The Urge to Expand: Why You Shouldn't Add More When Things Are Finally Working

Listen to Episode 39: The Urge to Expand: Why You Shouldn't Add More When Things Are Finally Working

Sometimes we experience anxiety when life finally starts to click. The routines are established, the chaos has settled, and suddenly, a voice whispers: "Now that it's working, I should do MORE." In this episode, Blaze challenges this pervasive impulse to expand, optimize, and capitalize on success right when we should be sustaining and resting.

She dives into the difference between capacity (what you can sustain long-term) and surplus (temporary energy surges), explaining why treating a temporary surge as a permanent new baseline is a recipe for burnout. Blaze offers a compassionate framework for letting things be "good enough," trusting that "nothing new to report" is a sign of health, and learning to ride the natural ebb and flow of energy without panic. If you feel the pressure to keep climbing just because you've reached a plateau, this conversation is your permission to stop, breathe, and enjoy the view.

🌿 In this episode we explore:

• Why the impulse to "add more" often strikes exactly when things are finally working well.
• The difference between capacity (sustainable) and surplus (temporary) energy.
• How to distinguish between a helpful burst of motivation and a depletion-inducing expansion.
• Why treating a temporary energy surge as a permanent new baseline leads to burnout.
• The power of letting things be "good enough" and stopping the urge to optimize everything immediately.
• How to trust that "nothing new to report" is actually the best news you can have.
• Strategies for protecting the rhythms and routines you've already built instead of replacing them.
• Why growing isn't always about adding; sometimes it's about sustaining and stabilizing.
• How to handle the discomfort of energy receding without panicking or forcing expansion.
• The freedom of realizing you don't need to declare "game over" or figure everything out to be successful.

Hello my friends. Have you ever noticed that when things are starting to go really well in your life, there's a sudden impulse to try to add more stuff or to do more things because you realize like, "Wow, it's really working! I should do more of this, I should do more things."

We start trying to stack on top of our accomplishments and figure out the next big step.

I want to talk about it because I think there's a lot to be said for letting what's working work and not trying to adjust it or make it work faster, and not trying to take something that's working and cut, or somehow extrapolate or pull more value out of it into everywhere in our lives.

And I think we all do it. We've been taught to do it.

Let's place this impulse that we have into where we are living right now.

So, you know, it's late July and our routines are established and things are starting to actually work and life is feeling relatively stable or at least manageable.

And then suddenly you have this thought, like, maybe I should add something. Or, you know what, I have enough energy, I could take more on. That's something that happens to me a lot. Or now that I have all of this momentum going, I should use it.

And I think, it's like the moment that things start going well is the moment that we start adding more to it and then suddenly it stops working as well. And then we question it all and feel like we have to tear it to the ground and start over.

So I wanted to talk about this very human relatable tendency to let us understand more about why it happens and when it happens because I think there is an appropriate time for this kind of energy and it's not right now.

In my world, in the Anchored & Alive philosophy, spring has a lot of the energy of adding and taking things that are working and coming up with plans and coming up with ways to extract value and connect things to other things.

And that energy is abundant and there's so much of it. And there's a lot of excess, I would say, in the beginning of the spring, moving into the early summer.

And so when you have that urge to add to things or say, "This is going really great. What would happen if I did it this way or did it that way or changed it, or added more things to do because I have so much energy?"

That makes so much sense then because you do have so much energy and it's easier to bounce back from whatever doesn't work because there's just almost like a fountain of source flowing through you that's like, oh, I have all the creative ideas.

Rejection doesn't feel as bad and failure doesn't feel as bad at that time of year. If it does, it makes you angry, but that just bounces right back into the feeling of spring energy, which gives you even more energy and you're ready to do it.

Right now at the height of the summer when you get that urge... You say, "Oh, hey, things are going pretty well. Maybe I should really refine this and do more." There's a difference between refining and adding more or saying, "Hey, things are going great. I should probably add to this."

I think it's an echo of that old energy. But what happens when we do it is we start to feel depleted and we're not as resilient when things don't go as well. And our...

I don't want to say like our brains are slower or not as fast as they were in the spring.

I think, you know, intelligence doesn't go away and emotional capacity doesn't go away, but I think the quality of it has changed.

And so what might have felt like not that big of a deal or just something that was happening earlier in the year.

