoy it or do anything meaningful with it. By the time I sit down to work on my own business goals, I have nothing left. My creativity is tapped out. My energy is gone, and all the grand ideas I had in spring are just, they're gone.

And I think that there is this belief that if you just work hard enough, if you have the right systems, if you're super organized, if you manage your time better, you can do it all. And I honestly used to believe all of that too. I thought if I, you know, just got up earlier or maybe I worked a little later or was more efficient or delegated better, I could run my business and keep my house perfect and be at every activity and make homemade meals and exercise and have energy [00:06:00] left for my own goals. And when I couldn't do all of that, I thought I was failing.

I thought I wasn't trying hard enough. I thought I was just not cut out for this life. Like, maybe I just needed to go back to a nine-to-five where, like, I had a set schedule. But here is what I am still learning. That is not a failure. That is reality. That is life. You can't do it all at the same intensity, not all at the same time, and especially not during every season of your life.

The problem isn't that I need a better system. The problem is that I'm trying to operate at full capacity while carrying responsibilities that are literally impossible to carry at full capacity.

So summer Every year has a way of revealing things that the regular routine hides, and usually I'm running on a tight schedule. My kids are in school. I have [00:07:00] dedicated work hours. There's this rhythm to everything. It works, and I can manage it. But summer, summer is a free-for-all. Like, let me tell you, my kids are home pretty much all day. There is no built-in structure. My workload doesn't disappear. My clients still need me, but my capacity shrinks because now I'm also managing a household with two other humans in it all day, plus my husband.

So activities happen at just random times. I'm doing dishes while trying to, you know, do client work. I'm planning dinner while responding to emails. I'm making sure my kids are entertained while also trying to create content. And by the end of summer, I hit this, like, wall. My brain is just fried. Any grand ideas I had for my business are just gone because I don't have any more mental energy to think about them.

And I realize something. It's [00:08:00] not that I'm not capable. It's not that I'm not working hard enough. It's that I'm trying to do summer at a school year capacity. And for me, that's not possible as a mom that works from home. So I've made some active choices about how I'm going to live differently, and first, I'm being honest about seasonal capacity.

In summer, my workload can't be as busy as it is during the school year. And I did do an episode about this at the beginning of summer, and I'm coming back to this and reminding myself and you as a listener that that's not a failure. That's just the reality of having kids at home in the summer and trying to work.

So I'm communicating that to my clients upfront. I'm telling them, "In summer, my availability is different. Here's what you can expect. Here's I'm, how I'm still showing up for you, just in a different way." And guess what? My clients don't care. They are also [00:09:00] living the same chaos. Most of them have kids, and they understand.

And instead of trying to keep running, my own marketing at full speed, I'm being more strategic. I'm focused on just managing and doing the things that have to be done rather than trying to create new, big projects. I'm there for my clients 100% but at a different level than they may be used to during the, the school year when I'm back to my normal routine. And you know what? They respect that.

Second, I'm letting go of the expectation that my house needs to look perfect, and this is a hard one for me. And I mean really letting go of it. My house t- is, you know, sometimes messier. There might be dishes in the sink. There were this morning. There are clothes, you know, that maybe need to be washed. My floors aren't always, you know, [00:10:00] spotless, and I'm learning to be okay with that because the energy I was spending on keeping my house perfect, that's energy I can put towards my family, toward being present with them, toward my business, and toward myself. And that's a trade I'm willing to make.

Third, I'm delegating real responsibilities to my kids. My 11-year-old, helps around the house, so does my 13-year-old. They both do their own laundry. Uh, they help with dishes. Sometimes they even help with dinner, and they especially help with cleaning up dinner. And you know what? They're learning something really valuable along the way, too. They're learning that household management is not just Mom's job, it's everyone's job, that they also share that load as somebody who lives in this home, and that's not Mom's burden to carry alone. That's for everybody to help out with. And I'm teaching them by example that [00:11:00] it's okay to ask for help, that it's okay to not carry everything by yourself.

And fourth, I'm giving myself permission to not launch new business initiatives in summer. I, again, said this at the beginning of summer that grand projects, anything like that, they can wait until September. That new offer I want to develop, summer is not the right fit for that. The content calendar I was going to just, like, overhaul and, you know, get back into a solid rhythm, it's not summer. Like, we're cutting back. Instead, I'm focused on what actually matters during the season, which is being somewhat present with my family, keeping my existing clients happy 'cause they pay the bills, and trying not to completely lose my own mind. And here is the thing, my business will still be here in September, in a [00:12:00] couple weeks. It's not going anywhere, and and I'll have so much more energy and creativity to pour into it.

