My experience with quiet quitting.. the best thing that has happened to me!

I (38F) have a remote job that I genuinely like a lot of the time. I like the subject matter of my work even though I've often struggled with some of the organizational and interpersonal dynamics of the team. Some hyper competitive not very nice folks (not everyone at least).

I just became so burned out this year as a result of those dynamics plus other things in my personal life. Dealing with an ailing parent, break up, and my own health issues.

At the end of October I got sick with a respiratory illness that would just not get better. For three weeks I was coughing until I was out of breath. Steroids seemed to finally help.

When I finally felt better.. I just said to hell with everything. The past few weeks I've been working very minimally from home, ignoring lots of emails, and basically just taking care of myself.

I've been sleeping long hours. I make it a priority to exercise almost every day. Around 3 pm I break to go walk 6 miles (before the sun sets). I lift weights. I've been following a new diet that makes me feel great and taking lots of time to shop and prep my food.

I've reached out to a bunch of old friends and made an effort to schedule more activities with my nearby friends. Signed up for literally 3 new classes in my community that allow me to get out the house at least half of the week.

I'm not kidding when I say I feel better than I have in maybe years.

One result is that I'm actually feeling more motivated in my work and ready to put my energy back into it.

I think work has a way of sometimes sucking us dry. For all the hard workers out there I think taking time for yourself feels selfish or even unethical. One of my lessons learned is that you have to occasionally pour into yourself. I hope to do it more often and keep it up.