Why Strong Girls Always Burn Out

Why Strong Girls Always Burn Out

You shouldn’t be embarrassed to admit you’ve put too much on your plate and aren’t sure how to handle so many responsibilities at once. You shouldn’t be ashamed to say you feel yourself crumbling and are worried you’re going to burn out soon.

Strong girls always burn out because we have high expectations for ourselves. We strive to reach success in both our personal and professional lives. We have big dreams. High hopes. A strong faith. But we’re also grounded. We understand how the world works. We realize we have to put a shit-ton of effort into our dreams if we want to turn them into reality. We have to work hard, even when we’re not in the mood. We have to keep going, even when our energy levels are running low.

Strong girls always burn out because as much as we want to reach our own dreams, we want to see our loved ones reach their dreams as well. We try to do everything for everyone. We try to help out whenever we have the chance. We never want to leave someone we love to fend for themselves. We want to be there for them even when it’s inconvenient, even when it makes our lives more difficult.

We want to do a million different things. We want to help a million different people. We rarely give ourselves the chance to rest because we feel like we would be letting someone down if we took a break. We feel like we wouldn’t be living up to our full potential.

Strong girls always burn out because we don’t know how to slow down. We aren’t good at taking breaks, at using vacation time, at letting loose and having fun. Even when we’re supposed to be off the clock, we’re always secretly checking our email on our phone or thinking about all of the things we need to check off our to-do lists tomorrow.

We have a hard time living in the moment because we care too much about our future. We’re so focused on the next big thing we’re going to do that we barely have time to look around at what we’ve already accomplished. We never stop to celebrate. When we should be sipping champagne and patting ourselves on the back, we’re already moving onto our next goal.

Strong girls always burn out because we never want to be considered lazy — and sometimes we take that a bit too far. Sometimes we don’t even allow ourselves an extra hour of sleep on the weekends or to take off from work when we’re sick and should be resting. Sometimes we don’t give ourselves enough credit. And that needs to change.

Strong girls always burn out — but it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to keep going until we exhaust ourselves. We can be more careful when it comes to our mental health. We can give ourselves permission to take breaks when we feel ourselves falling apart. We can allow ourselves the freedom to breathe, the freedom to take a step back and relax for a change. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Holly is the author of Severe(d): A Creepy Poetry Collection.

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