How to End the Year Without Burning Out

Finish the Year Aligned, Not Exhausted: How to Audit Your Energy and Reclaim Your Focus

What if finishing the year strong didn’t mean doing more—but doing what actually matters?

In this solo episode of Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors, host Erica Rooney flips the script on “year-end hustle.” Instead of sprinting toward burnout, she challenges listeners to pause, take stock, and finish the year in alignment with their goals and energy—not perfection or pressure.

Through personal stories, humor, and actionable strategies, Erica lays out her simple yet powerful three-part year-end audit to help you separate impact from activity, identify what truly moves the needle, and stop letting busywork control your life.

Inside the Episode:

The Corporate Finish Line: Erica recalls her HR days—the endless reviews, budget meetings, and parties—and why women are conditioned to equate doing more with success.

The Three-Part Audit: Learn how to evaluate your self, your work, and your energy to prioritize what actually matters.

Evidence Over Emotion: Why “what gets measured gets managed” isn’t just a cliché—it’s the key to breaking free from hustle culture.

Energy Mapping: The color-coded strategy that helps you spot what fuels you and what drains you, so you can start scheduling your days for success.

Bridge vs. Cliff Activities: The powerful framework Erica uses to decide whether something propels her forward—or just keeps her spinning on the hamster wheel.

Weekly Reflection Ritual: How one 15-minute end-of-week check-in can lower your stress, boost happiness, and help you start every Monday focused and fulfilled.

If you’re tired of ending every year overwhelmed, this episode is your permission slip to slow down, realign, and finish strong on purpose.

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Transcript

Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors - Episode 27

Erica Rooney: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors podcast. The podcast where we get real about the challenges women face in work, life and leadership. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, HR executive, keynote speaker and executive coach, and I'm on a mission to get more women into positions of power and keep them there.

This is the space where we call it the paradoxes, being told to lean in, but not too far to speak up, but not too loudly. Be ambitious, but not too ambitious. Does that sound familiar? Yeah. We're over all that here. We break down the sticky floors that keep us stuck from imposter syndrome and perfectionism to burnout and fear, and give you real strategies to shatter those glass ceilings once and for all.

So if you're ready to rewrite the rules, own your power, and take your career and life to the next level, you're in the right place the end of this year, y'all. It is going to be here before you know it, and if you're feeling the pressure to squeeze every last drop out of the year, even [00:01:00] though you're already running on fumes, this episode is for you.

Now I know what it's like because I used to be in corporate, y'all. I remember the year end reviews, budget, budget, season Q4 goals, plus all the holidays. On top of that, like bless you. If you are in HR and you have to plan for all of the year end parties, like taking into account. Who's gluten-free? Who's vegan, who can't have red dye?

Whew. Y'all, all of this feels like the corporate finish line is sprinting at you at full speed. But here's the thing. This episode, it's not about pushing harder, it's about finishing the year. Aligned instead of feeling burned out and maybe just, maybe your best move right now is to slow down on purpose.

So the way I look at it is that finishing the year strong, it doesn't have to mean that you're doing more, that you're checking every single box. [00:02:00] But it does have to mean that you're choosing better. So if you've got performance reviews breathing down your neck, and a budget that still needs to be locked in, maybe projects that got pushed to December, and by the way, you still have to do those all before the quarter ends.

Oh, and you also have a boss who suddenly decides that now is the perfect time to circle back on that thing you asked about four months ago. I feel ya, because on top of that you are probably in full swing holiday mode with school holidays, family gatherings, gift shopping and wrapping, and you know, probably even hosting a party or two.

The expectation, at least for me and most of my female friends, is always perfection. It's always gotta be perfect, and that means usually that it's you. That's hustling harder, that you dig deeper, that you stay up later, you get up earlier, you respond to one last email before logging off, just so that you can do more with less.

But you're already stretched thin, and I don't have to tell you that [00:03:00] you are already doing the work of three people and then some. So that's why like this year, I wanted to change it up. I wanted to flip the script and instead of racing as fast as you can to literally check off every box and for what reason, do we even know that all those boxes need to be checked?

