I don't know about you, but I have a tendency to go all in.

Not casually. Not “let me try this out and see how it goes.”

I mean 200% in. Researching, learning, buying supplies, rearranging my schedule, thinking about it while I’m supposed to be doing something else, and somehow convincing myself this new project absolutely requires a very specific tool, container, notebook, software, cutting mat, or organizational system.

This is why my room looks like a craft store with boundary issues.

It’s also why I spent nearly two years fully immersed in making handmade books. I loved it. I learned so much. I made beautiful things.

And then I burned out.

This is a pattern I’ve noticed in myself for years. I find a new craft, a new idea, a new project, and I throw myself into it with everything I have. For a while, it feels amazing. Energizing. Almost electric.

Until it starts intruding on the rest of my life.

Other responsibilities get pushed aside. My business gets quieter than I intended. My brain keeps circling the project even when I’m supposed to be resting. The thing that began as joy slowly starts picking up the weight of obligation.

And eventually, something gives.

I’m aware that, for some people, this kind of pattern can be connected to neurodivergence. That’s not something I’ve fully explored for myself, so I’m not using it as a label here. What I do know is that this is one of the ways my brain has always worked.

It latches on, dives deep, and wants to build the whole castle before breakfast.

Right now, I’m working on a lifelong dream project: writing and editing my first novel.

And already, I can see the pattern trying to set up a tent and camp out.

Take this past week, for example.

I finished the first draft of my novel, which means the gigantic task of editing is now looming in front of me. Knowing that, I did what many of us do when faced with a large, intimidating project.

I went looking for advice.

I hopped down the rabbit hole of TikTok posts and YouTube videos about editing. Developmental edits. Line edits. Revision passes. Printed manuscripts. Scene analysis. Color coding. Tabs. Highlighters. Systems upon systems upon systems.

It was actually rather helpful.

I printed out my manuscript, just as so many people suggested. That part made sense. There’s something different about seeing your words on paper. It gives the work weight. It makes the draft feel real.

But then my brain got completely ensnared by one particular suggestion: using highlighters to color code different aspects of the book.

Yellow for dialogue.

Red for conflict.

Pink for romance.

You get the drift.

The problem was that I only had highlighters in blue, green, red, lavender, gray, and brown.

Now, a perfectly reasonable person might say, “That’s fine. Just substitute the colors you already have.”

And technically, yes. I could have done that.

I could have decided that blue would be dialogue, lavender would be romance, green would be character growth, and gray could be whatever gray wanted to be when it grew up.

Except that is not how my brain works.

Because my brain had seen the system. The system called for yellow, pink, orange, and teal. Therefore, according to the very official committee inside my head, I needed yellow, pink, orange, and teal.

And not just any highlighters.

No.

They needed to be Zebra Mildliners. The double-tip ones. Chisel end on one side, fine point on the other.

Why? Because that’s the type of highlighters I already had.  I needed consistency here. 

In my defense, I tried to talk myself out of this.

I reminded myself that I already had more than enough pens, Post-it notes, page flags, and yes, highlighters to mark up a manuscript. I told myself that buying more supplies was not the same thing as doing the actual work. I pointed out, quite reasonably, that my draft did not care whether the romance was highlighted in pink or lavender.

My brain did not care.

Instead, I kept finding myself searching online to see if a local shop sold individual Mildliners, because I really did not want to buy an entire set of fifteen just to get the handful of colors I had suddenly decided were essential to my creative survival.

Eventually, my son found a local artist supply store that sold them individually.

So what did I do?

I went and bought the orange, pink, yellow, and teal.

And I threw in a vermillion for good measure.

Also a pen case that looks like a Shiba dog, because obviously they needed a place to live.

This is the way my brain works.

I did not need those highlighters.

But my brain believed I did.

And until those specific highlighters were in my possession, I could not sit down and start marking up my manuscript. It was as if the project had been locked behind a tiny pastel-colored gate, and the only key was apparently located at an art supply store.

That is what I’m paying attention to.

Because this is not really about highlighters.

It’s about the way a dream project can get tangled in the way our brains function. It’s about the strange little rules we create without meaning to. It’s about the tools, systems, decisions, and conditions we suddenly believe we need before we can begin.

