Episode 331: This Year, I Didn’t Hustle — I Returned
This year, I didn’t hustle. I returned.
I returned to how my energy actually works. I returned to how my mind processes. I returned to timing instead of pressure. And I returned to showing up in ways that don’t cost me my health.
In this episode, I share what I finally had to face: I was still running operating in a Generator way — weekly output, constant visibility, and treating consistency as proof of worth.
I break down my Human Design — my Incarnation Cross, active gates, and my only channel — and explain why that approach doesn’t work for me. My role isn’t endless production. It’s discernment, synthesis, and speaking at the right moment.
I also share what this means for the podcast and how I’ll be showing up moving forward.
If you’ve been forcing yourself into structures that drain you and wondering why it feels so hard, this episode will help you understand what patterns to notice.
Listen to the Episode:
“Burnout begins in your mind before your body forces you to stop.”
Read the Transcript:
Hello my friend! Welcome back to The Live FAB Life Podcast. I’m Naomi Nakamura and I hope, wherever you are in this world, that you’re enjoying the holiday season.
I’m half-way through my three week holiday break and I’ve reached the point where I have no idea what day it is. It’s the magical moment where time doesn’t count!
It’s also the time of year when a lot of reflection happens, but actually, I’ve been doing a lot of reflection over the entire year.
And in this episode, I’m going to open up, bring you behind the scenes and share some of what I’ve been reflecting on with you and what it’s led me to – and not only is this a reflection, it’s also a wellness conversation.
Because the way we work, the way we create, and how we show up has a direct impact on our mental capacity, our physical energy and how our nervous system functions, and if we don’t take care of these things, that’s when we fall into burnout.
But, what I’ve come to learn is that burnout doesn’t always show up as a total collapse. For me, it always starts as mental fatigue — an inability to focus, decision fatigue, the feeling that everything takes more effort than it should, doing a lot of things but not doing any of them well.
Constant output, constant visibility, and constant decision-making keeps the nervous system activated. But while you might look (and feel) productive, it’s not sustainable.
Burnout begins in your mind before your body forces you to stop.
I’ve thought about this a lot since learning about Human Design, about MY Human Design as a Projector. I’ve made great strides over the past five years to align to my design, especially how I’ve come to make space for rest into my daily life.
But in a lot of ways, I’m still trying to function as a Generator.
When I started my health coaching practice over a decade ago, I was taught that when it comes to marketing your business and showing up for your people, consistency mattered above all else – daily posts, weekly episodes and email newsletters.
Predictable schedules. Constant presence. You stay visible. You output every week. You keep the machine running.
That model assumes steady energy. It sounds responsible, but it also quietly burns people out.
My body and my brain doesn’t work that way and over the past decade of forcing myself into that structure that, at times, created resentment, led to exhaustion, and disconnected from my Splenic intuition.
What I thought was discipline was actually self-override. At times felt like a fraud – the irony of a health coach running into burnout trying to show up as a health coach.
I’m not designed to produce constantly. I am designed to process, refine, and speak when something has fully formed.
And a few months ago I realized that after all this time, I’ve still been showing up in the Generator way.
I was still applying Generator rules to a Projector ecosystem. Weekly podcast episodes. Weekly newsletters. A social media algorithm that rewards repetition, conformation, and constant presence. Marketing that assumes you can keep producing indefinitely and still have a nervous system.
This model assumes that we have steady, sustainable energy. It assumes that we can push through. It assumes our output is the proof of our value.
My body doesn’t work like this.
And the longer I tried to force myself into this structure, the more mentally tired I became. Not because I didn’t care. Not because I wasn’t committed. But because the container was wrong for my energy.
I’m here to be a guide, not to spend all my time and energy on hooks, reels, and captions.
I’ve spent most of the past year ruminating on this. Experimenting with the algorithm. How my body felt in this experimentation.
And this is where Human Design stopped being “just interesting” and became useful.
Because when I look at my design, it’s obvious what I’m built for — and it isn’t endless production.
My Incarnation Cross is the Right Angle Cross of Rulership 4.
