Exhaustion Is Your Check Engine Light: Stop Ignoring It

You know that little orange engine light pops on on your dash, and you pretend like you didn’t see it?

You’re busy, you’re already running late, and you’ve been trained to believe that sometimes ignoring problems tricks you into believing everything is okay. For now, at least.

That’s what exhaustion is for a lot of women. It’s not “I stayed up too late scrolling” or “I need to hydrate and do yoga more often.” It’s your internal dashboard lighting up to alert you that you need to slow down and pay attention.

If you’re functioning but fried and secretly fantasizing about living alone in a cabin where no one can ask you what’s for dinner ever again, I feel you. You’re the kind of overwhelmed that doesn’t get fixed by one good night of sleep or a weekend in a hot tub with a bottle of wine (it’s still fun, though).

Why Are Women Always So Tired?

Women are trained to anticipate needs, manage moods, remember everything, smooth everything over, and make it all look effortless. And the cost is always the same: your energy, your patience, your health, your confidence, your sense of self.

The internet tells you to treat rest like a reward you earn after you finish everything. Isn’t that hilarious? Because “everything” never finishes, does it?

So you keep pushing through which is what women do: adjust, cope, carry. Remain capable and reliable and always, always the one who handles everything until slowly and quietly, living in a state of constant depletion is your normal.

And in the most infuriating twist of all, you blame yourself for it.

Exhaustion Is a Warning Sign, Not Proof You’re a Badass

Exhaustion is a warning light that you’ve been doing too much for too long with too little support, and your body is sick of your bullshit.

You aren’t a weak woman but you are exhausted because you have to do everything alone, emotional and mental health be damned, while you are also expected to stay pleasant, helpful, grateful, attractive and emotionally available while doing it.

That foggy brain you’ve got right now? The heavy body, the short fuse, the numbness, the “I can’t think straight” feeling that doesn’t go away even when you finally get a minute… that’s not you failing at life.

That’s your system saying, I’m at capacity and I’m about to tap out on you.

That’s the check engine light you’ve been ignoring.

And if you’re in perimenopause? It’s a double punch in the ovaries.

If you’re wondering why everything feels like too much, read Overwhelmed, Not Broken: Why Exhausted Women Hit a Wall.

The Hidden Mental Load That’s Burning You Out

Here’s the disruptive truth: you don’t recover from exhaustion by getting more sleep or becoming a better manager of your to-do list. You recover by dropping the load that you can no longer carry emotionally or mentally.

I know, I know. Your thinking, “yeah, right, how is that supposed to happen when I’m in charge of keeping everyone’s life running?” I’m not asking you to blow up your whole life overnight. I’m asking you to stop treating your exhaustion like it’s a personal weakness and start treating it like it’s useful information.

Because when the check engine light comes on, the goal isn’t to drive faster and prove you can handle it. The goal is to pull over and look under the hood.

How to Reduce Overwhelm Without Becoming a Minimalist

We’re going to make your life feel livable again by practicing Essentialism, not to be confused with Minimalism. You’re going to decide what gets your energy, because right now your energy is being handed out like free samples at Costco.

Learn more about the power of Essentialism here Essentialism: The Art of Focussing on What Really Matters.

First, take a look at the emotional labor you deal with day-to-day. The real drain is that constant invisible work running in the background of your life: managing other people’s feelings, anticipating reactions, over-explaining, apologizing, trying to prevent conflict, trying to keep the peace, trying to be “nice and agreeable” even when you’re drowning.

Choose one thing on your list that asks you to “successfully prevent someone else from being uncomfortable today”. Then eliminate it. You’re no longer available for making other capable adults feel seen. And you won’t apologize for it.

Next, choose one emotional burden to drop this week. One. And this is tricky because these are the things you don’t realize you’ve been doing.

Emotional burdens look like this:

• apologizing when you’ve done nothing wrong

• explaining your choices to people who don’t need explanations

• carrying guilt that belongs to someone else

• taking responsibility for the mood in the room (at work or home) like you’re the thermostat.

One moment of “No, I’m not doing that today” is how you start rebuilding your power.

Why “Good Enough” Is a Power Move

And lastly, adopt “good enough” as your motto. It’s mine and it works well for me. Good enough is cooking simple meals, not impressive ones. Good enough is letting the house look lived in (because it is) or doing the minimum at work instead of overachieving like your worth depends on it.

Good enough looks like letting other capable adults handle their own shit without you swooping in to rescue them like a superheroine.

Yes, you’ll feel uncomfortable when you start doing this because you’ve probably been trained to measure your value by how much you do for others without complaining. Your brain might scream that you’re being selfish.

But that’s not truth, it’s years conditioning that you are learning to overcome. It’s also progress.

And here’s the question I want you to stop asking, because it’s poison: “What’s wrong with me?” Nothing is wrong with you. What’s wrong is the expectation that you should be endlessly available, endlessly capable, endlessly responsible, and endlessly grateful about it.

The next time you feel exhaustion? Pay attention. It’s your warning light that something is very wrong and you need to take care of it.

Before You Go

Here’s a question for you: what is one thing you’re carrying that you could set down without the world ending?

If you can name it, leave it in the comments below so another woman realizes she’s not the only one driving around with the warning light on and pretending everything is fine.

Melissa