And I don’t want that pattern to quietly take over something that matters this much to me.

I don’t want to love this dream so intensely that I accidentally make it unsustainable. I don’t want to burn myself out on something that has lived in my heart for this long. I also don’t want to neglect my business, my clients, my health, my home, or the rest of my life while I chase it.

Because the goal isn’t to become less passionate.

The goal is to build a life that can hold that passion.

And that is the part I keep coming back to.

So many of us try to build our businesses, creative projects, routines, goals, and dreams around the person we think we should be.

The always-consistent person.

The perfectly disciplined person.

The person who can follow a rigid content calendar, keep a spotless office, answer every email on time, prep dinner, drink enough water, remember birthdays, and somehow still have the emotional energy to pursue a dream after business hours.

She’s a lovely imaginary woman.

Most of us are not building around that version of ourselves because that version doesn't exist.

We have to build around the brain we actually have.

For me, that means recognizing that my excitement can turn into over-immersion if I don’t give it structure. It means I need boundaries that don’t kill the joy, but keep the joy from taking over the entire house. It means I need a minimum rhythm for my business even when my creative brain is galloping through a fictional forest with a broody man in a long coat.

For someone else, the challenge might look completely different.

Your brain might derail your dreams through perfectionism, convincing you that you can’t begin until every detail is polished.

Or procrastination, where the project matters so much that starting it feels strangely terrifying.

It might show up as overcommitting, because every opportunity feels important and saying no feels like closing a door forever.

Or decision fatigue, where you spend so much time choosing the platform, format, offer, title, color palette, or next step that the dream never gets enough room to breathe.

Maybe it’s comparison, where someone else’s progress makes your own path feel small.

Maybe it’s all-or-nothing thinking, where missing one day somehow becomes proof that you’ve failed completely.

Or maybe it’s the shiny new idea, arriving right on schedule just when the current dream starts requiring patience.

None of this means you’re lazy or undisciplined. It doesn’t mean you don’t want the thing badly enough or that you aren’t committed to it.

It may simply mean your current system is built for someone who does not live in your body, your business, your schedule, or your brain.

That matters.

Because dreams need more than passion. They need support.

Not complicated support. Not a color-coded productivity palace.

Support can be simple.

Start with a weekly minimum you can actually keep.

Give your dream project specific days or containers so it doesn’t quietly absorb every available hour.

Create a parking lot for new ideas, a place to capture them without letting them hijack the project you’re already committed to.

Set business non-negotiables so your income-producing work doesn’t disappear every time inspiration walks into the room.

Lower the bar enough that you can keep going during real life.

And instead of asking, “What would a more disciplined person do?” ask, “What does sustainable look like for me?”

That question changes everything.

Because when we stop fighting how we function, we can start designing around it.

I don’t want to stop being the kind of person who gets wildly excited about ideas. That part of me has created beautiful things. It has taught me new skills. It has helped me build, imagine, experiment, and dream. Heck, it’s what enabled me to build a successful business. 

But I am learning that passion needs a place to live.

I can’t give it the whole house.

It needs to be assigned a room. A rhythm. A structure. It needs a way to exist inside my life without taking over every corner of it.

That’s what I’m working on now.

Because it’s pretty futile to try to work against the way my brain works. When I do that, I end up abandoning a dream or dulling it down.  I force myself into a version of productivity that is never going to fit, the same way that pair of Levi button fly jeans from high school are never getting past these post baby, post-menopausal hips. 

I have to build around the brain I actually have. That means finding balance between the passion project and the rest of my life.  

And sometimes it means buying the pretty highlighters. 

For you it may be something different. But once you embrace and come to understand the way your brain works, you can find that same kind of balance that keeps you moving forward. 

What’s your version of the pretty highlighters? I’d genuinely love to know. Hit reply and tell me what your brain tends to latch onto when a dream, project, or big next step starts feeling real.

Here’s to building around the brain you actually have, pretty highlighters and all,

If someone came to mind while you were reading this, feel free to send it her way. Sometimes the person who looks like she’s procrastinating, overthinking, overplanning, or starting over again isn’t lazy. She may just be trying to build a dream with a brain that needs different support.

Need support building your business around the way you actually work? Start with Shift Support.

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