The New Way to Work - Chapter 3: Rest Is a Non-Negotiable: Not a Reward

You say you want peace.

But you treat rest like a sin.

You crave spaciousness, softness, time that breathes.

But the moment you pause, the shame sets in.

You sit down to take a break,

and suddenly you feel like a fake.

Your mind whispers:

“You haven’t done enough today. You’ve got deadlines to make.”

Sound familiar?

Welcome to the burnout loop too many can't fake:

Pushing to prove.

Achieving for pride’s sake.

Resting only when your body starts to break.

Here’s what no one tells you:

Exhaustion can feel safer than stillness.

Because when you stop moving, you have to feel.

And feeling means facing the void you've been trying to outrun:

- That your workaholism wears a halo and hides behind words like “purpose” or “service.”
- That you secretly equate rest with weakness.
- That you’re terrified of being seen as lazy, selfish, unreliable or worst of all… average.

So you keep filling your calendar.
Answering one more email.
Writing one more offer.
Saying yes when your body is screaming no.

You tell yourself:

“I’ll slow down once I launch this.”
“Once I hit 10k months.”
“Once the money feels consistent.”

But the part no one wants to admit is this:

If your business only works when you’re maxed out…It’s not working.

I know what you might be thinking:

“But if I slow down, won’t the money slow down too?

I used to think that too.

But here’s what I realised:

It wasn’t doing less that made my income fragile.
It was doing everything, all at once, with no clarity.

Rest gives you the space to see what matters.
To simplify.
To charge honestly.
To stop leaking energy on things that don’t work.
It doesn’t make you earn less. You earn smarter.
Because burnout doesn’t make you rich.
It makes you reactive.
And reactive businesses don’t grow.
They survive.

Rest isn’t something you earn at the finish line.

It’s something you build into the track.

Rest isn’t the opposite of growth.

It’s what allows you to grow without self-abandonment.

If your nervous system is the soil of your business,

then your strategy better not be poured in concrete.

Because if your business doesn’t have room to breathe,

neither do you.

In my world, we don’t build businesses that scale.

We build businesses that sustain.

That’s why they scale…naturally, intelligently, without breaking you.

I teach something I call regenerative strategy.

That means structuring your business around your capacity,
not your fear of falling behind.

Rooted in rhythm.
Not in hustle.

Held by integrity.
Not addiction to output.

Because what looks like “commitment” on the outside,
is often just codependency in prettier clothes.
And codependency doesn’t scale.
But clarity does.
And clarity needs space to emerge.

I know the cost of overwork all too well.

For years, I lived for the weekend.
Fridays meant freedom.
Sundays came with dread and anxiety.
Rest wasn’t a rhythm. It was an escape hatch.
By Thursday afternoon, I’d already be pouring a glass of scotch,
chasing that first warm rush through my body,
a temporary sense of relief…like freedom.

For a fleeting moment, it worked.
The tension softened. The pace slowed.
I could laugh. Finally exhale…

But when the buzz wore off,
I felt worse.
Heavy. Hollow. Hungover.
Not just in body, but in spirit.
It wasn’t just fatigue.
It was depression dressed up as “success”.
A kind of quiet despair I couldn’t name.
Just a persistent ache that whispered: This life doesn’t fit.
I didn’t know how to escape.
So I kept performing. Producing.
Pretending this was normal.

After finishing my Master’s, I made a quiet promise:

Never again would I build a life that required me to numb out five days a week just to feel “alive” for two.

I chose differently.
Not from full conviction, but as a last resort.

I said no to the rules.
No to the culture of burnout dressed up as ambition.
I designed a new rhythm.

Once I made a commitment to myself and no one else,
I began saying yes only to work that honoured my values:

- Meaningful work
- Part-time hours
- Full-time self-respect
- Freedom to decide when and how I show up
- And the non-negotiables that anchor me back to myself

That one decision changed everything.

Today, I don’t live by the calendar.
Mondays feel just as light as Fridays.
I can work on a Sunday because I feel in flow.
Take Tuesday completely off.
Have lunch with friends on a Wednesday.
Start work at 6 am or 2 pm.

It’s the rhythm of creativity that fuels me.
I’ve built a life that doesn't need escape routes.
Rest is not the pause between sprints.
It’s built into the pace.

I work in a way that feels alive.
Not because I’ve figured it all out,
but because I refuse to forget myself in the process.

And yet… I’ve seen what happens when that choice isn’t made…

In my last job, my boss was full of passion.
Purpose-driven. All in.
But he couldn’t stop.

I’d clock out on Thursdays at 1 pm.
He’d work Monday to Friday on an 8-to-5,
take calls at 11 pm and start answering emails Sunday afternoon
so he could “start Monday with a clean slate”.

He said it was about discipline.

But I saw another reality:

He didn’t know how to rest.
He didn’t trust that his business, or even his purpose,
could hold without his constant pushing.

It wasn’t greed. It was conditioning.

He confused purpose with sacrifice.

And in doing so, he slowly eroded his own capacity.

That was the end of the business.
And the end of my work there.
Purposeful work. Award-winning work.
But the facts told another story.

