Not Everyone Deserves Your Energy

What Taylor Swift Helped Me Realize About Burnout and Boundaries

A few months ago, I heard Taylor Swift say something that stuck with me in a way I didn’t expect:

“Think of your energy as if it’s expensive. As if it’s like a luxury item. Not everyone can afford it. Not everyone has invested in you, in order to be able to have the capital for you to care about this.”

And I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Because if that’s true, I’ve been treating mine like it’s free. When I first started my business, I said yes to everything.

Every opportunity, every DM, every favor. Every event, every introduction, every conversation. I showed up. I gave. I responded. And honestly, I loved it.

It made me feel capable. Important. Needed.

For a long time, I didn’t feel that way.

Growing up with dyslexia, I was used to feeling behind, like I had to work twice as hard just to keep up. So when I finally found something that clicked, something people noticed, I held onto it tightly.

I thought being busy meant I was doing it right. But looking back, I wasn’t being intentional. I was just being available.

I was trying to build something meaningful while also showing up for everything and everyone else. And I didn’t realize how much it was costing me until I started to feel it.

Not in a dramatic, everything-falls-apart kind of way.

In a quieter way.

I was more irritable. Less present. More drained by things that normally wouldn’t affect me. Even the people I cared about most started to feel like obligations instead of connections.
That’s when I started asking myself a harder question: What am I actually spending my energy on?

That quote stayed with me because it forced me to see something I didn’t want to admit.

I wasn’t just giving my energy to things that mattered. I was giving it to everything.

To conversations that went nowhere.
To overthinking small interactions.
To responding immediately, even when it didn’t matter.
To situations that didn’t deserve that level of emotional investment.

I was handing it out like free samples, thinking that meant I was a good friend, a good founder, a good person. But all it really did was leave me drained.

The shift wasn’t dramatic.

It was subtle.

It looked like pausing before responding.
Letting a message sit.
Not engaging in something that I knew would leave me feeling worse.
Asking myself, in real time, “Do I actually want to give this my energy?”

And sometimes the answer was uncomfortable.

Because a lot of what I was doing wasn’t coming from alignment. It was coming from guilt. Or habit. Or the fear of disappointing people.

But the more honest I got with myself, the clearer things became. I didn’t need to cut people off. I didn’t need to become distant or unavailable. I just needed to be more intentional.

There’s a difference between avoiding things and choosing not to engage.

I’m still learning that.

Avoidance is shutting down, numbing out, pretending something doesn’t matter.

But this is different.

This is noticing what drains you and deciding, thoughtfully, whether it deserves a place in your day, your mind, your energy.

It’s choosing presence over performance.

Not showing up because you feel like you should, but because you actually want to.

I used to think burnout came from doing too much.

Now I think it comes from doing too much of what doesn’t matter.

From giving your energy to everything except the things that actually move your life forward or make you feel like yourself. And the hardest part is, no one really teaches you how to filter that. You have to learn it by paying attention. By noticing what leaves you feeling clear versus what leaves you feeling depleted. By being honest about where your energy is going, even when it’s uncomfortable to admit.

I still catch myself overextending, overthinking, overgiving. But I’m quicker to notice it now.

And that awareness changes everything. Because you start to realize that protecting your energy isn’t selfish. It’s what allows you to actually show up for the things and people that matter most.

If you’ve been feeling that quiet kind of burnout, the kind that doesn’t look dramatic but still feels heavy, this might be why. Your energy is going everywhere. And you’re allowed to change that. You don’t have to be available to everything and everyone. Just the things that actually deserve you.