Pouring into your own Cup

Mixed Media Art by Ashley Purdin

We have all heard the phrase, “you can’t pour from an empty cup.” Yet, as I talk to friends and examine my own life, it is far too easy to get to a point where you have nothing left to give. The types of people I see most often falling prey to this are those who either let nothing get in the way of their definition of success or who have service-oriented worldviews. Either way, you can pretty quickly end up on a train you don’t know how to disembark from. The destination? Burnout.

Burnout has a look. It’s a posture, a body language, a belief system. I can’t stop or I won’t stop. The thought of taking a break used to fill me with dread. What would happen to everything I had built if I took a vacation or scheduled some weekends off? What would happen to my life or business if it didn’t have 100% of me at every moment of every day? What would happen to the people and the community I serve if they weren’t getting my all? But what it really boils down to is this: who would I be without everything that needs me?

Photo by Hannah Gurske Murphy

One day, I had the realization that I was using my horse training business to prop up my own mental health and battles with self-worth. Who was I without all of my clients telling me they were thriving on the instruction I was giving them? That thought alone found me on my knees in my living room. I sat there on the floor thinking about all the times I had said yes to everything and everyone. Do you want to write an article? Yes. Do you want to run a program? Yes. Do you want to be on the radio or TV? Yes, yes, yes. Do you want to take on this horse that nobody else can train after saying yes to everything else? Why, of course! I’m only at 98% capacity—why not throw another 12% on there?

What I didn’t realize at the time is that you can only run at 110% for so long before creating burnout. I used to cry all the time. This was between 2015 and 2020—when things were the toughest. I was being driven hard by my perfectionistic personality, a sheer will to be the best in the industry, and a heart for serving anyone I could possibly reach. No one externally was telling me I had to do this or be a certain way for everyone. People showed up, supported me along the way, and tried to take a load off my plate. But every time they did, I would immediately go and pile more on. I could do 110%. I could be 110%.

So how do you get off the hamster wheel? Well, you could do what I did and crash and burn mentally to the point where you have to cancel a year’s worth of commitments in a single day. I took a big hit to my reputation, reliability, and stability when I did that. But I had hit the bottom of the barrel. There was no other obvious way forward.

What I would suggest instead is that when new opportunities present themselves, the first thing you say is: “Let me sleep on that.” For chronic people-pleasers like myself, saying no can feel like having a tooth extracted. Creating a buffer—let me think on that, let me sleep on that, let me run that by so-and-so—gives you time to actually evaluate whether an opportunity is the right fit for you, or whether it’s meant for another day, another season, or even someone else.

So what can you take off your plate today? What is something someone else could handle for you? What can you start saying no to? Where can you create some margin—some space for yourself to breathe, reset, and build sustainability?

Because burnout is not sustainable. Burnout is not a lifestyle. Burnout is not a badge of honor. Burnout is your body telling you that something has to give, or what gets sacrificed will be your health, sanity, and well-being.