I’ve spent the last six years learning how to create boundaries: saying no when I need to, protecting my sleep, letting rest be part of the plan, and accepting that taking care of myself sometimes means missing out on social events.
And recently, I’ve realized how quickly those carefully constructed boundaries can start to disappear when you enter an environment where intensity is celebrated.
I added something new to my life: coaching group fitness classes. Fitness has been part of my life for years, so I expected the physical demands. What I underestimated was everything surrounding it— the preparation, the mental energy, the late nights, and the pull to help the team out when my schedule is already full.
I didn’t get enough sleep or recovery my first week coaching, and then I got sick.
There’s nothing particularly profound about that sequence of events. In fact, that might be the point. Our bodies and minds are usually pretty good at telling us when we’re doing too much. The harder part is listening—especially when the culture around us celebrates pushing through.
We’ve Confused Intensity With Commitment
There’s something admirable about the person who gives 100%, the employee who stays late, the parent who never misses anything, the person who exercises every day, the entrepreneur who is always working, the friend who is always available.
We see intensity and assume commitment.
When I observe those situations, I usually pause and ask, “Would I be able to sustain that type of effort long-term?”
I know myself well enough to know that I can’t.
Intensity asks, how much can I give today? Consistency asks, how can I keep showing up tomorrow?
Those are very different questions.
Intensity can produce incredible results. There are absolutely times when we need to sprint—to finish the project, train for the event, meet the deadline or navigate a difficult season. However, a sprint has an endpoint. When intensity becomes our normal operating mode, eventually something gives.
You Can’t Live at Push Pace
One of the things I find interesting about exercise is that we understand the importance of recovery when we’re training. You put strain on the body during the day and the body recovers overnight.
In interval training, you push and then recover. The recovery isn’t wasted time. It’s what allows you to produce another quality effort. Push. Recover. Push again. Recovery isn’t the opposite of performance. It’s part of performance.
We don’t expect our bodies to sustain maximum effort indefinitely, so why do we expect it everywhere else? We answer one more email before bed. We squeeze another commitment into the calendar. We sacrifice sleep because there aren’t enough hours in the day. We bring our laptops on vacation. Sometimes we even turn activities that are supposed to help us recover into another opportunity to perform, and then we wonder why we’re exhausted.
Boundaries Make Consistency Possible
This experience has reminded me why I worked so hard to create boundaries in the first place.
Boundaries aren’t about doing less because you aren’t capable of doing more. They’re about recognizing what allows you to keep showing up as the person you want to be.
For me, that means protecting my sleep, leaving whitespace on my calendar, and taking an actual rest day.
For you, it could mean saying no to something you technically could fit in, not answering emails after 6 pm, or recognizing that someone else’s definition of commitment doesn’t have to become yours.
When we enter a new job, relationship, organization, or season of life, it’s surprisingly easy to adopt the pace of the people around us. We see what they do and assume that’s what commitment is supposed to look like.
But someone else’s capacity isn’t our capacity. Someone else’s priorities aren’t our priorities. Someone else’s version of happiness doesn’t have to become our definition of happiness.
Choose the Pace You Can Sustain
Consistency isn’t exciting. It doesn’t usually produce dramatic before-and-after stories.
It looks like getting enough sleep most nights. Moving your body regularly. Doing good work and then stopping. Keeping commitments without filling every available hour. Resting before you’re completely depleted.
Consistency is remarkably ordinary. But ordinary habits, repeated over time, are what allow us to build lives that feel steady, healthy, and true to who we want to become.
I’m still figuring out what that looks like in this particular season of my life. But I know one thing: I spent too many years learning how to create boundaries to abandon them simply because I’m in a new environment.
Change doesn’t always require becoming someone new. Sometimes change reminds us to protect the person we’ve worked hard to become.
So as fall brings new schedules, new responsibilities and new opportunities, I’m asking myself a different question: Are the habits that make me look committed today making it harder for me to keep showing up tomorrow?
Because intensity may get us through today, but consistency is what gets us through the season.
Read more by Alexis here.
