How I Burned Out Selling my Anti-Burnout Programme
- Chloe Markham
- Jun 5
- 2 min read
Being self-employed is one of the toughest self-development gigs out there.
If you want to learn, grow, and be confronted by your own misgivings constantly, start your own thing. It’s no joke. And I’ve learned this the hard way (again) recently.
Yes, once again, I got a touch of burnout while selling my anti-burnout programme. The irony is pretty sweet, right?
But this is what happens — burnout, exhaustion, despair, yelling at the clouds — when you’re not aligned with how you want to show up in the world. Whether you’re running your own thing or not.
For way too long I’ve been in the school of do-it-this-way business ownership. And if you’re self-employed (or even thought about it), you’ll get it: it’s fucking scary, so when someone hands you a bit of a map, that becomes your bible.
Maps have come to me along the way, and I’ve been religious about following them. Here’s how you launch a new programme. Here’s how you write a sales page. Here’s what this needs to look like, even if you don’t really like it, if you ever want to grow your business.
And this is where the social-media-or-bust concept comes in; if you’re a business owner, and you’re NOT using social media, you’re ‘leaving money on the table’.
Please and thank you: take all the table money. Social media is a trap and it’ll be the end of us all. Rant over.
So how do we wake up to it? Because, for a day or so there, I was letting it consume me. I was letting my negative headspace, lack of energy, and complete withdrawal from normality take over. How do we interrupt the spiral? How did I interrupt my own spiral?
That’s what I’m here to share with you this week. The story of my recent almost-burnout, what I did to interrupt the spiral, and what I’m doing to recover.
Whether you run your own business, feel run-ragged working for someone else, or just want to understand how to interrupt the negative shitstorms we find ourselves in — this is for you.
Oh, and I’ve recorded a brilliant new down-regulation tool for you, too…
Paid subscribers to Joyful can read the full essay, watch this week's practice, and join me for a deeper exploration of living a more joyful life.
