What I Learned the Year I Nearly Burned Out

I want to tell you something I haven't talked about much publicly. Not because I'm particularly private, but because when you're in the thick of it, you don't have the language yet. You're just surviving. And surviving doesn't lend itself to a great deal of articulate reflection.

This is the story of the year I nearly burned out completely, and what it taught me about the thing I say to clients all the time: your business is only as good as you are.

When something knocks the ground from under you

In the summer of 2024, something happened in my personal life that really knocked my confidence. The kind of thing that makes you question your own judgement, your own instincts, your ability to read a situation clearly. I won't go into the details here, because they're mine to keep, but I will tell you that it happened at exactly the same time as everything else started shifting too.

I was also navigating peri-menopause, which, if you haven't been through it, is its own particular adventure. New hormonal territory, a body doing things you didn't expect, a mind that sometimes felt like it belonged to someone else. I spent a good part of that period bouncing between medical professionals, consultants, and eventually surgeons, trying to get answers, trying to understand what was happening, trying to hold everything else together in the meantime.

Because here's the thing about being in service of others: when we are caring for the people who come to us, we can forget, very easily, that we are human too. That we need time to process things. That we need to heal.

And yet the demands don't pause while you're doing that. Rent needs to be paid. Contracts need to be fulfilled. Professional and personal obligations don't disappear because your own world is quietly tilting on its axis.

The surgery, and what came after

In April 2025, I had major surgery. And with it came something I genuinely hadn't planned for: six to eight weeks off. Enforced rest.

I remember lying there, mind absolutely racing, thinking: how can I take six to eight weeks away from my business? Because the honest truth of self-employment is this: if you don't work, you don't get paid. End of story. There's no sick pay. No statutory anything. Just the gap where income used to be.

So I came back to work too soon. Still recovering physically, still adjusting energetically, emotionally, hormonally. I showed up because I had to, and I kept going because I didn't know what else to do.

By October 2025, I was utterly burnt out.

Not tired. Not in need of a good weekend. Burnt out in the way that reaches into your bones and makes even small decisions feel enormous. The best way I could cope was to withdraw. To reserve whatever energy I had left for what actually mattered: survival. Enough in the tank to do my work, to show up for my clients, to get paid. But not much else.

The slow return

It wasn't until some of my energy started to come back, gradually, in small increments, that I began to stick my nose out the door again. In the summer of 2026.

Not with a fanfare. Not with a big relaunch or a declaration. Just small bursts, tentative and careful, feeling my way back into a world that had continued while I was away.

And what I found, when I got there, was that the things I had built still held. The clients were still there. The relationships were still intact. The Nest was still quietly doing what I'd hoped it would do. I hadn't lost everything by stepping back. The business had survived because the foundations were solid.

What I know now that I didn't know then

I know now, in a way I didn't before, that building an online business isn't about relentless forward momentum. It's about building something robust enough to hold you when life requires your full attention, and life will require your full attention sometimes. That's not pessimism. It's just the truth of being human.

I know now that systems and automations and a business that doesn't depend entirely on your personal daily presence are not luxuries. They're what make the difference between a practice that survives a difficult season and one that collapses under the weight of it.

And I know, more than ever, that the inner work and the outer work are not separate things. What was happening in my body and my life showed up in my business. There was no clean boundary between them. There never is.

If you're in a difficult season right now, whether that's a health challenge, a personal upheaval, or simply the quiet accumulation of too much for too long, I want you to know that it's possible to come through it. Slowly. Messily. Not on anyone else's timeline.

And if you want a gentle, self-paced place to work on building something that can hold you through the hard seasons, that's exactly what I built The Nest for. The free taster, Start Here: Welcome Home, is there for you whenever you're ready. No card required.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do self-employed practitioners manage burnout financially? There's no easy answer here. The reality is that self-employment offers very little safety net when you're unwell. Longer-term, the best protection is building a business with recurring income, such as memberships or retainer-based programmes, so that some income continues even when your capacity fluctuates.

Is it possible to keep running an online business while dealing with a health crisis? It depends on the crisis and the business. A business built on good systems, automations and a solid content foundation can continue to function at a reduced level while you recover. One that depends on your daily personal presence is much more fragile. Building towards the former is one of the best investments of time you can make.

What is burnout and how is it different from ordinary tiredness? Burnout is a state of chronic exhaustion that affects you cognitively, emotionally and physically. Unlike ordinary tiredness, it doesn't resolve with a good night's sleep or a long weekend. It typically requires a sustained period of reduced load, genuine rest, and attention to the underlying conditions that caused it.

What support is available for practitioners building an online business who are also managing health challenges? The Nest is a membership for practitioners at all stages of moving their work online, including those navigating difficult personal seasons. The free taster, Start Here: Welcome Home, is a gentle place to begin exploring what's possible.