the zurkie show - why you're so worn out (and how to fix it)

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

the romanticization of overachieving is so real. I feel like success used to be measure in consistency and focus, not in how many college club meetings you can attend in one night.I think we have to learn our limits and we have to know when it's time to just scale back what we do. It's better to do less and do it exceptionally well than fail at doing way too many things.sending you all love and peaaaaaaaace!https://linktr.ee/thezurkieshow

You don't need to be everybody's friend. You don't. Actually, I would urge you to really look around at the people that you befriend and ask yourself if you actually like them. Do you feel like you are willing to put an effort to be their friend? And would they reciprocate that effort? You don't need to be the most successful person in your grade. You don't have to be top of your class.

You don't. Who's telling you that you need to? Your parents? Okay. Is that a motivation that's intrinsic? Is that something that you want? No. You want to be an artist?

Cool. You don't need to be the top of your class. You don't need to be the best in some kind of comparison and some kind of, you know, race. You just have to be you. And still, I struggle to realize that it's just okay to be me. And oftentimes, as a compensation for that, I find myself doing too much. and that's when I lose my motivation. It's like I wake up in the morning.

I don't want to do anything because I've piled so much onto my plate because I want to prove to everyone that I can do it, that I'm worthy of it. But the truth is you're doing too much. You're doing too much. And maybe what you're doing too much of is you're putting these expectations that are just unrealistic. I know, I know, you want them to be true.

And maybe if you were a robot, they would be true. But you're not. You're not a robot. You're a person. Maybe one day, you know, AI will be able to integrate with my body and I'll be like, calculating, calculating. Yes, I will be spending $60 at Chili's credit card inserted. But until then, no, no, you are a human being.

sorry, that's the card that you were dealt. You were born into this world and you are a human like all of us. They not like us? No, they are very much like us. We're all very same in our patterns and in our sometimes ability to piss ourselves off because we had plans, because we had aspirations, we had things we wanted to do and we let ourselves fall short. And I think that you know, motivation is something that a lot of people talk about as this thing. Oh, you need to be productive. You need to be motivated all the time. And maybe you're in a position right now where you kind of feel like you don't have a lot of motivation to do anything. And you're kind of in this rot era, this rot phase of your life. And I used to really hate that. I used to hate when I couldn't

like get out of bed or I just like didn't feel inclined to do anything. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, felt like something was really, really wrong with me. Until I started to like realize that, wait a minute, no, this is just my mind and my body telling me, I need a break. You're doing too much. I need to relax. I need to watch something on YouTube. I need to scroll a little bit.

I need you to take me on a walk. I need you to read a book. I don't know what it is, but I just cannot do what you are asking me to do. do right now. And instead of getting angry at that, because I know that I have a certain standard and I want to reach that standard, I want to be right there. Instead, I've learned to be like, all right, respect. It's like top 10 respect moments in football, you know.

It's always like the Photoshopped messy, like, you know, doing that. So I respect, you know, myself and my mind and my body and I go, okay, it's not. happening right now. Motivation is, I think, something that is very achievable when you lower the amount of work that you feel like you need to do, when it feels easy. Now, don't get me wrong. I think that there are a lot of things that you can do that are hard, and they actually require you to put some brain power into it, like studying for an exam, or you have a certain project in mind that you want to create. You have a certain design you want to bring to life. You have a certain place you want to go travel to. As this plane flies over my head right now,

you have to plan it out, right? All of that takes effort. But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, if you feel kind of this overwhelming mountain of resistance, maybe you are doing too much. Maybe it's, It's not for you. And I've learned that there are certain things I would much rather fight the resistance of on a daily basis than others, right? I'm not really somebody who likes to go out a lot. I'm not somebody who's like, I need to be at this party. I need to go to this event. Oh my gosh, time me up, you know.

I love being social. I love going out when I can. Yes. but also I kind of like chilling on my own. It's a big, I mean, I'm a big chiller. And I found that like the feeling I would get when I would go out would be one of like resistance. Like, oh, my God, I really, I really don't want to be doing this right now. Like, oh, man.

