A Day Off Spent Building -The Fuel and The Doubt
The paradox at the heart of this story is a concept people actively reflect on when they feel guilty for working on passion projects during downtime.
Productive Rest: When Your Passion Ignites on a Day
Is it truly a day off if you’re building your dream? Explore the concept of productive rest with Lita Goddess of Growth, and learn why listening to your creative fire can be the most important work you do.
The Fire on a Day Off
It’s my day off work today, and all I have done is work on my business.
I had a small breakfast. It is now 15:52. Around 12:04, I had to have a small talk with myself—I’d thought it was only 10:00. The quiet worry surfaced: I hope I am not again doing more work that will lead to nothing.
But this is different (or so I tell myself).
I woke up this morning with a fire. I like what is being created on the website today. There’s a clarity forming, a structure taking shape that feels authentic and strong. The doubt is an old soundtrack, a familiar echo from years of effort that didn’t pan out as hoped.
Yet today, the fire is louder. The creation itself is the reward, for now. The belief that this time, the foundation is being laid correctly, is enough to keep me going through a day off that doesn’t look like rest to anyone else, but feels like the most important kind of work to me.
The Tyranny and Gift of the “Day Off”
We are taught that rest is passive. It is collapsing on the sofa, switching off, and consuming. We’re meant to be recharging, not expending. But what happens when the energy comes from the work itself? This is the core of what I’ve come to call productive rest. It doesn’t look like idleness. It looks like flow. It feels like alignment. It is the work that fuels you, rather than depletes you.
My “proper job” is necessary. It pays the bills that allow this very cottage to house my dreams. But it is transactional. This work—building the website, weaving the threads of the Sovren ecosystem, writing these words—is transformational. It is an act of building a future where my energy isn’t spent on building someone else’s vision, but on realising my own. To deny the fire on a day off is to pour water on your own embers.
The Old Soundtrack vs. The New Fire
The doubt, that “old soundtrack,” is a survival mechanism. It’s the part of you that remembers the past disappointments and wants to shield you from more. It whispers, “Remember the last time you felt this excited? It came to nothing. You should be resting. You’re going to burn out.”
It’s a compelling argument. But it mistakes this creative energy for the draining grind of a day job. The fatigue from my salaried work is a heavy fatigue, a weight that demands recovery. The fatigue after a day like this is different—it is a satisfied ache, the kind a gardener feels after planting a new bed, full of anticipation for what will grow.
Learning to distinguish between these two types of exhaustion is a crucial skill for any creator or entrepreneur. One depletes your soul; the other nourishes it, even as it tires your body.
Building the Right Foundation
The conviction that “this time is different” isn’t just blind hope. It’s based on a subtle but profound shift from building what I think I should build, to building what is authentically me. In the past, I was often following someone else’s blueprint—a marketing guru’s funnel, a platform’s algorithm, a competitor’s strategy.
Today, the work feels different because the foundation is one of sovereign creation. It’s not built on the shifting sand of what’s trending, but on the solid ground of my own lived experience, my own philosophy of internal simplicity, and my own desire to solve real problems for people like me. The website isn’t just a sales page; it’s the digital embodiment of a sovereign mindset. It’s a home for my ideas, first and foremost.
This is why the fire burns so brightly. I am not coding or writing for an abstract audience; I am building a home for my legacy. And when you are building your own home, even on a Sunday, it doesn’t feel like labour. It feels like love.
The Permission Slip for Your Passion
So, this is your permission slip. If you find yourself giving up a “day off” to work on your passion project, to build your business, to write, or to create, pause before you listen to the voice of guilt.
Ask yourself:
- Does this work drain me, or does it energise me?
- Does it feel like a “should,” or does it feel like a “must”?
- Am I following someone else’s plan, or am I building my own foundation?
If the answers lean towards energy, purpose, and sovereignty, then you are not wasting your day off. You are engaging in the highest form of productive rest. You are aligning your actions with your purpose. This is not a deviation from rest; it is the very essence of what it means to be fully, vibrantly alive.
The world will not always understand. They will see you on your laptop and tell you to “take a break.” They won’t see that the typing is the break—a break from the compromise, a break from the noise, a break from living a life that is not quite your own.
Tending the Fire
My day is drawing to a close. The light is fading outside my cottage window. I will soon close the laptop, and the practicalities of life will return. But the fire will not go out. It will bank itself, ready to be stoked again tomorrow, perhaps before my “proper job” begins, or in the quiet hours after it ends.
Sometimes, the most productive thing you can do is listen to the fire, even when it burns on a day meant for rest. Protect that flame. It is not a distraction from your life. It is the signal of the life you are meant to be living. It is the light guiding you home to yourself.
And that is a foundation worth building on, day off or not.
Lita, Goddess of Growth