I have a confession.  I am really bad at doing nothing.  Not bad at being lazy or binge-watching Netflix or scrolling social media longer than I intended.  I’m bad at relaxing without guilt.  There is a difference.  Recently, I decided to take an entire day off.  No bookkeeping, no networking, no catching up on emails.  Just a day to myself.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Except I spent a good portion of that day feeling like I should be doing something else.  The business could always use more attention in a hundred different ways.  The truth is, my to-do list is never finished, and I don’t know what I would do if it ever was.

I still measure my value by my productivity more often than I’d like to admit.  The more I accomplish, the better I feel about myself.  I work harder.  I take on more.  I build the business.  I push through.  I keep moving.  I keep going.  And when I’m crossing things off of my list, I feel accomplished.  I feel responsible and successful.  I feel like I’m doing enough.  Maybe even like I am enough.  That’s where it gets complicated.  Because when I slow down, those feelings don’t always stick around.  When I’m not accomplishing something, it’s easy for me to start questioning myself.  It’s easy for me to feel like I should be doing more.  Like I should be working harder and haven’t earned the right to rest yet.

This belief didn’t come from nowhere.  It was planted early.  As a child, I learned that achievement earned approval, productivity created value, and being responsible made me worthy.  Over time, those lessons became beliefs.  Beliefs that tell me I should always be doing more.  That rest should be earned and that my worth is somehow tied to what I accomplish.  Even now I know those beliefs aren’t true, but knowing something and believing it are often two very different things.

Maybe that’s why doing nothing feels so uncomfortable.  Not because I don’t know how to relax, but because I’m still untangling my worth from my productivity.  I’m still learning that rest isn’t laziness and that my value doesn’t disappear when I stop checking things off a list.  I haven’t mastered that lesson yet.  What I do know is that there will always be another task, another project, or another reason to keep pushing.  The work will never be done.  The real challenge isn’t getting everything done.  It’s learning that I am enough even when it isn’t.

So now, when I catch myself feeling guilty for taking an afternoon off or sitting on the deck with a cup of coffee instead of opening my laptop, I remind myself that resting isn’t something I have to earn. Some days I believe it. Some days I don’t. But I’m practicing. Because I don’t want to build a life that I only get to enjoy after I’ve crossed off every item on my to-do list. I want to enjoy it while I’m living it.