Am I Building a Business or Running on a Hamster Wheel?

My fear of burnout has been haunting me since… well, my last burnout.

It sits somewhere in the background, offering the occasional helpful reminder:

You’ve been overworked before. It could happen again.

When a self-observation exercise in my coaching training asked me to explore a familiar pattern, this felt like a good place to start. Over four days, I paid attention to that fear: when it appeared, what I told myself, and how it influenced my decisions.

It was challengingly fun. Which is apparently how I describe homework that makes me confront myself.

The starting point was observation. I was giving myself time to notice what was happening before trying to change it.

And what I noticed was a frustrating combination: I felt like I couldn’t stop doing things, while also being afraid to take on anything more.

I’d think, “I need a nothing day. A me day.”

Then somehow I’d end up cleaning the bathroom and kitchen.

Excellent work, Tegan. Very restful.

There was always another task. Another thing I’d forgotten. Another reason I couldn’t quite settle. Everything felt like a hamster wheel: running as fast as my little legs could go, only to complete another spin.

At the same time, I was hesitating to move forward with my coaching practice. Adding something that mattered to me still felt like adding more to an already overflowing plate.

What if I fell behind? What if I couldn’t keep up? What if I ended up right back where I’d been?

Writing it down helped me see how much energy I was spending anticipating that outcome.

One belief that showed up in my journal was:

“I’m not able to succeed if I don’t always keep moving.”

Seeing that on paper gave me something to question. I wanted to protect myself from overwork, yet I was treating rest as something standing between me and success.

No wonder I felt stuck.

As the days went on, I started looking more closely at what had changed since my previous burnout.

At that time, I’d been working for a large company, on a team that was continually behind. That experience had shaped what a workload felt like to me: a backlog I could never quite clear.

But building my own business gave me choices I hadn’t been recognizing.

Some of the work ahead was an opportunity to create something I wanted. I could consider its importance, decide when to approach it, and ask for support. There would still be responsibilities and deadlines, but I had more say in how I worked.

As I wrote in my journal:

“I am corporate.”

Apparently, the workload discussion needed to happen with management. And management was me.

That realization brought up something important about self-trust.

I’d been giving a past experience a lot of authority over my future. I wanted to practice trusting myself to notice how I was doing, respond to my limits, and make adjustments.

Being my own boss doesn’t make me immune to burnout. It gives me opportunities to build rest, boundaries, and support into the way I work. Those choices need my attention just as much as the business itself does.

I also wanted to give myself permission to feel excited about moving forward.

In my journal, the image began to change. I pictured a walking path with options for growth. I could choose a direction, adjust my pace, and stop along the way.

That felt very different from another lap of the wheel.

By the fourth day, I was looking forward to exploring local small-business support through Minto LaunchIt. Something I’d worried would create more work was beginning to feel like an opportunity.

And one of my intentions was to enjoy a nap.

I stand by that business decision.

Another thing this exercise reminded me of was the value of revisiting reflection. A question can land differently when I return to it with more experience, more trust, or more willingness to look closely. I don’t have to discover everything about myself in one sitting.

These four days gave me a clearer view of a pattern and some choices I could practice. That was enough to begin.

Here’s a question to sit with:

When you hesitate to take a step forward, what belongs to your current capacity, and what might belong to an experience you’re afraid of repeating?

Both deserve your attention. For me, learning to hear the difference is part of finding a pace I can keep choosing.

Tegan