A Surprising Solution to Decision Fatigue & Burnout Prevention

You've color-coded your calendar. You've time-blocked your schedule. You wake up at 5 AM to "get ahead." You skip lunch so you can chart between sessions. You answer emails at 10 PM because you're "just trying to stay on top of things."

And you're still drowning.

So you tell yourself the problem is you. You're just not disciplined enough. Not organized enough. Not efficient enough. If you could just manage your time better, you wouldn't be so burned out, right?

Wrong. Sweet soul, that's a lie the system sold you to keep you blaming yourself instead of recognizing what's actually happening.

The Lie We've All Been Sold

In my book In Pursuit of Soul Joy: A 12-Week Guide for Overcoming Burnout and Compassion Fatigue, I write about my own crash: "I sorely neglected time management back when the big burn happened. I was so naïve during that time that I believed I was bulletproof of the consequences of neglecting self-care. Looking back, I was frantic about finishing everything on my to-do list, or it meant I was a lazy loser. It's hard to admit, but I was terribly mean to myself and expected unrealistic accomplishments."

Does that sound familiar? That internal voice telling you you're a "lazy loser" if you don't finish everything? At work, I struggled because I wanted to please all those bosses and colleagues I thought were harshly judging my performance. I resented working long hours, but the undercurrent of my thinking was, "Who's going to do it if I don't?"

Who's going to do it if I don't. How many times have you said that exact sentence to yourself this week?

Talk about zero boundaries. I answered calls and took appointments at all hours because the "need to be needed" voice in my head said, "My clients need me!" On the other side of that coin was home, where I felt like a terrible mom, wife, daughter, and, well, basically human. You see, my self-imposed "rulebook" was full of "shoulds, musts, and need-tos" that I could not live up to.

Sound familiar? That's not a time-management problem, friend. That's a system problem. And no planner in the world can fix it.

The Real Diagnosis

Here's the truth they don't want you to know: burnout is caused by having more to do than time or resources allow. This puts you in a deficit. Read that again. Burnout is caused by having MORE TO DO than time or resources allow.

Not by being bad at time management. Not by being lazy. Not by lacking discipline. By the system demanding more from you than is humanly possible to give.

You can't time-manage your way out of an impossible workload, y'all. You can't productivity-hack your way out of a system designed to extract every ounce of energy you have and then ask for more.

The Hidden Thief: Decision Fatigue

But here's the part nobody talks about—the hidden mechanism that's actually destroying you. How many decisions do you make a day? As a clinician, you make more than 35,000 decisions. That's probably a low estimate.

Thirty-five THOUSAND decisions. Every single day.

Treatment plans. Crisis assessments. Documentation language. Whether to report. Whether to hospitalize. Whether to push back on insurance. Whether this patient needs a higher level of care. Whether that one is safe to go home. What intervention to use. What questions to ask. What to chart. What to say to that angry family member. Whether to answer that 9 PM text. Whether to take on one more client. Whether to cover for your colleague.

I know all these decisions become absolutely exhausting. When I allowed burnout to incarcerate me, I would become paralyzed in making decisions outside of my clinic. I could not even tolerate being asked where I wanted to go for dinner, let alone something of real importance, like what makes me happy.

You can make life-and-death decisions at work all day long. But by the time you get home? You literally cannot decide what to eat. You can't decide what to watch. You can't decide whether to go out or stay in. You can't make ONE MORE DECISION because your decision-making capacity is completely depleted.

And here's the loop that keeps you stuck: avoidance of decision-making and lack of clarity is making you unhappy and keeping you stuck. You're caught in the loop of trying to decide what you really want—your life purpose—and managing your time. This loop hinders your ability to practice holistic, sustainable self-care. This loop has you living in limbo, telling yourself that you'll get to it tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes.

Tomorrow never comes. You keep saying you'll set boundaries tomorrow. You'll cut back your hours next month. You'll take that vacation when things slow down. You'll address the burnout when you have more energy. But tomorrow never comes because you're trapped in decision paralysis caused by decision fatigue.

Where It Lives: Your Depleted Solar Plexus

Now let's talk about where this is living in your body, because decision fatigue isn't just mental—it's an energetic crisis happening in your Solar Plexus chakra. In Week Two of In Pursuit of Soul Joy, I explain the Manipura: Solar Plexus Chakra. This chakra sits below your rib cage area around your belly button and is often shown positioned just at the stomach level. This is considered the energy center of your willpower, representing inner strength, self-control, vitality, and self-esteem.

Your willpower. Your inner strength. Your self-control. Your vitality. Your self-esteem. All of those live in your Solar Plexus. And when you're making 35,000 decisions a day? When you're operating out of a rulebook full of "shoulds, musts, and need-tos"? When you're saying yes to everyone else and no to yourself? You're hemorrhaging energy from this chakra until there's nothing left.

An underactive solar plexus can cause digestive problems and can cause you to be prone to addictions, indecisiveness, fatigue, low self-esteem, and behaving timidly and passively. Does that sound familiar? The digestive issues you can't explain? The wine you need just to unwind? The complete inability to make decisions? The bone-deep fatigue that no amount of sleep touches? The way you can't speak up at staff meetings even when you know something's wrong?

That's not weakness. That's an underactive Solar Plexus chakra screaming for help.

And here's what balance looks like: if this chakra is balanced, you will have healthy self-esteem and confidence, have an engaging and satisfying worldview, and be assertive and in control of your actions. Healthy self-esteem. Confidence. Assertiveness. Control. Everything burnout stole from you—it's all connected to this energy center.

