Navigating Burnout and Boundaries

“So many things in my past were painful because I stayed on too long.” How do you know when it’s time to say goodbye to something, no matter how good it may seem or how hard it is to leave? For today’s guest, Nicole Antoinette, staying too long created a pattern of “scorched earth change,” where dramatic moves became the only way out.

In this conversation, we discuss where she thinks the creator economy is heading, why she shut down her successful Patreon, and how she makes tough decisions about what to leave behind: whether it’s a romantic relationship, a job, a friendship, alcohol, or one of her biggest income streams.

More About Nicole: Nicole Antoinette is a writer, long-distance hiker, and former indoor kid who never imagined she’d wind up spending months of each year pooping in the woods. In 2017, stuck in a loop of codependency and people-pleasing, Nicole set off to find her self-belief and inner resilience by doing something she did not for one second believe she could actually do. The results are two adventure memoirs, How To Be Alone: An 800-mile hike on the Arizona Trail, and What We Owe to Ourselves, and a weekly newsletter on Substack called Wild Letters.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways

• Think of your creative light on a dimmer switch: Is your work helping you feel alive and vibrant? Notice when the dimmer starts going down. As Nicole says, “I start have a sense that the heat or light is leaving something, I am not as energetically pulled any longer.”
• Dig deeper to break the burnout cycle: While in a period of creative recovery, consider not just what a more sustainable business model looks like, but a more regenerative one.
• Just because you can handle something, doesn’t mean it’s what is best for you. “Over and over again, I have been shown that wanting to change is reason enough, wanting to walk away from something is reason enough,” Nicole says. “98 plus percent of the time, it's not that I don't know what I want, it's just that it's easier to say I don't know than it is to say, ‘I know exactly what I want, but I'm afraid that I can't have it, or I don't know how to get it.’”

✅ Try This Next: Break out of the all-or-nothing mindset. Give yourself permission to end things early, with grace—and no other “good” reason than you want to—before you reach “scorched earth” burn-it-all-down mode from staying too long.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Nicole on the web, IG: @nic.antoinette
• Substack: Wild Letters
• Adventure writing: Backpacking Books
• Patreon: Honest Conversation Club
• Coworking: Get Sh*t Done Club
• Jenny’s BFF Community

📚 Books Mentioned

• How To Be Alone: an 800-mile hike on the Arizona Trail
• Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• Nicole’s podcasts: Real Talk Radio and The Pop-Up Pod
• Good Life Project: Ann Patchett | On Solitude, Writing & Indie Bookstores
• Pivot: 327: 🐺The Wolf You Feed — On Addiction, Recovery & Codependency — and What We Get Wrong About All Three with Eric Zimmer
• 302: Moving Beyond Burnout with Dr. Susan Biali Haas
• 338: Is Midlife Messing With Your Enoughness? With Mandy Lehto
• 305: Is What You Are Wanting Actually What’s Best For You? With Luke Burgis
• Free Time: 141: Process, Permission Slips, and Business Pivots with Tara McMullin
• 042: How I Run My Business Without Social Media
• 183: Letting Go of Productivity Guilt with Madeleine Dore
• 205: Why Paul Millerd Turned Down a $200K Two-Book Traditional Publishing Deal

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📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/342

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