It feels like it has a lot more impact now. And when I think of the natural world and what's going on, that makes a lot of sense, because if you suddenly change things or add extra stuff to do in the late summer,

You're taking away resources that would have gone towards sustaining you through the fall and the winter.

And I think we're really geared for that. We want to be gathering energy at this time of year and coasting on what we already have.

But we haven't really been taught how to be comfortable with it. So here's what happens, I think, is that as we figure out our life more and more.

We feel more and more stable. I know for me as I figured myself out more and all of my weird little quirks and how I work with people and what goes on in my family dynamics and how I manage the household and all of that stuff.

As it becomes more and more routine and stable, I start to feel like...

There's this signal that lights up in my brain going, "Everything is so calm and wonderful. You're safe to expand now. Let's do even more with all of this energy because you've cleared all the problems."

And I think maybe subconsciously that's what I'm feeling or thinking is like, "Hey, if everything's going really well and it's stable."

It's like I've cleared all of the past problems and now the ground is clear for me to work and create something new.

I think though, it can be okay and it probably should be okay for us to go, "Hey, I've reached some equilibrium with this stability in my life. How wonderful. What if I just enjoyed the stability for a little while." And yeah.

I'm going to learn how to practice more with that. And I want to see what it's like if I do that.

As a younger person, I don't think you ever really feel that sense of stability for quite some time, like in my 20s like starting out as an adult. Every time I'd figure out something,

It felt like there was still more to figure out. And I think the human experience is always going to reach for more and have more to figure out. And that doesn't end just because like, yay, we've attained adulthood or whatever.

But I do think at a certain point in life there's perhaps less physical things maybe that you need to figure out and now we're more into like a refinement stage or something where you're learning subtleties. I guess maybe that's more what I want to say is.

The big advances for me at this stage in life might be more about subtleties and relationships and ways that this spirals and builds on itself rather than a whole new way of doing my life.

Maybe I've arrived on the way of doing my life that works for me and that's okay.

And I think younger me thought that you can't ever arrive or that's not allowed or if you arrive then I guess your life is over because you figured everything out so why are you still here? And now I'm like whoa whoa whoa.

We don't need to be that dark about it. You don't need to think that just because you have something that's working in your life that you need to change it.

Or that I guess like game over, you figured it out, like go find something else to do.

I'm actually wanting to just enjoy thriving and that's my new focus.

Anyway, to bring it back to the urge to expand and the sense of stability.

Here's what you might notice as a feeling that comes up in your life. So the expansion urge that might be burgeoning in you right now.

Is that you will suddenly hit a burst of motivation or ideas that start stacking up quickly in your head in a sense of like, "Now is the time. I should totally act on this."

And it's kind of accompanied by the sense of urgency or excitement to just get something done right now in this moment and it often feels really positive and productive and aligned with what you're doing.

And because of that, it's really easy to trust and it's good because sometimes, yeah, you definitely want to act on timeliness, right? So if you get a burst of motivation or inspiration about something that you feel like you should do right now, that's fantastic. Absolutely go for it.

However, I think this is about scale. So if you, I'll give a, an example that would be right.

If we're going to have a big rainstorm and I want to collect rain in the buckets and I get this sense of motivation and urge to put the buckets out by the rain spouts before it rains. That's a right motivation. Like it's positive, it's productive, it's aligned. It's something that I felt excited to do that's different. I added to my list of things to do today.

What would be overkill is going, "I need to come up with the entire system that does this automatically for me every single time it rains."

And maybe now is the time for me to reach out and come up with someone to come in and like redo my entire gutters system and do all of those things because then it solves the problem forever and I won't ever have to do this again.

That's a big project. It went from like this tiny thing that I can do that felt really aligned and in the moment and connected to my real life that is helpful and then I'll use that rain for the plants next week. Fantastic.

And then it turned into that's not enough. So it was accompanied by this sense of judgment about what's good enough and how much I can do.

It's also about, well, you have the energy and you have the time to plan it, so why don't you? And I think there is kind of a message about that floating around in the ethers that if you have any sense of spaciousness, energy, mental, emotional capacity, any of that, that we're supposed to use it all the time.

I'm learning to let myself off the hook and say, "You know what? Just because I think of something doesn't mean that now is the time. I've actually started an entire little journal for these kinds of ideas to go, "This is a cool project."

