Most of my 30-year career has been based on continuously pushing. Pushing to climb the career ladder. Pushing toward increased pay and sparkly new titles. Pushing to make things happen for my team collectively and individually.
I’ve pushed loved ones to be better. I’ve pushed myself to be better. This has been my worldview and orientation to succeed in life. You won’t get it unless you push for it.
Until I pushed myself over the edge into burnout.
During the chaotic time of COVID, I was working for an e-commerce company. Millions of consumers began to shop online overnight, significantly increasing our revenue. Much of this surplus flowed to my area of work, marketing and advertising, to continue to build the business. While we welcomed additional budget, it also meant our small, nimble team quadrupled our workload with a very short window of time to spend it. So I did what was expected— put my head down and worked long hours and weekends. I surged forward and pushed the hell out of myself.
The Covid flywheel continued to generate revenue unabated, quarter after quarter. And within eighteen months, my workload had become unsustainable. I teetered on exhaustion. Feeling like a hollowed-out husk, my partner intervened by taking me to Hawaii. She was rescuing me from myself. I gradually came out of my embattled whack-a-mole mentality. I even started to enjoy hanging out on the beach and surfing the waves. I wish I could say that I stopped pushing myself when I returned. This did not happen. I worked this way until I was laid off after the fifth reorg in 3 years.
Pushed out.
Two years later, I reflect on an approach that allows rather than pushes. Allowing, for me, is a spiritual stance of setting intention, doing the work, and then allowing it to unfold. It takes me from an always-on churn of spinning the flywheel faster and faster, just this side of chaos, to a lighter way to hold my work in the larger world. When relentlessly pushing, I always sought fulfillment, recognition, and connection outside myself. The push meant I was never satisfied and rarely enjoyed the moment. I continuously eyed the horizon for where I could push next.
Now I work just as hard, but in a more balanced and meaningful way. I am more in harmony with others, especially with myself. A mindset of allowing life to unfold means accepting what is, which can be the most freeing place of all. It also reminds me I have a choice in how to engage and with whom. I am as committed, passionate, and even more productive. I’m less stressed and reactive. I’ve never felt more alive.
If I were talking to my earlier self, she’d have a hard time letting go of the push. Because she wholly believed that to get anywhere or get anything, you had to work hard and push for it. It was so ingrained in me that I did it without thinking. I was on autopilot until I pushed myself so relentlessly, I was rewarded not by achievement, but by the realization that I’d moved far beyond what is healthy for my body. I was barely coping, just reacting to life, with a vague sense of ennui and heaviness. That is no way to live a life.
Of course, I haven’t perfectly mastered letting go of pushing. I still have my moments of dogged determination, intensely willing an outcome to be had by sheer force of my will and passion. I try to challenge my long-ingrained illusion that “if I just push hard enough, I’ll feel safe, happy, and content.” Ironically, I’ve discovered that this state of well-being emerges when I let go of relentless pushing and drop into the moment, accepting and allowing.
Being in this place of simply being is a wonderful vantage point to begin to live with more intention. When we accept the unfolding of our lives, we reconnect with our true nature and arrive at our highest self. This is the place we are meant to inhabit, providing sustainable fuel for living and working in a vibrant way, nourishing a technicolor life.