And I think it was because I had a lack of control, like maybe the places I was going to, I didn't really care to go there. They weren't in my scope of what I liked and they weren't around the people I found interesting, right? And I learned that, okay, I still want to be social. I think being social is very important. I still want to meet people who inspire me. But I can do it my own way. You know, I can find my own spin on it.

Maybe I have to be the person who's hosting. And yes, there will be more effort I have to put into it because I got to clean my house. I got to make sure there's food, you know. What we eat and? Where to snacks at? I got to be in charge of that. I got to make sure that we have, you know, beverages so we stay hydrated. You know, but that's a level of, you know, doing that I'm willing to do because I know that the payoff is going to be so worth it.

But sometimes like the idea of like, oh, we're going to go to this place and then that place and then this place. It's like, oh my goodness, I just want to chill. I want to relax, right? similarly honestly i i felt this kind of pushback when it came to filmmaking i was so i was i was so convinced i need to i needed to have the perfect look the perfect camera the perfect sound everything needed to be perfect until i just felt this pressure of like a mountain i don't want to climb. I was like, I'm not interested. There's nothing that calls me to this. It feels like it's a prerequisite that I need to do these things or else like I am not in the playing field. And

when I kind of took a step back and I was like, wait a minute, I am doing way too much, especially when it started to hinder my creativity. I didn't even want to pick up a camera because I was like paralyzed. I really went back to the drawing board and I'm like, is this even why I like to create? Is this really why I have an interest in connecting with people? Or am I just like being OD with it? I was being OD with it. Spoiler alert, I was. And maybe there's something similarly in your life right now that you feel this way. Maybe you grew up playing a certain sport. Everyone has told you you're super good at that sport. But deep down, you know that you could care less. But it's that image, right? It's that image that you've been good at it. You don't want to just like throw that

away. I get that. But if it's starting to impact your your day to day and you are really feeling like you're kind of suffering through this and it's not fun, it's not enticing, and it's not a challenge that feels like it is really developing you as a person, then why would you do it? Like why? It's the same thing as if, you know, you have a friend that you keep reaching out to and they don't reach back out to you. They're not reciprocating that feeling. And it's different when you have a friend that is busy, right? They're doing their thing. You're doing your thing. And you know, though, that you can count on them. And when it's time to reach out, it's time to meet up for coffee, they're going to be there. And they're going to be like, what's up? And you're going to be like, what's up? You know, it's so interesting.

I feel like we pack a lot on our plates. because it's almost as if we have a standard of being perfect. Like, you cannot make a mistake anymore. And I'm still kind of figuring that balance out. I don't like making mistakes. I really don't. Admitting to making a mistake is embarrassing. Admitting that I cannot do something is embarrassing.

But I started to let go of those feelings of embarrassment when I started to champion the things that I'm good at. And I feel like I have a talent to, and I feel like I have a calling to. It's almost like, yeah, you know, okay, I'm not the best at, you know, freestyle rapping. I wish I was. I wish I had bars and I could do a 16. And I could do my best. Some of the bars might be kind of mid.

But you give me a, you know, a Summers type beat. You give me a DeSavage type beat. Oh, I'm there. I'm going band for band. Why are you taking pictures in that lamb if you don't own one? Shut up Plackboy Max one time. But you might be doing too much, you know? You might be doing too much and you might feel like you are hyper fixated on your weaknesses,

on the things you're not good at, and you are not giving that same kind of focus to your strengths, to the things that actually make you you. And I think it is important to recognize weaknesses, Like, let's say you're terrible. You are terrible at reaching out to people. You're so bad at that. You just kind of, like, wait for things to come to you, right?

