Everyone knows you have to fill your own cup before you can fill anyone else's. The hard part isn't the concept—it's noticing when your cup is actually empty.

Sometimes the water pours out slowly. You don't see it happening. And then one day, you're staring at a clear, empty cup wondering where it all went.

The signs will be there if you look: lacking motivation, aversion to things you normally enjoy and know are good for you, sheer exhaustion. That's your signal. That's the cup telling you it's empty.

sometimes you need to patch before you fill

Here's what the simple "fill your cup" advice misses: sometimes the cup isn't just empty. It's cracked.

Maybe you've been pouring from it so long, or life has demanded so much, that there's a hole in it now. And if you try to fill a cracked cup, the water just leaks right back out.

So sometimes the work isn't filling at all. It's repair. It's taking those days—or weeks—to just lie in exhaustion and understand that you haven't only emptied your cup. You've damaged it. And that takes longer to fix.

Unlike actually filling a cup, this doesn't happen in seconds. It may take repeated activities that feel nourishing, or just days of doing only what you can do—which may be very little, or hardly anything at all.

when nothing sounds good

Here's the frustrating part: when you're truly burnt out, nothing sounds appealing. Not even the things you know would help.

You feel stuck. You feel frustrated because you know you need to do something, but you can't bring yourself to do it because you're so exhausted or unmotivated. You forget what even fills your cup in the first place.

When that happens, sometimes all you can do is pay attention to what feels right when you do it—and what doesn't. Follow that instinct. It can signal what fills your cup, or at least what doesn't drain it further.

Sometimes the best you can do is stop the leak. That's enough for now.

the grace of it

Part of the trick is recognizing the signs and then not forcing yourself to do more than your cup can hold. Not trying to keep pouring when there's nothing left to pour.

Life sometimes demands more than we can handle. Sometimes we have to give to others when we barely have enough for ourselves.

But as much as we can, filling our cup is an act of grace—not only to ourselves, but to everyone we'd like to pour into. It's how we show up better in the world rather than constantly running on empty.

So listen to that part of yourself. The one signaling that you're being drained.

Fill the cup. Be careful not to crack it.

But if life cracks your cup, remember to mend it, to patch it, and to fill it again.