In Week Six of the book, I get real about this: your solar plexus is such a workhorse, and chances are, it's been pretty neglected over the years. Your Solar Plexus has been showing up for you every single day—making those 35,000 decisions, saying yes when you wanted to say no, pushing through when you had nothing left. And what have you given it in return? More decisions. More demands. More depletion.

As you've been running a rat race on autopilot, it's been there for you with zero judgment. It showed up when you wouldn't. It believed when you couldn't. Friend, your power center has been carrying you. And now it's depleted. And that's why no time-management system in the world can fix your burnout—because the problem isn't how you're organizing your time. The problem is that your energy center of willpower has been drained dry.

The Tool That Changed Everything

When I crashed, when I hit that wall where I couldn't make one more decision, I knew something had to change. In my research, I happened upon a decision-making tool I call the "Power Matrix." It was a game changer because it helped me not only to make decisions but also to manage my time. I had a system! I believe decision-making and time management are intertwined.

This isn't another productivity system, y'all. This is a power reclamation system.

The Power Matrix is designed to help you discern where and how you're investing your time. Time is a precious commodity, and where you spend it matters. This tool helps you get clear on exactly where your time goes. Once you have that data, you can then make decisions with clarity. My friend, this, too, is foundational for mindfully integrating holistic, sustainable self-care.

Here's how it works: You map your average week into four quadrants. Quadrant 1 is Urgent & Important—true emergencies, the patient in crisis, things only you can do that actually matter. Quadrant 2 is Not Urgent & Important—strategic work, future planning, the things that move your life forward but get sacrificed first, like setting up your own therapy appointment or planning your exit strategy. Quadrant 3 is Urgent & Not Important—everything that feels urgent because someone else made it your problem, most meetings, most emails, committees you joined out of guilt. Quadrant 4 is Not Urgent & Not Important—the time thieves, the perfectionism disguised as professionalism.

Now here's where resistance kicks in. If you're like most of us, all the things you do seem important. This can make discerning the duties to delegate to others dicey. But believe me, your sanity, your soul joy, and your future depend on your ability to step back and do things differently.

You're going to want to put everything in the "Urgent & Important" box. Because everything feels important when you're burned out and your Solar Plexus is depleted. But here's the truth: if you want life to be different, you have to do things differently. Clean the slate so you can open up time for soul joy.

Different life equals different actions. You cannot keep doing the same things and expect different results.

As you work through this: check in with your solar plexus chakra. What does the energy feel like? Now's the time to trust yourself to put tasks in the boxes to delegate and delete. If you find yourself "frozen," that's your depleted Solar Plexus telling you it doesn't have the energy to make one more decision, set one more boundary, or trust yourself one more time.

The Practice That Restores Your Power

Here's what I want you to do this week, from the Weekly Pursuit in Week Six: grab that gorgeous journal so you can write a love letter to your sweet, loyal solar plexus. You need to let it know just how much you appreciate all it's done for you all these years. As you've been running a rat race on autopilot, it's been there for you with zero judgment. It showed up when you wouldn't. It believed when you couldn't. Now is the time for you to seek balance in this chakra to tell it all the sweet nothings it needs to hear. Once you've completed the letter, stand in front of a mirror and read it aloud. Maybe more than once.

Sweet soul, your Solar Plexus has been carrying you through impossible situations. It deserves your gratitude. It deserves your attention. It deserves restoration.

Write that letter. Thank your power center for showing up. Apologize for depleting it. Promise it you're going to start making different choices. Then stand in front of the mirror and read it out loud—because your Solar Plexus needs to hear you commit to its restoration.

The Path Forward

If this landed in your body like truth—if you recognized yourself in that frantic "Who's going to do it if I don't?" mindset, if you felt that depletion in your Solar Plexus, if you're tired of living in the loop where tomorrow never comes—you need to take action while that spark is still lit.

In Pursuit of Soul Joy: A 12-Week Guide for Overcoming Burnout and Compassion Fatigue gives you the complete roadmap (Link in MENU). Week One explains the neuroscience of why you're so exhausted. Week Two introduces the entire chakra system. Week Three teaches you the body scan and Super Power Model for processing your thoughts and feelings. Week Six—where today's content comes from—tackles personal power, time management, decision fatigue, and gives you the complete Power Matrix system plus the Purpose Mission Statement exercise that helps you make decisions aligned with your values.

By Week Twelve, you'll have your Soul Joy Map—your personal roadmap for sustainable self-care that doesn't require you to be more productive, more organized, or more disciplined. It requires you to reclaim your power.

This isn't theory. I was frantic about finishing everything on my to-do list, or it meant I was a lazy loser. That was me. And I crashed so hard I nearly lost everything. I wrote this book so you don't have to crash to figure out what I learned the hard way.

Get the book while you can still feel that recognition. While you still have the energy to say, "I deserve better than this." While your Solar Plexus still has enough power to make one decision in your own favor. And if you're in crisis—if you can't make one more decision, if you're so depleted you can barely function—book a one-on-one call with me (Link in Menu). Let's create your power reclamation plan together.

You are not bad at time management. You are not lazy. You are not undisciplined. You are being systematically depleted by a system that demands more than any human can sustainably give. But you can reclaim your power—starting with one decision to choose yourself.

We rise together. Your Solar Plexus is waiting for you to finally listen.

Dr. Julie Merriman, Ph.D., LPC-S, is the author of In Pursuit of Soul Joy: A 12-Week Guide for Overcoming Burnout and Compassion Fatigue and host of the Compassion Fatigue Cure: From Burnout to Radiance for Women Healers Over 50 podcast. She helps women healers recover from workplace-induced trauma through nervous system healing and somatic practices.