Ep 5: [NUDGE] Your to-do list lied. Rest is not a reward. 

SHOW NOTES:  

The Wonder Project: https://annmarieboyle.com/the-wonder-project/

TRANSCRIPT:

So I've had several mornings lately that I've woken up tired. Not just a little bit tired, but bone-deep, makes a person want to cry, tired.

And as someone who's lived with chronic illness for over 35 years, I do know what I should do on those types of days. Move slowly. Give myself some grace. Pick projects that take less energy.

But do I generally do those things? No.

Most often, I push myself to "get up and get going." To go to my office and get busy. Like I haven't proven time and time again that days like these are not simply mind over matter.

But, in fairness, some days pushing through is exactly what I need. But most days I end up alternating between staring at the wall and staring out the window. Not what anyone would call productive.

Now the question you're probably asking yourself right now is, "Why is she talking about being tired on a podcast about play and creativity and joy?"

Well… because… I've started wondering if for some of us, it's not so much that we've lost our fun selves or stopped being creative, but that it's nearly impossible to be fun, or creative, or even joyful because we are deeply tired.

So, today, we're going to talk about how rest is not the opposite of fun adventures or creative work, but rather it's an essential part of those things.

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I've started to think of these solo episodes as little "nudges" so you'll likely hear me refer to them as that and today's Nudge is a question for you to consider:

When was the last time you genuinely felt sharp?

Like I am on this and nobody's going to stop me. And caffeinated sharp doesn't count. It needs to be a time when your thoughts connected easily, you made good decisions without second (or third) guessing yourself, and your conversations flowed with ease.

For a lot of us, including me, it's been a minute.

And when most people are asked why they feel foggy or flat, they almost always point to something external. Like, they have too much going on. Or it's been a stressful week. Or their to-do list is five-alarm fire ridiculous.

Almost no one says, "I'm tired because I haven't let myself rest in so long that my brain is running on fumes. Or fumes of fumes," but that's usually exactly what's happening.

And we all know, even if we ignore that knowing, that we cannot run indefinitely on empty and expect to perform at a high — or even medium — level.

So why do we keep trying?

I think it's because, somewhere along the way, we were convinced that rest is something we have to earn. You work first. You push through. You finish all the things. And then, then you get to rest. Rest is the reward you get when the responsible things are done.

I struggle with this continually — and I'm guessing that maybe you recognize it too. My brain's common response to my body's request for rest are things like, "We can rest when this project is over" or "I can't take a break right now, there is too much to do" or my personal favorite, "I'll just do one more thing."

Any of those sound familiar?

Maybe you're like me — when I'm working on something and I hit a wall, my instinct is to just push harder, give it a little more time, a little more effort, and just don't stop till it's done. Don't lose the momentum. And I want to be clear — there is nothing wrong with commitment.

There's nothing wrong with caring about things enough to dig in. That's not what I'm describing. What I'm describing is the version where I can feel that I'm exhausted. I can feel that I'm starting to make decisions that don't feel quite right. I can feel the quality of my thinking going a little soft, but I keep going anyway because stopping feels like quitting, so I push through.

And here's what happens every single time.

I will go back the next day after pushing through and, for me, maybe it's the pages that I wrote when I should have stopped, pages that are going to get deleted, pages that represent hours of work done in the wrong direction, hours that I would've saved if I had walked away. Had I just rested.

So, it turns out, rest is not unserious. Knowing when to stop is not laziness. It's one of the most strategic, efficient things we can do.

And here's what I think is actually happening when we rest. Have you ever noticed that your best ideas show up in the shower? Or at 3am? Or on a walk you almost didn't take? That's not a coincidence. That's your brain finally getting the space to do its background work — the connecting, the solving, the synthesizing — that it absolutely cannot do when you're demanding something of it every waking minute. You weren't being unproductive in the shower. You were just finally getting out of your own way.

Rest is not reward. Rest is input. Vital input. It's what goes in so that something useful can come out.

And, right now, if you're feeling like you're eavesdropping on me giving myself a lecture — yep, that's likely what's happening. But… I hope you're also hearing that your brain needs space to do the work it does in the background. And that your nervous system can't exist in a state of constant activation.

So when you feel the quality of your thinking dip, when something that should be easy suddenly feels hard, when you're staring at the same paragraph or the same problem or the same email and it's not going anywhere, try stopping for 20 minutes before pushing through. Let your brain do its background thing. And then come back.

Go outside if you can. Don't scroll on your phone. Do something that doesn't demand much of you. Fold laundry, take a walk, make coffee — play. Maybe make a practice out of playing.

And I want to stay on that last one for a second — play — because I think it might be the most underrated form of rest there is.

We tend to think of rest as stopping. Lying down. Doing nothing. And sometimes that's exactly right. But there's a risk, when we're attempting to do nothing, of our brains starting to make lists. Or worrying. Or replaying the thing we just did wrong. That's not rest — that's just horizontal anxiety.

Play is different. When you're genuinely playing — not productively playing, not playing toward a goal, just playing — your brain gets absorbed in a way that quiets the noise without shutting everything down. Engaged but not strained. Present but not pressured. And that low-stakes, high-attention state is good for you in a way that grinding never is.

Think about the last time you lost track of time doing something that had absolutely no point. Something you had zero stakes in. You weren't producing anything. You weren't performing for anyone. You were just... in it. That absorption is restorative in a way that, say, scrolling for forty-five minutes is not.

So when I say make a practice out of play, I don't mean schedule a fun hour on your calendar — though honestly, no judgment if that's what it takes. I mean give yourself permission to do the thing with no purpose. The thing you used to do just because you liked it. The thing you'd be slightly embarrassed to admit takes up your Sunday afternoon.

That thing? That's not wasted time. That's input.

You were fun once, and I'd argue you still are, and maybe all you need to get back there is just to realize you might just be running a little low on input right now.

If this episode gave you something to think about, please share it with someone who needs the permission slip.

And remember you can get started playing, creating and noticing wonder by subscribing to my free 4-week email series, The Wonder Project. You can find out all about that at www.annmarieboyle.com/thewonderproject

And, last, before you go, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And normally I end the podcast with saying, "Now, go play," but today I'm going to say, "Now, go rest." Or maybe even better? Go rest BY playing. See you in a week!

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