Three Signs Your Life Is Too Busy – When “More” Is Wearing You Down
There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from one bad week or one overwhelming season.
It shows up when life is technically “fine,” but your soul feels perpetually tense.
When nothing is falling apart, yet you feel like you’re constantly bracing.
When rest feels elusive—not because you don’t want it, but because you don’t know how to stop.
In the first two posts of this Living Simply series, we talked about the invitation to live differently—and why simplifying your life often feels harder than expected.
Today, I want to name what all that more actually produces.
Not to shame you.
Not to diagnose you.
But to gently give language to what your soul may already know.
If you’ve been wondering whether your life has quietly taken on too much ‘more,’ these may be the signs…
Sign One: Striving That Never Seems to Shut Off
Recently, I was listening to a message on envy.
Not exactly a sexy topic—but a necessary one.
And as I listened, something unexpected happened. The last ten months of my life suddenly began to make sense. It felt like loose pieces of paper scattered across my desk finally being gathered, filed, and placed neatly into one folder.
I started to wonder:
What if my constant striving hasn’t been driven by ambition… but by envy?
I strive because I’m quietly comparing myself to someone else’s status, influence, or level of recognition—and I want that too.
I hustle because I envy the reputation of the person labeled responsible, so I need to be that as well.
I overextend because I feel pressure to be all things to all people.
When I name it honestly, it sounds a lot like trying to play God.
And if I’m really honest?
Most days I would love to tell God how to do His job. I’d even offer Him a Canva flow chart if He wanted one.
Underneath all that striving is a deeper belief: I am not enough.
So I have to do more.
Be more.
Have more.
And our culture doesn’t just tolerate this—it applauds it. It feeds it. It profits from it.
The marketing for the newest and the best.
The commercial where the woman is clearly a C-suite executive and somehow also giggling on the floor with her four kids—still in a pencil skirt and blazer.
We don’t stand a chance if the world is our standard and our source of truth.
Because if that’s the measuring stick, you’re right—I’m not enough.
But if the Word of God is our source of truth, then I am enough.
Not because of what I do.
But because He is enough.
And Christ is alive within me.
Outside of a daily, intentional pursuit of finding our identity in Him, we will always come up lacking.
Not nine times out of ten.
Ten times out of ten.
Striving is often the symptom of misplaced identity.
Sign Two: Anxiety That Lives Just Under the Surface
When striving goes unchecked, anxiety doesn’t usually follow far behind.
Not always panic.
Not always obvious fear.
Often, it’s quieter than that.
It’s a heart that races while you’re lying in bed, even though nothing is technically wrong.
A small comment that unravels you more than it should.
A life lived at a constant simmer—like a pot that never quite boils, but never cools either.
One thing not going your way.
One shift.
One unexpected detour from the plan.
And suddenly you’re pushed over the edge.
This kind of anxiety thrives in a life of more because it never allows the soul to exhale. There is always something to manage, something to anticipate, something to brace for.
This isn’t a failure of faith.
It’s often the fruit of chronic hurry and hustle.
A nervous system that hasn’t been given permission to stand down.
A heart that has learned to stay alert instead of at rest.
And Jesus doesn’t scold anxious people.
He invites them.
“Come to me… and I will give you rest.”
Not a lecture.
Not a list of strategies.
Rest.
Sign Three: A Faith Built on Performance Instead of Presence
This one hits close to home.
For months, my Bible sat on my nightstand.
The number of times I had opened it could be counted on one hand.
I had good intentions—I really did.
But I couldn’t seem to drag myself out of bed at 5 a.m. like all the Instagram moms who somehow manage quiet time, hot coffee, and perfect lighting before their children wake up.
If I tried to read at night, after the kids were in bed and the house finally quiet, I was fighting to stay awake—much less alert to the Spirit.
Night after night, I would switch off my bedside lamp, glance at my unopened Bible, and feel shame.
And that shame didn’t draw me closer to God.
It quietly pushed me further away.
Until one night, the Holy Spirit spoke gently to my heart:
“You don’t have to perform for Me. You just have to come to Me.”
Somewhere along the way, my discipleship to Jesus had become another place to perform.
Because the truth was, I was reading my Bible.
Just not the way I thought it was supposed to look.
I was reading on the glow of my phone while nursing my youngest.
Between opening fruit snacks and cleaning up spilled orange juice.
Interrupted. Imperfect. Ordinary.
Please hear me clearly: discipline in spiritual habits matters.
I believe in reading Scripture regularly.
In praying daily.
In prioritizing the practices that form us into people of holiness.
But when those practices become a source of shame that drives us away from God instead of toward Him, it’s time to reevaluate the benchmark.
A single verse held and repeated throughout the day can be just as powerful as six chapters read in thirty minutes.
A prayer whispered—“Jesus, help me not overreact to the spilled cereal”—is just as much a prayer as minutes spent on your knees.
When faith becomes performance, presence is usually what’s missing.
These Signs Are Not Condemnation—They’re Invitation
If you see yourself in any of this, nothing has gone wrong.
Striving, anxiety, and performance-based faith aren’t proof that you’re failing.
They’re signals.
They’re gentle indicators that your soul has been living under the weight of more for too long.
Jesus doesn’t expose these things to shame us.
He reveals them so He can heal us.
And once we recognize the signs, the question naturally becomes:
Where do we even begin?
In the final post of this January Live Simply series, we’ll talk about how to start simplifying your life without overhauling everything—where to begin when rest feels unfamiliar and less feels risky.
For now, let this be enough:
You don’t have to do more to be loved.
You don’t have to perform to belong.
You don’t have to strive to be enough.
He already is.
And that changes everything.