That word, “rulership,” sounds intense; when I first heard it, it threw me off. Human Design tends to do that – it has language that can be challenging to comprehend, but I think this is where I excel, because I can translate it in ways that everyone can understand.
And “rulership” doesn’t mean what we’d typically think it means. It’s not leadership by dominance. It’s not leadership by volume. Nor is it leadership by constant visibility.
For me, “rulership” is deciding what matters. It’s recognizing the pattern, naming the signal, cutting through the noise. It’s setting the tone without “performing” certainty.
And this role requires quiet discernment, correct timing, and discernment and timing requires space for rest and recovery.
Let me break this down for you:
The Incarnation Cross is your life purpose – the theme of your life, and its made up of your two Sun gates and your two Earth gates.
My Sun gates are Gate 26 and Gate 47.
Gate 26 is the gift of messaging – strategic messaging. It’s the ability to distill complexity into something people can actually absorb (doesn’t that sound like Human Design?) It’s the ability to frame a message so that it lands. It’s also the ability to know what not to say.
When aligned, the gift of Gate 26 protects people from overload. It doesn’t flood them with information. It doesn’t try to convince people who aren’t ready to hear the messaging.
When misaligned, Gate 26 over-explains. It pushes, it repeats too much in an attempt to earn recognition.
So for my wellness — and for my business — the correct use of my Gate 26 Sun energy (our Sun energy is hugely significant) is precision, not repetition. It’s saying less, but saying it cleanly.
My other Sun gate is Gate 47 which is the gift of mental alchemy. It’s the part of me that sits with ambiguity and confusion long enough for it to turn into insight.
This means that I’m not built for instant answers. I’m built for synthesis, and synthesis takes energy. It requires quiet and it requires time.
If I force myself to keep producing while I am still processing, I drain my energy, my nervous system and I lose clarity.
If you’ve ever judged yourself for being “quiet” or for needing time before you speak, I want you to consider your processing cycles and how they might be your gifts, not your flaws.
Now, Earth gates are grounding, and my Earth gates are Gate 45 and Gate 22.
Gate 45 is the voice of the collective – it’s the voice of “we.” It’s being a guide and a resource saying, “Here is what matters and here is what we do next.”
But the gift of Gate 45 only works correctly when there’s recognition. It doesn’t work when I’m chasing attention.
And we know that when a Projector tries to lead without an invitation – without recognition – it usually ends in bitterness and resentment.
Resentment isn’t just emotional. It is energetic. It’s a signal that I’m forcing a role I’m not meant to force.
Gate 22 is the gift of grace. It's the mood and timing. And since its in the Solar Plexus center, it’s emotional atmosphere.
In plain language, the gift of Gate 22 means that my impact isn’t just about what I say, it’s also about when I say it.
And if this energy is off, the message doesn’t land. If I push through and speak anyway, I feel exposed and depleted.
This is why forcing myself to keep up with a daily posting and weekly publishing rhythm ultimately no longer works for me, well, it never has.
Now here is the part that ties everything together. I have only one channel in my Human Design. Only two centers connect together – the 48–16 connecting the Spleen to the Throat center.
This channel is depth to skill to mastery.
It means I’m built to go deep, to practice, to refine, and then speak from something I have actually experienced and embodied. I’m not built to brainstorm endlessly. I’m not built to teach what I have not lived. I’m not built to share the journey in real time. I’m not built to keep producing new ideas just to stay visible. I am built for mastery through refinement.
And that is exactly why transitioning from weekly episodes to limited series makes sense for me.
It matches my processing and my recovery. It gives me space to go deep, to live the thing, to refine the insight, and then to deliver it – with precision.
I also have a lot of throat activation. The Throat center has the most gates and it’s the center in my design with the most active gates.
Gate 16 — Skill and Mastery: I’m meant to speak from lived experiences. Teaching too early creates mental strain. Mastery maintains steadiness.
Gate 31 — Direction, Not Force: I influence best when invited. Chasing attention creates exhaustion. Responding to recognition is a better use of my energy.
