Some Days I Don’t Leave My Bed. I’m Still Successful.

Kyleigh Leist

Marketing Director

There are days I feel unstoppable. I wake up before my alarm, the sunlight cuts through my curtains just right, and something inside me whispers, “You’ve got this.” I lace up my Nikes, take a long walk, breathe in the morning, come home, make a real breakfast—not just an energy drink and guilt—and I even manage to read a few pages of that book I swore I’d finish months ago. By 9am, I’ve showered, cleaned the kitchen, answered a few emails, and actually feel… present. Grounded.

Then there are the other days.

The ones where my eyes open and my body immediately says, “Nope.” Not today. Days where I roll over, reach for my phone, scroll for too long, and then wonder why I feel worse. Days where I don’t shower. Where I forget to eat until dinner. Where I miss the sunlight entirely. Where I hit “start” on my workday an hour—or three—later than I meant to. Where I go to bed late, wake up feeling behind, and start the cycle again.

If I’m being honest, those days used to make me feel like a failure. Like I was somehow undoing all the “good” I did the day before. I used to keep score.

Good day: up early, checked the boxes, didn’t cry. Bad day: still in bed, didn’t move my body, felt anxious and foggy.

But what I’ve realized—what I’m still learning, honestly—is that success doesn’t come from how many things you cross off a list. It’s not about how early you wake up or how clean your kitchen is. It’s not even about consistency in the traditional sense. Some of the most “successful” days I’ve had didn’t look like much at all from the outside.

Sometimes success is just showing up at all. Even if it’s messy. Even if it’s quiet.

I’m not sharing this to be inspirational. I’m not trying to offer you tips on how to be more productive on your “off” days or trick your brain into pushing through. I’m just telling you the truth.

The truth is, I used to think the people I admired most had some secret. A method. A mindset. Some kind of internal system that kept them always moving, always motivated. But the more I talk to people—especially those who are honest about their mental health—the more I realize that we’re all navigating our own rhythm. And that rhythm changes. A lot.

I’ve learned to listen to my body more. To stop interpreting tiredness as laziness. To stop seeing rest as weakness. I’ve learned that some of my most “productive” days in the traditional sense have actually been the ones where I ignored what I really needed and just performed.

And I don’t want to perform anymore. I want to live. I want to give myself permission to slow down. To change plans. To not always be “on.”

Because I’ve also noticed something else: the days I let myself move slowly without guilt are the days I feel safest with myself. They don’t always look like much, but they feel like peace. And peace, I’m learning, is a kind of success too.

There was a day last month I’ll never forget—not because of anything huge, but because of how ordinary it was. I woke up late. Really late. Almost missed an important meeting and almost canceled another. My kitchen was a mess. I hadn’t washed my hair in four days. But instead of spiraling, instead of telling myself I ruined the day before it even began, I sat on the floor, leaned against my couch, and just… breathed. I let myself cry. I let the silence be enough. I reminded myself that nothing was broken. That I wasn’t behind. That I didn’t have to earn my worth back just because I had a rough morning.

It changed something in me.

I think we all have an idea of what “productive” is supposed to look like. But that image is usually filtered, curated, and deeply unrealistic. The kind of productivity that’s celebrated in our culture is often unsustainable and rooted in burnout. We glorify the hustle. We celebrate the grind. We post the perfect morning routines and the clean white desks and the color-coded calendars. But we rarely talk about the messier kind of success—the kind that comes after crying in the shower, or reaching out when you really didn’t want to, or saying no when it would’ve been easier to say yes.

So this is me saying it: some of my most meaningful wins have happened on the “unproductive” days. The days I got out of bed even when I didn’t want to. The days I asked for help. The days I stopped pretending I had it all together.

If you’re in a season where everything feels hard—where rest feels like a setback and slow mornings feel like failure—I hope you know that you’re not alone. And more than that, I hope you know that success doesn’t have to look one way. You’re allowed to define it for yourself.

For me? Success sometimes looks like crossing everything off my to-do list and still having energy left over. Other times, it looks like finally washing a sink full of dishes after letting them pile up for three days. Sometimes it’s making a healthy meal. Sometimes it’s ordering takeout. Sometimes it’s an early bedtime. Sometimes it’s just surviving the day with my peace intact.

I’m learning to honor all of it.

No version of me is less worthy than the other.

So if today isn’t one of the shiny, gold-star days, that’s okay. You’re still doing something important. You’re still showing up for your life, even when it’s hard. And that matters more than any checklist ever could.

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