What struck me most was this:

He unconsciously believed that rest would slow him down.
But it was the lack of rest that took everything down with him.
Not just because he was tired,
but because he was too scattered to see the leverage points,
the small shifts that could have created big results.
The more he did, the more he diluted his impact.

He confused motion with momentum.

Complexity with progress.

Observe Nature…is intricate, yes, but never wasteful.
A tree doesn’t grow by forcing every branch at once.
It sends energy to the roots first.
It trusts the rhythm of seasons.
Every leaf has a reason.

That’s the kind of focus most businesses are missing.

We’ve been taught that rest is the opposite of great work.

But neuroscience tells us something else.
Your best work doesn’t happen in front of your screen.
It happens when you “do nothing”.

When you walk. When you shower. When you unplug.

That’s when your subconscious connects dots, solves problems, and sparks brilliance.
These are not moments of absence.
They are moments of incubation. Of revelation.

That’s why I treat rest as my deepest work.
Because by the time I sit down, the answers are already with me.

As the saying goes:
“The history of innovation is the bed, the bus, and the bathtub.”

It’s rarely at the desk that brilliance arrives.
It’s in the moments we stop trying to be brilliant that brilliance finds us.

And yet, all around me, I see the same pattern repeat:

Brilliant, purpose-driven people building businesses that could change the world,
yet unable to succeed, because they were unconsciously designed to break them.
Borrowing someone else's playbook, calling it truth,
forgetting to ask what values were theirs to begin with.

Strategy without self-awareness is just survival with better branding.

Rest isn’t a reward.
It’s a strategy.

It creates the margin to see what’s leaking.
Where the profit is hiding.
What you can stop doing.

Your next level doesn’t need more effort.
It needs more space.

But that’s not inevitable.

And it’s not your only option.

You get to choose again.

This is what I call The New Way.

You get to build something that honours your energy instead of exploiting it.

Not because you’ve earned the right to rest,

but because rest is your right to thrive.

Now I know what some part of you is saying:

“But I can’t rest right now.
I just need to get through this next launch.
Once I’ve signed a few more clients…
Once the funnel finally works…
Then I’ll rest.”

But the finish line keeps moving.
And so you keep chasing.

And maybe you're thinking:
“Be realistic, Nora, my clients don’t work three days a week…
I can't afford to slow down.”

I hear that.

But what if the pace you're defending is the very thing preventing your next level?

If you’re working nonstop and still not seeing your family and consistent income, isn’t something already broken?

Slowing down isn’t the risk.

Operating at max capacity with no margin is.

Rest doesn’t make you lazy.

It makes you strategic.

That’s the trick, isn’t it?

The Industrial Revolution taught us that rest is a luxury for the rich, not a birthright for the living.

A reward, not a birthright.

It taught us that your worth is measured in output.

So, you’ve been trying to “deserve” your humanity ever since.

But rest isn't what you do after you prove your value.

It’s what you reclaim the moment you remember you already have it.

Imagine a life and business where rest is the default, not the exception.

Where your calendar holds white space,

not a back-to-back race,

and your days move with grace.

Where your nervous system doesn’t feel like it’s on a caffeine drip or an alcohol crash.

Where rest isn’t your reward,

but a rhythm your days are built toward.

Where you’re not just earning a living,

but remembering what you’re living for.

You’re not here to scrape by.

You’re here to thrive.

In your finances.

In your body.

In your joy.

That begins with the way you work.

Rest isn’t lazy.
It’s what self-mastery looks like in practice.

Rest isn’t avoidance.
It’s attunement.

Rest isn’t soft.
It’s practical strategy.

And if your life and business model don't have these built in,

it's not just misalignment,
it's unsustainable.
It’s time to change that…

I offer something called an Alignment Review.

It’s not a sales call.
It’s not a funnel tweak.
It’s not mindset coaching.
It’s me, looking at your business with you
and offering 3 honest shifts to help you redesign it around your capacity,
your values, and the life you actually want.

And yes, we talk about life. About money.
About the parts of your business that feel heavy.
And the parts that are quietly draining your aliveness and profit.
It’s a business redesign.
With your energy and income in mind.
Because your business was never meant to drain you.
So, let’s make sure it doesn’t.

→ Request your Alignment Review here

Only a few spots are available,
but if this letter cracked something open,
one of them is probably yours.

Note: This review is only available to you as a member of The Shift Newsletter. You won’t find it on my website or social media, it’s my way of offering something personal, practical, and powerful to those who resonate with this work. I only do 5 of these per month to keep them personalised. If you’re feeling the pull, trust your timing.

You don’t have to hustle your way into peace.
You can rest your way into power.
And the moment you choose to believe that,
everything begins to shift.

And if you’re not a founder,
but something inside you is shifting…
this was still written for you.
Because reclaiming your rest doesn’t require a business card.
It just takes the courage to start choosing differently.

Let this question linger in your day:
What would change if you trusted rest as deeply as you trust hard work?

Not to analyse. Not to optimise.
Just to feel what’s been waiting for your attention.

Until next time,
— Nora