Gate 35 — Progress Through Experience: My voice is meant to share what’s been lived, tested, and corrected — not what sounds inspiring.
Gate 45 — Stewardship: I’m here to gather and orient, not hold everything together alone.
My voice organizes people. My voice gives structure. Constant posting, weekly episodes, and algorithm-driven visibility burns me out. My voice isn’t meant to entertain. It’s meant to guide and simplify.
I’m meant to speak constantly but when I do speak, it carries weight.
And if I try to turn that into constant output, the weight of my voice disappears and my body pays for it.
This is what I mean by: “I didn’t hustle, I returned,”.
I’m returning to timing. I’m returning to synthesis. I’m returning to mastery. I’m returning to speaking when something has crystallized, not when the calendar says it is time.
Earlier this year, I released my signature program, “Find Your Flow.” It took me six months to build. I could have forced it out faster. I could have hustled it. I could have treated its creation like a productivity sprint.
But I didn’t want a program built from pressure. I wanted something built from clarity. And that’s what started me to rethink the podcast, the weekly email newsletters, the Instagram posts.
The daily and weekly cadences kept me visible, but they cost me recovery. They compressed my thinking. They asked me to stay in output mode, even when my body was in synthesis mode.
So the “good” changes I’ve been teasing you about the past couple of episodes?
I’m shifting the podcast toward limited series. So instead of new episodes every Tuesday, I’m going to have shorter limited series episodes – no set schedule. You can thank Netflix for this idea with their “limited series.”
I’m also shifting the email newsletters to when I have something real to say instead of weekly. I may have something to say in consecutive weeks and there may be times where I have nothing to say for months. I’m not keeping a schedule, I’m leaning into my Splenic Authority. The quiet discernment and timing.
I think Instagram is going to be the same. Honestly, it’s such an energy drain, and it’s such a soul sucker. Don’t get me wrong, I like being on the app, I like having a presence there and I like consuming there. Just like I like having a podcast – I just want to show up how I want to, and when I want to, not how an algorithm wants me to play.
Oh, and something new – I’m creating space for personal essays in Substack, because not everything belongs in marketing. I dabbled in Substack six months ago as I started to rethink how I wanted to show up. I like it - it won’t be like my podcast episodes.
It’s going to be completely inwardly focused - likely on adjacent topics, maybe completely unrelated topics – what’s important to me at any given time.
I can tell you lately, identity and what it means to be of Asian heritage has been on my mind a lot – that’s definitely going to be something I write about there.
I’m finally going to do things in ways that don’t induce mental fatigue and burnout as the price of admission.
My friend, if you’ve been trying to force consistency – in anything you’re pursuing – your work, your business, your social media, your health and wellness – and it keeps failing, I want you to consider a different possibility. A different way of doing things.
I want you to consider that maybe your energy isn’t random’ maybe it’s just been ignored.
Maybe the structure you’ve been trying to live inside was designed for someone else.
And maybe the most wellness-aligned thing you can do is stop treating your capacity like a character flaw and start treating it like data.
If this episode hits a nerve, start small.
Start by learning the basics of how your energy is designed to operate, because having clarity around that will reduce mental negotiation and how exhausting is mental negotiation?
This is exactly what Designed to Thrive: A Gentle Guide to Human Design is for. I wrote this guide to walk you through your Type, Strategy, and Authority in a grounded way, so you can stop forcing yourself into systems that no longer fit – that actually never fit.
You can find it linked in the show notes at www.livefablife.com/331 for Episode 331.
This year, I didn’t hustle. I returned and I plan to keep returning in 2026.
And if you’ve been tired for reasons you can’t quite explain, I hope this gives you a new way to see what has been happening.
I’ll have another episode for you next week to kick off the new year – hint we’re going to dispel all those “new year, new you” January 1st bullshit, and then after that, we’ll transition to limited series episodes.
And if you have a topic you’d like to hear in a limited series, let me know!
And with that, I’ll return to my holiday bubble where I’m rewatching Friends from the beginning while sipping hot chocolate with daily naps.
Bye for now!
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
Connect with Naomi on: Instagram
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