A thousand cuts.

As a professional, we learn to show up even if we don't feel like it. That makes sense. The client did not sign up for our emotional turmoil, they are paying only for the pizza we decided to add onto the menu.

But what doesn't make sense is that we don't pause after the showing up to figure out why were we not feeling like it, what had happened that had let to the emotional turmoil and what we need to do now to recover.

A sportsperson doesn't keep playing with a broken arm. But we tend to keep playing with a broken heart and a broken nervous system.

Showing up when you are not feeling like it is a temporary fix. Figuring out what's broken and getting it fixed is a part of being a professional.

When we keep pushing ourselves towards a "death by a thousand cuts", it helps to realise that it's not the final few cuts that do it. It's that we didn't take the time to fix the early ones.