I started to burn out after about 3 years of living in New Orleans. The lifestyle was taking a toll on me, as was my daily commute. I had to get out of there, and from a career + life enjoyment (aka logical) perspective it made sense to go to Houston.

I was in a rush to get there so I took a job I didn’t want. It was a stepping stone to the jobs I’d want later, and just a 2-year commitment. That seemed worth it since I knew I’d love living there. It was the perfect place for me to build the community of my dreams.

So I went to Houston and discovered that I was right. I loved the city, and I disliked the job. Actually, I hated the job, but that was ok. The people were amazing, so I could put up with that.

What brought me to Houston was the desire for community and partnership, but it’s not what I found.

It was absolutely available to me. Houstonians, I learned, are extremely inviting. During my first few months I regularly heard “You’re new to town? Do you need friends? Let me give you my number”. From really cool people I knew I’d enjoy being friends with! The dating pool was looking fine, too.

Bara lays passed out on a couch with 5 other sleeping people. Bara's hand is over her eyes and her phone is on her shoulder. Most are wearing street clothes and all of the other people have sleeping face emojis covering their faces. — I Nashvilled really hard.

I was so miserable at work, though, that I had to seek total fulfillment in my off-time. It wasn’t enough to go meet my cool new friends at the local bar. I had to do whatever REALLY fun thing was happening, wherever it was. Lakehouse near D.C.? I was there. Nashville two weeks later? All in. Having a blast in Nashville and not ready for the weekend to end? Sure, I could extend my flight.

It turns out that constantly being away isn’t great for making new friends. Or for dating. The social life I wanted was right at my fingertips, but I was too distracted to grasp it. I left Houston about 20 months later, single AF with very few new friends. Not the norm for me, a recovering social butterfly.

I wasn’t the first person to make this mistake, and I won’t be the last. People frequently ignore the part of their life that sucks, or that they feel frustrated or “stuck” in. They convince themselves that the rest will make up for it. It doesn’t work like that though. When you resign to staying stuck in one area of your life it hurts the other areas of your life too.

We make this mistake because adulting is hard.

Life as an adult is…. a lot. We’re supposed to find a career we love, eat healthily, get 7-9 hours of sleep every night, exercise, manage our stress, potentially care for other humans or animals, and maintain healthy relationships. That can seem freaking impossible when we also have to figure out how to pay our bills every month. So we prioritize and give some of these areas more attention than others. Doing so is a necessity for the majority of us, and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. It’s a side effect of the society we live in, so we learn to deal with it.

It gets dangerous, though, when we overdo the prioritization. When we decide we can put up with feeling stuck, trapped, or miserable in our career (for example), because it pays well or gives us time to nurture our relationships. It doesn’t work like that though.

That sacrifice/misery/stuckness we allow to persist in our career will eventually spill over into our relationships. And into our health and emotional state.

There are at least two reasons for this.

One is energetic.

To allow ourselves to “get over” being stuck in any one of these areas, we likely have to block off or numb out some emotions (aka energy in motion).

Since we’re connected beings, when we block off the flow in one area we impact the flow in other areas.

Say, for example, we feel resentful about being passed up for an opportunity at work. That doesn’t seem helpful since leaving the job isn’t an option. So we shove it down and try to distract ourselves with what we DO like about our job.

Then we find out that our significant other has earned a major promotion. They now get to use the company jet AND vacation home (we can dream, right?) They're going to take us to go to Hawaii like we’ve always wanted!! That resentment is still there though. Instead of just feeling proud of them and delighted for us both, we’re bitter. Without meaning to, we cut down on their accomplishment to make ourselves feel better. Next thing you know they've realized they owe their buddy one, and won't be taking us after all.

If instead we’d done something about our work situation (like process and release our emotions around it, meet with our boss to better understand the situation, or create an action plan to switch to a job where we’re more appreciated) we could be basking on the beach right now. We could be soaking up rays with someone super sexy beside us. Instead, we’re alone and sad and, whoops, gained 5 pounds from the ice cream we’ve been failing to drown our sorrows in.

Another reason is that each area affects all the others (even if by a degree of separation or two).

Career affects relationships, relationships affect health, health affects career, emotions, mental health, etc., etc. I’ll use physical health as an example because it’s an issue I regularly see with clients and have experienced myself. It tends to be a lurker. We see it and know that it’s a little creepy, off in the corner. But we don’t realize it’s bringing down the vibe of the entire party.

When we abandon our physical health, our emotional health tends to suffer. Say we stop exercising or making sure we get enough sleep at night. Without physical outlets or rest and recovery, our ability to manage stress decreases. We might not notice it at first, but our fuse starts to get a little bit shorter.

The mundane tasks that are part of our job start to get a little more irritating. Our fuse shrinks even further. Suddenly we’re fed up at work: “I didn’t go to X years of school to be doing paperwork all day!!!” We start scrolling Instagram to avoid the work we can’t stand. Now we have to work even later and our fuse gets even shorter. We now have less free time, which we spend complaining about our job. That irritates the people we hang out with so our relationships start to suffer. The cycle continues to feed itself.

We can go get a new job, which might be better at first. But a year or two later, if we’re still unrested and/or don’t have a healthy outlet, we’re likely to wind up right back where we started.

You might be thinking that this stuff is out of your control.

Maybe you’ve been injured and can no longer work out the way you like to. Or maybe you have a baby and literally can’t get the amount of sleep that would sustain you. Often though, there is something we can do.

I experienced this after my knee surgery in 2020. I used to be obsessed with working out. I was convinced that my sleep was dependent on cardio. Suddenly my leg was all bound up and I couldn’t work out. I had extreme anxiety. I had just volunteered for a layoff and had less than a month left of work. But I “couldn’t do anything”. “What had I done?!!” “I’m going to lose my mind!!!” my thoughts were spiraling out of control.

When I evaluated what had changed between then and the week before (when I fully understood the circumstance I was going into) the lack of exercise stood out. I asked myself how I could get it despite my situation. Before long I had built a YouTube playlist of seated workouts and was back in an exercise routine. It’s amazing how quickly my anxiety improved.

I attribute the improvement to a few things:

The exercise itself

The return of agency (taking back control of my physical health)

This doesn’t prove my point but I’m including it in the interest of full disclosure: the anesthesia meds leaving my system.

(PS: if you ever have to go through something similar and want my seated workout playlists I’ll be happy to share. Just send me an email!)

If you’re thinking “great story but I just had a baby. It’s literally impossible for me to get the sleep I need,” I won’t argue. I will ask though, is there anything you can do that would enable you to get a little more sleep? Can you ask a friend to help out while you take an afternoon nap (which can be super empowering for the friend, by the way)? Can you plan your meals differently so they take less time? If the answer is no, is there any other way you can support your health a little more, mental or physical? Can you start walking with the baby or meditating while they feed?

It can be super hard to see this stuff for ourselves because we’re so stuck in our own patterns and ways of thinking.

There are several ways to get out of your head and fix this:

Support groups or “circles” (local or virtual)

Ask someone who really gets you (like the friend who always cuts through your BS)

Online forums: there’s a good chance someone on Reddit has been through it before

And of course, coaching 😉 This could be with a coach who specializes in your issue (like health) or a life coach like me. I recommend picking a coach you trust to help you see the big picture, identify what’s holding you back, suggest steps that feel reasonable to you, and hold you accountable for taking them

If you're curious about life coaching you can learn more about how I work with people and book a free discovery call to find out if we're a good fit. If I'm not the right match I may know someone who is!

Do You Feel Stuck in One Area of Life? It's Hurting the Rest of Your Life, Too