From Overthinking to Follow-Through: A Conversation About Burnout, Planning, and Doing Life Differently
A little while ago, I had the absolute pleasure of being a guest on the Legacy Stories Podcast with Rachel Angeline. We talked about overthinking, burnout, procrastination, planning, and what it actually takes to follow through on the things that matter to you without turning your life into a constant stress spiral.
Rachel creates space for thoughtful, human conversations, and this one felt especially grounded and real. We covered things like:
Why pushing harder almost never works
How procrastination is often a form of self-protection, not laziness
What real follow-through actually looks like
Why your planner might secretly be making you feel like you’re failing
And how to build habits that don’t fall apart the second life gets chaotic
If you’ve ever felt like you know what you want, but can’t seem to make yourself actually move toward it, especially when your nervous system is already fried and the idea of pushing harder makes you want to crawl under a blanket, this one’s for you.
You can listen to the episode, or keep scrolling to read the full conversation below.
TL;DR:
In this conversation, we unpack why overthinking and burnout sabotage follow-through, why pushing harder almost never works, and what it actually takes to build momentum in a human way. We talk about procrastination as protection, anti-hustle planning, tiny habits that stick, and how to move toward big dreams without burning yourself out.
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Why I Became a Follow-Through Coach
Rachel (Host):
What inspired you to become the coach that you are? When did you realize this was the work you wanted to do?
Christina:
I had my own journey with coaching. Ten years ago, I was very much like, “I don’t get this life coach thing.” Then at 35, I had my first child, and shortly after that I became the heaviest I’d ever been again.
I knew I couldn’t go on another diet journey. I didn’t want to do Weight Watchers or whatever and end up right back where I started six months later, hating myself. I wanted something different, but I didn’t know what.
At the time, a physician I’d worked with for years was doing weight loss coaching. It was very mindset-based and focused on emotional eating and the stuff most programs ignore. I signed up.
She was early in her coaching career, and we kind of grew together. Her coaching evolved into intuitive eating, body positivity, and Health at Every Size. But what really changed me was having someone who was explicitly invested in my growth.
It helped me deal with things dieting never touched. And when I looked at the ripple effect in my life, not just my body, I realized how much better everything felt.
That was the kind of impact I thought I was going to make when I chose healthcare 15 years ago. But I never felt like I was making it at that level.
A coach gets to watch someone flourish. And at almost 40, with two young kids, I thought, what better time to start?
The Burnout Cycle and Early Warning Signs
Rachel:
A lot of us live in this loop of go-go-go. We’re motivated, we’re hustling, and then we burn out and second-guess everything. What’s the earliest sign someone is entering that cycle?
Christina:
For most of my clients, the earliest sign is that they start not wanting to do the thing.
They’re still doing it. They’re still pushing through. But now it’s white-knuckling.
At first, when people go full tilt, they actually have the energy to pull it off for a while. But eventually, the thing they loved or deeply wanted starts to feel like a burden.
And that’s confusing. The internal monologue becomes, “But I wanted this. Why do I dread logging onto this call? Why do I dread going upstairs to paint?”
That’s usually the first signal that we need to recalibrate. Otherwise, we turn something meaningful into a chore.
Rachel:
Why does pushing harder almost never work?
Christina:
Because we’re complex systems. We have emotional needs, mental needs, physical limits.
Full-tilt living is bad resource management.
Most people practice time management, but not attention or capacity management. Our brains are not built to run at 100% all the time. That’s not a personal flaw. It’s the human condition.
If you want to be someone who does what they say they’ll do, resource management is foundational. And popular culture doesn’t teach that.
Why Hustling Harder Doesn’t Work
Rachel:
What does real follow-through look like versus hustling all the time?
Christina:
Real follow-through is about building and honing a set of skills that allow you to consistently complete the tasks you set out to do.
It’s not sexy. It’s not grit. It’s not white-knuckle discipline, at least not in the way most people have been taught.
It’s skills like self-monitoring, emotional regulation, and learning to tolerate discomfort. It’s being able to notice what’s happening inside you, influence your emotional state, and stay present with something that feels hard without immediately escaping it.
Becoming someone who follows through is really about becoming someone who has these skills.
The self-help world tends to call this “discipline” or “grit,” but that flattens it. It makes it sound like a personality trait instead of something you can actually learn.
(This is the same trap people fall into with willpower. If you’ve ever felt broken because you “just can’t stick to things,” I wrote more about that in Why Willpower Isn’t the Problem.)