I get that. It's like, I mean, dude, I sometimes suck at that, too. I'll be like, oh, my gosh, this person texted me two months ago, and I just read it. I read it. Maybe, maybe it's time to turn off the red receipts. But I like the red receipts, though, because it's, like, honest. I'm being transparent. Because people who keep their red receipts on delivered,

I just feel like you're hiding something. That's all, because you know that you have the power. Now, have I read messages and then, like, did the unread on Instagram? Yeah, of course. I've read things, and I'll be like, I don't want them to know I read that. You know, yeah, of course, like, duh. But at the same time, at the same time, oh, at the same time, you know, Maybe you do feel like you want to get better at reaching out to people, right?

That's something that's important to you. You want to build more friendships and connections. But maybe your strength is calling somebody. Maybe it's not texting them. It's actually just giving them a call out of the blue and you feel more comfortable doing that. Like, do more of that. That's a form of it. Sometimes we set the standard of doing something because everyone does it a certain way.

But there's so many ways to be, just to be a person. There's so many different ways, right? There's like so many ways that you can be a good communicator. There's so many different ways in which you can find your strengths and know your weaknesses and notice your weaknesses. And I think that part of that is like just realizing, hey, you know, let's say you're bad at reaching out to people, but you're really good at showing up to things. You're really good at being at people's events.

You're really good at just like. calling someone out of the blue and being like, hey, I was doing this thing. I was at T.J. Max and I saw, you know, I was in the snack aisle because the snack aisle always be having the heavy heaters, but those like growing up, I would beg my mom. I'd be like, Mama, proche, in Polish. And she'd be like, no, no, we are not buying it. We have food at home. Meanwhile, food at home was ketchup and mustard. That was food at home. And buraki. Shout out the Polish people one time. potential in over 20,000 Canadian athletes and counting.

Your story could be next. If you've got the drive, they'll help you find your path to the Olympics. Let's see what you've got. Sign up for free at rbc training ground.ca. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch. Steep.

Flip. Or that and enjoy. Via rail, love the way. Call humbas. Anyways, like, we set the standard of doing things based on, like, how a lot of people do things or, like, maybe what's the most romantic? What's the most whimsical? What's the most convenient? Okay, that's great. That's awesome. But what if we just focused on what is the easiest thing for us to do? Like, if you are someone who struggles with reaching out to people, but your strength is, you know when events are, you know when to pull up to things, and you feel like, oh, like, I know, you know, I know when to call something. someone out of the blue. I really have a good sense about that. Then do more of that. Do more of that. That will attract people who respect your way of communicating. You know, I'm somebody who, oh my goodness, I'm bad at responding, which everyone is bad at responding. We respond to people who we want to respond to, but I always pick up a phone call. That's my rule. So if somebody calls me,

I pick up, you know, famously, John Pork was calling picked up. So it's the same kind of energy you have to I think give yourself grace and the things that you might not feel the best at and just be like okay I'm just gonna I'm gonna focus on doing this my way I'm gonna focus on figuring out how can I how I can function in like my own strengths and like how can I do this that might be you know it might feel like I'm doing too much and it might feel like I'm just putting a lot on me but if I actually do it in this way, I feel totally in control of things. It is so easy to kind of close yourself in as a person. And when you see other people doing something and they'd say, oh, that's, I mean, that is the productive way of doing things. You immediately think, well, okay, I want to be somebody who's productive,

which means that I need to mimic that behavior. I need to do that. And maybe the behavior is one that you can mimic. It's one that you can draw inspiration from. But it doesn't have to be that exact thing. You know, you hear a lot of people talk about like career advice and, you know, oh, if you want to have a successful future, it's like lawyer, doctor, you know, entrepreneur. But the reality is that there are so many people in this world that are making a living and doing really well for themselves, doing things that they like, right? And they've just become creative in the way they've been able to monetize those things. Or they don't have that same kind of need for money, for example, and they're happy having certain cuts to their lifestyle because they

really just, their passion lies somewhere else. It's, I think, when we put these standards on ourselves and we start kind of, you know, just pushing ourselves down because we find everything that is wrong about the way we naturally are. That's when we're doing too much. That's when we come off as insincere. We don't come off as authentic. We become people pleasers. We become people who focus on everybody except ourselves because we're doing too much. And the real breaking point is when you come to a point where you realize that everything you have done in your life has not been of your own want. Imagine that.

