Stuck in a loop

Why we can't leave our spare time alone

I’ve recently escaped a mental loop I’d been stuck in since retiring from sport.

It went something like this:

Feel good → Try hard and jam more work in → Get overwhelmed → Burnout → Recover → Repeat.

It was the downward spiral that lead to my burnout, and boy does it feel good to be out!

And now that I am, I’ve been thinking about what drove it:

Fear.

More specifically, a fear that I’d fallen behind.

While people my age were building careers, I’d spent the first decade of my working life playing rugby. And somewhere along the way, I started believing I had to make up for lost time and if I wasn’t super productive, I was falling further behind.

That fear controlled me more than I realised (it’s even driven my obsession with using AI, because I saw it as a means of catching up).

But the funny thing is, I stopped believing that story a while ago, and I no longer tie my self-worth to what I do. As work now feels more like an expression of who I am, and no longer proof to my self that I matter.

But the behaviour has stuck around as residue from the old loop was still there.

Spare time meant more work. I felt uncomfortable taking rest. And more effort became the automatic response to uncertainty.

And once I started seeing this pattern in myself, I began noticing it everywhere. People stuck in different type of loops. But with the same under lying driver:

Fear.

Fear of failure. Fear of change. Fear of looking silly. Basically just fear of the unknown.

And often, the familiar loop becomes safer than trying something different. Even if it’s making you miserable!

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FEAR PRISONER NO MORE

Most people stuck in loops aren’t missing information and already know what’s wrong.

The problem is the loop feels safer than change.

Safer to stay in the draining job or relationship. Safer to avoid the hard conversation. Safer to keep saying “yes” and keep pushing.

Even when it’s costing them.

I’ve seen a few people break out of this and they tend to do the same thing: They stop waiting for the problem to magically solve itself.

They get honest with themselves, then they do one small thing.

Not a huge thing. Just enough to interrupt the pattern.

For me, it’s looked like learning to be more patient with myself and putting boundaries around work, like no emails after 6pm.

Less “squeezing more in" which has helped me slowly unlearn the idea that effort is the answer to everything.

But changing old habits takes time.

And sometimes growth isn’t about doing more.

It’s about becoming brave enough to stop repeating the thing that’s burning you out.