I wanna know what happens if we just pause. What happens if we pause just long enough to take stock of what's actually working, and then when you know what's working, double down on that. So basically it's figuring out what is working best. It's a simple concept really, and the way I've broken it down is by doing what I call this three part audit.

That includes auditing yourself, auditing your work, and auditing your energy. So this is gonna put evidence over emotion, which is huge when it comes to moving the needle the most. And it can be a huge help when you're working through like that hustle mentality that is so [00:04:00] hard to break over. But once a week, this is all I want you to do, and you'll notice I'm keeping this episode short.

I'm keeping it sweet and to the point because I've already told you we're already doing so much. The last thing I wanna do is add something else to your checklist. But this will free up more time for you, I promise. Once a week, ask yourself and write these things down. What are the three things that move the needle, big or small, doesn't matter.

And then I want you to ask yourself, what results did it create? Who benefited from those results if you didn't benefit at all? You may wanna think about that a little bit, but I want you to ask yourself, does it align with my goals? Does it align with the person I want to be? And the goal with this is to separate impact from activity.

Just because you're busy doesn't mean it was valuable. I mean, y'all, just this morning I had to stop myself from doing all of the busy work in the household. That always distracts me from the important things. This [00:05:00] morning, I wanted to get started on my new book that I'm calling it the AI Gap, women ai, and the next Great Leap Forward.

But listen, I can distract myself in so many ways, right? The laundry needs to be switched over, the dishwasher. I need to clean out and reorganize my makeup drawer. I've already done all of these things before. But none of those things, while helpful actually moved the needle on my goal to start on my book, none of them helped me achieve my goals.

And quite honestly, my makeup drawer didn't even need organizing or cleaning in the first place, and my kids can help with everything else. But once you've done that piece, once you've identified what moves the needle and what doesn't, then you have to do the energy check because your body. Really does know best.

That is why the very first step in my SNAP method is stop and take notice of what's going on inside your body. Your body keeps score. You need to start tracking what leaves you energized versus what leaves you totally drained and depleted. So if you wanna get [00:06:00] really technical, some people have done this.

I don't find that you have to do it this way, but if you are very systematic, it may work for you. You can color code your calendar, green, yellow, and red based off of your energy levels, right? So green is for good. It gives you energy. Red is obviously very bad. It's gonna deplete you. And yellow's kind of hit or miss.

It doesn't really do anything. It's a moot point, right? For me, creative activities fuel me. But what drains me are very detail oriented. Things like the bills and reconciliation and editing for grammar. I can't stand any of that, but I want you to look for the patterns. Are there certain meetings? Are there projects or maybe even people that can consistently drain you?

How can you limit those meetings and those interactions, or how can you make them less draining? So, for example, I put my most dreaded meetings first thing in the morning so that I can. Clear up my day, clear up my anxiety, and then I actually do it now. This is called Eating the Frog. [00:07:00] There's a book written about it, but if you go back in time, I'm sure I have an entire episode on it.

But that's why I also work out in the mornings too. I get it done, it's off my plate, but what lights you up? Is it creating new programs? That's what works for me, so I try to save those for moments when maybe I'm feeling least energized, like let's say the 4:00 PM slump. I am more likely. To bust out my computer and work on something that lights me up, then something that sucks my energy.

And now listen, you can't avoid all of those energy suckers, right? But you can strategically set them throughout your day and throughout your week. And then finally, I want you to do what I call the alignment test. And all you have to do is ask yourself, does this thing, this task, or this project, move me closer to where I want to be next year?

Or does it keep me running on the hamster wheel? So I'll do an easy example for you if you have a big project looming. Uh, but let's say you're an HR professional that just sent out an open enrollment email, and of course that makes 150 employees [00:08:00] send you an email with a question that, let's be honest, was probably answered in your last email.

You know what I'm talking about. Alright. If you're anything like me, I love a cleaned inbox. I really do. But that never moves the needle on my big year end engagement survey that I love to send out at the end of every year. Remember, this is all pretend, but based off pretty much my real life. The question is, do I spend my time responding to all of those individual emails or should I focus on the engagement survey?