And there might be a time where I want to plan that, but today is not that day. And by having that little area dedicated to ideas like that. I don't let it take control of my life anymore.

And it's like my idea book. And I will have a million ideas. There's so many ideas in there. And sometimes I do mine it for information in the winter and spring and come up with plans and things to do when I have more energy for it.

But I don't want those kinds of ideas and possibilities sapping my energy right now.

What I actually want still is to cultivate spaciousness and enough time to enjoy the summer that I'm having.

I think that we're allowed to have that. And we should be allowed to have many moments in our lives that are about expansiveness and about being.

And maybe hopefully hearing this podcast and hearing other people speaking about it is helping you to really incorporate it into yourself, to make the idea that just being and having long periods of time where you're not demanding any cultivation of yourself or anything productive of yourself is an important aspect of being alive and being you.

And that it's just as important as the moments where you are productive and expanding and giving back.

Sometimes I think that our society teaches so much about what it means to give back and to be a part of everything that it neglects like the other half, the other state that allows that to happen.

It seems like our society is really hung up on productivity and flashiness and consuming and energized ideas.

Producing ideas and are acting with people, improving things, making things better, and I think all of that is so important.

And I don't want to diminish anyone's desire or society's need for that kind of connection and creation in any way.

I do want to say though that it becomes a whole lot more possible when equally we spend time:

Being, resting, being with what is and appreciating what we have and dreaming a little bit and just being in it rather than trying to change it all the time.

We spend so much energy and so much of our attention on trying to not be where we are right now. And I really want to live a life where it's okay to be where I am right now and it's okay to be where I'm going to be next week.

And it's fine that it changes from week to week and it's great that my capacity changes because thank God it does.

I don't need to have the same amount of energy every day. Nor do you. You don't need to have the same amount of energy all year long.

You're naturally going to have times where your energy surges and where it ebbs back. And for a lot of us in the northern hemisphere right now, energy is, you can feel it. Like there's this build, right? And we feel like we're on the precipice of it starting to recede.

Some of that antsiness really does come out as the urge to change things and to do stuff with it because we're afraid that we won't have this energy ever again.

And if that's where you've been feeling, I want to let you know, like, you're not wrong. You're getting that energy feedback from your body saying things are about to change. It's the interpretation of it that might need some adjustment.

So it's not that you're never going to have that energy again. What you're sensing is my energy is starting to pull back.

Energy is receding and realizing that I'm not going to have as much. So I want to use everything that I have right now while I still have it.

And what I want to do is question that and say, "Do you need to use everything that you have right now and use it all? Or is it okay to have energy that you have and be with it as it's starting to calm down?

It's a very different feeling to sit with where you are and go, "Oh, what if it's okay if I'm here with this excessive energy and I feel that it's starting to recede,

And I make some decisions based on that, but I'm okay that it's receding and I'm not worried that I'll never have energy again.

Because I think when we're not conscious about it, the body just interprets, "Oh my God, I'm never going to have this energy again. I better do something with it right now."

So here's what we can do in our regular life to figure out what's going on. So you want to figure out:

What's your capacity versus what's your surplus? So capacity is what you can sustainably hold and keep doing.

And surplus is the extra energy that you may find comes and goes above and beyond what you're already sustaining.

So your mistake would be if you take the surplus energy and you have that surge and treat it like it's a permanent new capacity.

Just because you have extra energy today doesn't mean that your life can hold that much long term, like over the next few months or through the end of the year, but it might mean that you can hold extra this week.

So if you start looking at energy surges or when you have like these moments of, "Oh, I have such inspiration," and it does come with energy and uplift.

To really just observe that and go, "How big is this surplus?" and recognize it as a surplus right now, but not an entire new level that you're going to have forever.

Sometimes I think we're taught that every time we reach the next level, like we just stay there forever and that if we don't, that it's bad.

But I would like to think that it's okay that we do kind of up level in life, but going down in capacity or going down quote unquote in levels is not a bad thing. I think it's natural and it's part of the ebb and flow of life.

Like we don't expect a river to always be as high up as it can go. We're not mad at it when it gets too low and it's more rocky. But we do know that when it's higher up, you can take your canoe out and go on a ride. And then you can't later in the year.

