Rest Isn’t a Reward: Why Doing Less Might Be the Answer You Need

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, like you’re sinking in quicksand while the demands pile up around you, I’m going to tell you something—and you’re probably going to hate it. And that’s okay.

You need to do less.

If you’ve ever said, “I’ll rest after I get this done,” you need to do less.

If you’ve told yourself, “I can’t relax in a messy room/house/life,” you need to do less.

If you’ve spent your whole life believing that rest is something you earn only after getting shit done… you need to do less.

The reason you feel overwhelmed and exhausted is because nothing is ever done. Almost nothing in life is truly final.

Laundry? Never done—you’re wearing clothes right now that’ll need washing.
A clean house? Never done—you live there.
Work? Never done—there will always be something else to do.

If you’re waiting to feel finished before you rest, you will never actually rest. And burnout? It’ll hit you like a truck at the worst possible time. (Though, to be fair, there’s never really a convenient time to be hit by a truck… or burnout.)

Rest is a requirement, not a reward. It’s a prerequisite for everything else.

Rest looks different for everyone, but at its core, it’s the absence of observable productivity. And for so, so, so many of us, that’s terrifying.

We fear that if we sit down, we’ll never get back up. That we won’t want to get back up. That everything will fall apart. We don’t trust ourselves to know when it’s time to move again, because we’ve spent our lives using fear as a motivator.

And maybe you have tried to rest before—given yourself a break, but didn’t feel ready to get back up. That scared you, so now you don’t let yourself relax at all.

I want to challenge that story.

Just because you decided it was time to get back up doesn’t mean you actually got enough rest. Too many of us only recharge to the point where the battery is out of the red zone. But there’s a huge difference between charging to 20% just to keep going… and actually hitting 100%.

And something weird happens when we actually rest enough: it gets boring. You get restless. You want to do things again. Tasks that felt impossible become easier.

When you’re rested, everything takes less effort.

We all know that lifting a heavy object after 18 hours awake is way harder than lifting it after a good night’s sleep. Our bodies need rest to function properly.

Your brain is the same way.

When it’s overloaded, everything feels exponentially harder because your energy is being spread too thin. Nothing gets the full power it needs.

So.

Do less.
Lower the bar.
Plan your rest.

Would it be amazing to take a full week off and do nothing? Sure. But that’s not realistic for most people. I’m not saying to abandon your responsibilities or put yourself in crisis.

Lowering the bar will look different for everyone. Maybe it means leaning on snack dinners instead of cooking. Maybe it means being okay with the mess in the living room. Maybe it means wearing pajamas all day or cutting back on commitments.

Letting things go doesn’t mean letting them go forever.

There will be seasons where you can take on more. But if this is not that season?

That. Is. Okay.

And if doing less feels impossible, but continuing as you are also feels impossible… it’s time to enlist help. Coaching can be a powerful support in figuring out what meaningful changes you can make—without feeling like you have to do it all alone.

You’ve got this.