You don’t have to put your dreams on hold. You just have to bring emotional and cognitive work into the actions you’re already trying to take.
If you’re sitting down to record a podcast or write a report and you’re burnt out, we might do a small mental exercise to work with that discomfort instead of trying to power through it. That’s what I help people build while they’re still doing the things they care about.
Procrastination Isn’t Laziness
Rachel:
What are your thoughts about procrastination?
Christina:
Procrastination has many forms.
A big one I see is what I call “procrast-learning.” You want to start a YouTube channel, so you decide you need to learn everything about starting a YouTube channel before you begin.
You get stuck in “getting ready to start.”
There is a stage of adult learning where you need some information before you can begin. But then you have to move into practice. Procrastination often helps people avoid the discomfort of doing the task itself.
That’s why so many people procrastinate with productive things.
You don’t sit down and binge Netflix. You deep clean your fridge. You reorganize your closet. You read another article.
You avoid the hard thing and still feel accomplished.
It’s a self-protection mechanism.
Sometimes it’s helpful. The problem is when it runs the show for months and creates more guilt and shame than the task ever would have.
That’s why I use tools like “bare minimums.”
You don’t have to do the whole thing. Can you do three minutes?
Three minutes is tolerable. You can stop if it still sucks.
It breaks that all-or-nothing thinking where you believe you must finish the entire project or not start at all. You learn that you can handle small doses of discomfort.
And that’s usually what moves people forward.
Anti-Hustle Planning
Rachel:
What’s the difference between a planner that supports your life and one that quietly makes you feel like you’re failing?
Christina:
A planner that supports your life isn’t really about the physical planner. It’s about the planning system you use.
A good system is maintainable. It matches the needs of your life right now. It has flexibility built in.
A planner that makes you feel like you’re failing usually looks like a checklist of things you’re “supposed” to do, without any real backup for how you’re going to do them or whether your resources actually allow for it.
Those systems tend to be rigid. They don’t account for the fact that your kid might wake up sick, or your dog might throw up, or you might just be exhausted.
A good plan lets you manage what you can control and adapt to what you can’t.
It should leave you feeling grounded and prepared, not frantic.
If planning itself feels like a burden, if you can’t keep your planner updated, you’re probably overplanning.
A planner shouldn’t own you. It should support you.
The Planning System in Real Life
Rachel:
When you say “system,” what does that actually look like?
Christina:
People treat planning like a task. “I’m just going to sit down and plan.” But planning is a skill. You have to build it.
So I’ll give you an example of my own system.
On Friday afternoons, I look at our shared family calendar and plug in fixed appointments first.
Then I plug in my priority actions. One to four tiny things I’ve chosen to practice.
Then I plug in fun. Three minutes with a book. A short walk.
Then I plug in responsibilities. Grocery shopping. Cleaning. All the things to-do lists lie about.
When you put it into time, you can see what you’ve taken on.
And then I glance at it during the day. It’s a reminder. “Oh yeah, this is what I said I wanted to do.”
That’s a system. It’s repeatable. It adapts.
(This is the exact system I teach inside my free Anti-Hustle Planner. If you want to try this approach for yourself, you can grab it here.)
Balance, Boundaries, and Tiny Pockets of You-Time
When people struggle with balance, they’re usually struggling with boundaries.
So we start ridiculously small.
Five deep breaths in the car before you walk into daycare.
It sounds like nothing. But it’s practicing boundaries.
As you build proof that the world doesn’t collapse when you take a tiny bit of space, it gets easier.
Balance looks different in different seasons. Sometimes it’s ten minutes. Sometimes it’s two hours.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s staying connected to yourself.
Tiny Habits That Actually Stick
Go smaller than you think you should.
If ten minutes feels small, try three.
Connect habits to identity.
Ask, “How does this connect me to who I want to be?”
Shoot for “more than zero.”
Prototype. Tweak. Try again.
That’s how habits become sustainable.
Big Dreams Without Burning Out
Take consistent, small action.
Visualize your future self. Then become them in tiny ways.
With big dreams, start with five minutes.
You don’t need the whole roadmap. You just need to start moving.
Ready to Try This in Your Own Life?
If this conversation resonated, the best next step is to experiment with the exact system I reference throughout this post.
My free Anti-Hustle Planner gives you a simple, human way to:
Plan in a way that respects your capacity
Stop overloading yourself
Follow through without white-knuckling
Make space for what actually matters
It’s the same framework I use with my coaching clients and in my own life.