Imagine one day you wake up and you realize everything you worked hard for. You poured blood, sweat, and tears into it's not yours. It's not. Yeah, that's not a good place to be. So I'm trying to avoid that. I'm trying to plan my days and plan my life in a way that doesn't feel like I'm trying to force, feed something down my throat. It feels as if this is my font on my life.

I am writing my life the same way. a lot of other people before me, but I'm doing it with a little flare, with my own flare, because that's the only way I know how to do it. Well, what if, what if you don't know what your flare is? What if you don't know how to make something your own or how to live something your own? Good point. I think you'll find comfort in looking at what you do and genuinely asking yourself if any of those things bring you joy or if it's something to fill the time right is it something that someone told you at a career fair you should do because it'll look good on your resume because there there is a lack of passion in our world today there is there's a lack of

urgency because why would you be urgent about something you don't care about it doesn't matter and i'm getting paid for it you know there is kind of this lack of purpose behind a lot of our lives and it's it's getting difficult like I'm not gonna sit here and be like I have to figure it out no dude every day I'm like reminded of like why why should you know we even continue there's so much going on that's out of our control that that is just like it's it sucks it really does suck but we we cannot let that crush us we can't I mean in my opinion if you if you feel a different way, that's okay. I respect your opinion and I totally see why. But I think that a lot of the change that we want to see does really start with ourselves. It starts with being honest with

how we feel about things and how we feel about ourselves. And then we can start to be honest to each other because I think we're just trying to keep up. We're trying to keep up with things that are being sold to us, different archetypes of a person, right? And I've talked about that before of just people, people don't really know who they are. So they buy into a skin on the Fortnite store. And they become gym bro. And there's nothing wrong with that. Dude, there's nothing wrong with that.

Like, that's great. You want to stay healthy. You feel good. That's awesome. But just know, if you feel like you have a lack of motivation, if you feel like recently, you just, you have not been able to figure yourself out. Maybe it is because. you need to give yourself time and you need to give yourself space and it's not that you're

unmotivated. It's not that you're, I'm lazy. It might be that you're doing too much and you're doing too much of the thing you don't want to do and not enough of the thing that you do want to do Cirque show, ask yourself this. Because once I caught on to this, it really changed and shifted my perspective. And I was able to reallocate a lot of time doing what I liked. And yes, we have things we have to do every day. A lot of us have jobs. A lot of us have responsibilities. We have things we got to do. We got school. We have a streak on Snapchat. We got to check it on. Oh, do people still have those that's cute i i i miss snapchat streaks real talk um and maybe we just need to sacrifice some of that time to things that we do genuinely like and that will bring us more clarity as to how we're

supposed to move forward and maybe less is more maybe instead of having 500 things that you're doing having two that you're genuinely passionate about and that you love that will speak volume That will speak volumes, not only to other people, but to yourself. Because you'll build that evidence that, yeah, I have this passion and I like this thing. And that is something very, very special Zerky Show. Did you know that the Zirky Show is everywhere you go? You can watch it. You can scroll it.

You can stream it. The choice is yours. So do with that what you will. Tap in. Who's calling my phone? It's the Zirky Show. And guess what? Mail time with Zerky is coming soon. If you want to send me something in the mail, this is the way to do it. Look forward to it. If you want a chance to be featured, address your letter, your question, whatever you have to this PO box.

Thank you. Do the things that bring you joy. Don't forget that oftentimes the rough days are worth to tough out because then you'll look back at it and be like, I did that. We eat those. famously we eat those. Other than that, take it easy sometimes. Yes, there will be moments in life where things will be mid, but it's worth it for the highs and the lows. Zirky Show, I believe in you, I trust you,

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