Fifth, I am protecting white space in my schedule. Not every afternoon needs to be jam-packed with activities. Not every evening is scheduled out. I'm leaving room for nothing even in my day-to-day time. Like, I'm not taking, meetings for coffee with friends that I might take during the school year, because I wanna leave that room for me to actually, like, you know, have some downtime or, work on something that I wanna work on or, you know, have room for me to spend time with my kids. And it can be uncomfortable at first because I've been conditioned to fill my schedule to the brim with productivity or activities.

But I'm learning that empty space is actually what I need, and I actually [00:13:00] thrive really well with that open space because then I can work on things that, you know, I'm led to work on, where I'm like, "Oh, I wanna do this." I cleaned out my, my pantry the other day and reorganized it, and it looks great. It feels great every time I open it, and it wasn't anything that was on the agenda, but it was something that, you know, needed to be done, and it felt good to have time and space to be able to do it.

But, to move on, here's what I want to be really clear about. This isn't me just accepting that I'm burnt out and giving up. This is me making active choices about how I want to live, and I'm not saying, "Oh, well, burnout is just part of motherhood. We have to deal with it." I'm saying I recognize that I was operating in a way that wasn't sustainable, and I'm actively choosing to live my life differently, and that's a different thing.

That's, you know, taking ownership. That's saying I get to decide how much I'm going to do. I get to decide what seasons look like, and [00:14:00] I get to decide what I'm willing to carry, and I'm choosing to not carry it all.

Here's what I want you to know. If you're in a season where you're feeling stretched thin, where you're trying to do it all, where you're just exhausted by the end of the day, it's not because you're not working hard enough. It's because you're in a season that requires a lot of you. It could be summer with kids home. It could be the school year. It could be having a newborn is a completely different season. Growing your business is a different season, and each season has a different capacity that is attached to it.

During the school season, I can run my business at a higher level. I can take on more clients. I can launch new projects. The summer season, I have to adjust my expectations, and I need to be more intentional about what I am committing myself to. I need to focus on management rather than growth, and neither one is failure.

They're just different seasons. [00:15:00] And the sooner you accept that your capacity is going to shift, the sooner you can stop judging yourself for not being able to maintain the same intensity year-round.

Thinking about your own seasons, are you trying to grow your business at the same pace year-round? Are you expecting the same productivity from yourself in summer that you have during the school year or as a new mom versus, like, before you had kids?

What if you gave yourself permission to have a summer pace and a school year pace? What if you communicated that with your clients, your team, your family upfront instead of feeling guilty about it? And what if you planned your projects and your launches knowing that you'll have different capacity at different times? It's not lazy, it's smart, and it's working with your reality instead of fighting it.

I want to give you permission for something. Permission to not do [00:16:00] it all. Permission to let some things not be perfect. Permission to adjust your expectation based on what season you're in. Permission to ask for help, to delegate, to lower your standards for a while. Permission to be tired and overwhelmed and still be doing everything that you possibly can. Permission to slow down during certain seasons without feeling guilty about it. Permission to protect your energy, even if it means saying no to something. Permission to create white space in your life instead of filling every moment with productivity.

Because the truth is, you're already doing so much. You're already juggling so much. Already holding so much together. The issue isn't that you need to do more, it's that you've been conditioned to think you should be able to carry all of this without burning out.

If you need to do less, then do it with [00:17:00] intention. You need to make active choices about what you're actually going to carry with you. Think about your own life right now. What season are you currently in? And in this season, what's one thing you've been trying to do that you could actually let go of? Not forever, just for right now. Is it the perfectly clean house? Is it an elaborate meal planning system? Is it the side project? Is it the commitment you made that you're not even enjoying? Just pick one thing, just one, and just let it go. But here is the key. Do it consciously. Make it an active choice.

Tell yourself and anyone affected, "I'm choosing to let this go right now because I need to protect my energy for what actually matters in this season of life." And that's not giving up on yourself. That's taking ownership and saying, [00:18:00] "I get to decide." And the next season when things shift, you can pick it back up if you want to if it's something you're really passionate about, or you might realize that you don't want to do that after all.

So I don't know when we all decided that we were supposed to do it all as women, that we were supposed to be some super human, that we were supposed to keep smiling while we were running on empty, but I know that it does need to change. Your capacity changes with seasons, and that is not a weakness. That is the reality of life.

You don't have to do it all, and that's not just okay. That's actually necessary if you want to survive this life without burning out completely. But more than that, you get to make active choices about what you're going to carry. You get to set those boundaries, and you get to create that [00:19:00] white space so that you have time to slow down.

So give yourself some grace. Make intentional choices about what matters this season. Delegate. Ask for help. Let some things be a little messy. Your business is still gonna be there. Your family is still going to love you. The world will keep turning, I promise. And you'll have a little bit more energy left for the things that actually matter to you.

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 honest thoughts on marketing, motherhood, and building a business that fits your real life. You can join through the link in the show notes. Thank you for spending time with me In the EllaMents.

Until next time, keep building with intention and give yourself grace as you grow.