That's all okay, it's still the same river, we still love it. And it comes back and it'll ebb and flow all year long. Same with the tides, same with just trees, right? Like they've got wonderful shade right now, the leaves are out, it's wonderful, but soon they'll start changing and the leaves will fall. And as frustrating as that is, 'cause it gives us extra chores to do, we're not mad at the trees for existing.

They just changed a little bit and what they're doing changed. And it's okay for us if we're also following that kind of pattern, that's our capacity.

We do tend to have a general capacity that's mostly the same for a lot of the time, but it does ebb and flow. We have parts of the year where we're much higher and parts of the year where we're much lower.

So just take a moment to realize where you might be at and to comfort yourself with, it's okay. Wherever it is, it's okay. If you have a lot of energy this year compared to last year, that's great.

If you don't have a lot of energy compared to last year, that's great and it's fine and there's nothing wrong with you.

It's okay.

So what we want to do to stay with that energy instead of always capitalizing or expanding on it, is to let things keep working. It's not interfering or meddling with stuff when it's doing good enough.

And it's not optimizing everything immediately as soon as you have the idea. It's like letting yourself take a note of that and think about it a while and decide whether it's worth your energy right now to try to optimize it or if you want to just handle that later or next year.

I'm a huge fan of just taking notes and deciding when the appropriate time is and recognizing that it's not necessarily the moment I have the idea. The idea might actually be great, but I don't need to act on it necessarily immediately.

And because I've put systems in place to remember ideas or find them later, I'm not worried about losing them.

But even if I don't write it down, I actually have come to a point where I trust if the idea is great enough, it'll come back to me when I need it. No big deal.

Here's something else that you can do right now that'll help nourish you through this time of the year is to keep repeating what feels good.

Instead of replacing something that's working really well in your life to just really luxuriate in it and be like, "Wow, I'm so glad that I get to do this every day."

And kind of protect the rhythm that you've already built into your days because that's the real work of your life, right?

Coming up with the routines and the rhythms that feel right to you and sustaining them. And I want you to also get used to having nothing new happening in any given week or day or moment, that it's okay to be like, "Nothing to report," and move on.

And often I would say if you look at nature, "Nothing new to report" is the best news you can possibly have. So nothing new to report is fine. And then it's okay also to be like, something cool happened or, oh, I need to give some of this my attention.

But let it become okay if the feedback that you have is there's nothing new going on right now.

And also remember that it's okay to be a little bit uncomfortable in that you might have a little bit of extra energy or start feeling weird about not knowing how much energy you have.

That is uncomfortable. It's part of the transition that we're building up to in the fall, but that's okay.

Not adding more, might make you more aware of how uncomfortable you're feeling.

But it's not going to take away that discomfort. It's just going to mask it. And what it can lead to later is you burning out because you've taken on more than you wanted to do, or you've committed more energy to things that you just don't really have the space or the time for in reality.

So you are still growing in the season and growing isn't always about adding and expanding. Sometimes it really is about just sustaining and stabilizing and stowing away all of this energy.

And that's kind of where we're at right now.

So my friends, you don't need to turn a good season that's going well into an even bigger, better one.

You can have complete permission to just stay and be with what actually is.

And when things are going really well, the most supportive thing that you could do is just let them continue on like that and not try to change it.

Yes. So next week we'll come back and I want to talk about how we can break that tendency that we have to fix things that aren't broken and why we have that tendency to keep trying to adjust things even though it's already going well.

So it's a little different angle to look at what's going on this week and look at it through different lens.

I hope that you have an absolutely marvelous week and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Related Episodes

Series: Protecting Your Energy & Setting Boundaries As we move through the seasons, the most important skill we can cultivate is the ability to protect our capacity. These episodes explore how to set boundaries that feel natural, resist the urge to over-expand when things are going well, and learn to say "no" without guilt so you can sustain your life without burning out.

• Ep 37: Stop Over-Scheduling Your Joy: How to Create Space for Boredom and Presence – Why filling every open slot kills joy and how to let your life breathe.
• Ep 35: How to Protect Your Time & Energy During Socially Busy Seasons – Practical strategies for saying "no" and protecting your capacity when the calendar is full.
• Ep 24: Why Setting Boundaries Feels So Uncomfortable at First – How to navigate the awkwardness of setting limits and why discomfort is a sign of growth.
• Ep 10: Wintering — The Power of Rest and Retreat – Why retreating and slowing down is essential before you can sustainably move forward.

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