Well, if I weigh my options, the emails can wait a day. They really can. But the longer I put off this big project. The longer it's gonna take me to get it going. And you know what that means? You procrastinate just one day. It doesn't feel so bad, but then that day turns into two days, which turns into a week, which turns into a few weeks.

And then you know what happens. December hits and everyone's off and you don't know what the heck happened to all of that time, but your engagement survey is nowhere near being [00:09:00] done, and that means no alignment. So I want you to think about it in terms of. Bridge activities or Cliff activities. Now, this is something I work with my private clients on, but bridge activities set you up for future growth, future recognition, and future alignment.

They get you from A to B Cliff activities. They take your time, they take your energy, but they get you nowhere towards your long-term vision. So another super easy example to follow is. I wanna create a life where my kids remember me as being this all-in Mom. I love hard work. I love good work, but my kids are always my top priority.

Do I A, spend all my time after dinner making sure the house is clean, the dishes are done, and everything's put away? Or do IB play a board game with my kids before we move on as a family to do the chores? And I think you know the answer. Now, another example might be volunteering for a high visibility cross-functional [00:10:00] project.

That could be a bridge, but spending five hours, reformatting slides that nobody really cares to read. That's a cliff. And by a show of hands, and again, this is a podcast, so y'all ain't really showing hands, but think about it. How many times have we wasted reformatting slides or changing the word in a sentence?

First of all, y'all, we got the power of ai. We don't need to be doing that, but I know we still do. So, okay. If you wanna bring all of this together in a super easy to digest plan, I want you to think of this as your one new weekly activity every Friday evening. Before you close out for the week, I want you to list your top three wins, your top three energy sources.

So where are you getting those boosts from? Your top three energy drains? And then I want you to map your calendar accordingly. I want you to look to cut the drains down as much as possible. Add boundaries around those and see where you can add to your energy boosts. [00:11:00] And then I want you to look for the bridge activity that will help you make some progress on those goals.

I want you to see where you can implement as many bridge activities as possible in that week. But then I also want you to look for just one cliff activity that you can step away from. Maybe it's at zero email inbox that I told you about, which by the way, y'all, it's so unattainable. I don't even know why that is a thing.

But you can get ahead by looking at your calendar for the next week and then even identifying what are your top three priorities that are gonna help you close on those goals, and then make those your targets for the wins for next week. And that becomes your North star. Now, you may ask me, how do you know it's working?

Erica? Like, December's just so crazy busy. I just don't even know that I have time to do this. Well, here's how you know it's working. You don't feel like you're running yourself ragged, y'all. When I finally started doing this, I realized that my stress levels were down. I was happier, like [00:12:00] genuinely happier at home.

And that cascades everywhere. Now there's a whole podcast out there called the 10% Happier Podcast. And this one exercise alone does more than 10%. It actually changes your life if you let it. It changed mine. But the problem isn't that we don't know this. We do. We're smart people, but we get so wrapped up in the day to day that this little thing called scope creep.

And yes, I'm stealing a term from the project management days, but we always have scope creep in our own lives. And you know what we do when we take the hit? Nothing. We just take on more and more stuff, thinking that if we run faster, if we hustle harder, if we do more, we'll pull ourselves out of it. You know who takes the hit?

We do. Our families do. Our kids do. Our happiness does. So how about we stop this nonsense where it feels like we're running around on a hamster wheel with hair flying everywhere, but yet going nowhere. And let's start leaning in to a little bit slower, but more [00:13:00] intentional way of living. Now, I never told you that it was gonna be easy, right?

It is very hard to slow down sometimes, and you have to be intentional about it. But when you look for those bridge activities and you start eliminating those cliff activities, you'll find that you're moving the needle on the activities that mean the most, and you're creating a life that you don't have to feel like you're escaping from.

All right, friends, if today's conversation, little fryer under you, here's your next move. Don't keep it for yourself. Share this episode with a friend, drop a review and let's keep the conversation going. Remember that your potential is limitless and the only thing standing in your way are those sticky floors.

But guess what? You have the power to break through them. So go out there, take up space, and let's shatter some dang ceilings [00:14:00] together.