How Do You Raise Awareness of REDs Without Overworking Yourself?

There's a slightly uncomfortable question I've been asking myself lately:

How do you raise awareness of REDs without overworking yourself in the process?

Because when something matters to you this much, it's very easy to keep going.

One more post.

One more event.

One more podcast.

One more presentation.

One more email.

One more conversation.

One more person who needs to hear about RED-S.

And suddenly you're doing the exact thing you're telling everyone else not to do.

Pushing through.

Ignoring tiredness.

Putting recovery second.

Telling yourself you'll rest when the work is done.

But what if the work is never done?

This is the irony I've been thinking about

I started talking about REDs because I know what it feels like to push your body too far.

I know what it feels like to think more training is the answer.

I know what it feels like to keep going because you care so much about what you're trying to achieve.

And now I'm building a business around helping people understand the importance of fuelling and recovery.

So there's a strange irony in being passionate about this subject.

You can start overworking yourself while trying to tell everyone else not to.

You can turn awareness into another performance goal.

More reach.

More posts.

More people educated.

More events.

More conversations.

More impact.

And suddenly you're measuring yourself by how much you can get done.

But awareness doesn't have to mean doing everything

This is something I'm learning.

REDs awareness doesn't depend on one person doing everything.

It doesn't need me to answer every message immediately.

It doesn't need me to post every day.

It doesn't need me to say yes to every opportunity.

It doesn't need me to work late every night because there's another athlete who might benefit from hearing the message.

The work matters.

But so does the person doing the work.

And that includes me.

Because overworking can look very productive

This is the tricky bit.

Overworking doesn't always look like falling apart.

Sometimes it looks like:

“I'm just really passionate.”

“It's for the business.”

“This opportunity is too good to turn down.”

“I'll catch up on sleep later.”

“I'll rest after this event.”

“Once this campaign is finished, I'll slow down.”

But there's always another campaign.

Another event.

Another deadline.

Another idea.

Another person who needs something.

And eventually, “just for now” becomes your normal.

And the message starts to get lost

If I'm telling athletes:

You cannot endlessly ask your body for more without giving it enough back.

Then I have to ask myself the same question.

What am I asking myself to do?

How much?

How often?

What else is happening in my life?

Am I eating regularly?

Am I sleeping?

Am I taking actual breaks?

Am I giving myself time where I'm not producing something?

Because I'm still a human being.

I'm not a RED-S awareness machine.

And neither are you.

Rest isn't the opposite of impact

I think this is something we need to change our minds about.

Sometimes we act as though rest means we're temporarily not being productive.

But if the work we're doing is important, rest is part of being able to keep doing it.

You don't run an awareness campaign by burning out the person behind it.

You don't build a sustainable business by making yourself unsustainable.

And you don't create a message about fuelling and recovery by constantly running yourself into the ground.

The message has to include us too.

So what does raising awareness sustainably look like?

It might mean doing fewer things.

Choosing the events that genuinely matter.

Saying no sometimes.

Batching content instead of constantly creating.

Taking a proper day off.

Eating before you're starving.

Not working through every meal.

Going to bed instead of finishing one more thing.

Letting an email wait.

Letting an idea sit in your notes instead of immediately turning it into a project.

And recognising that you don't have to maximise every opportunity.

Some opportunities can wait.

Some can be a no.

Some can be someone else's.

That doesn't mean you care less.

It means you're thinking about the long term.

Because RED-S isn't just about athletes

This is probably the biggest thing I've learned.

The same mindset can show up outside sport.

The athlete who says:

“I'll rest after this race.”

The founder who says:

“I'll rest after this launch.”

The parent who says:

“I'll eat when the kids are sorted.”

The shift worker who says:

“I'll sleep properly on my days off.”

The person who says:

“I'll look after myself when things calm down.”

But sometimes things don't calm down.

Sometimes you have to build recovery into the life you're actually living.

Not the imaginary version where everything eventually becomes quiet.

I don't want RED-Scue to become another thing you have to keep up with

This is important to me.

I don't want awareness of REDs to become another checklist.

I don't want:

Train perfectly.

Eat perfectly.

Recover perfectly.

Know every REDs symptom.

Post about REDs.

Share every awareness campaign.

Attend every webinar.

Do everything.

Because that isn't freedom.

That's just another version of pressure.

Instead, I want the message to be:

Understand your body.

Support it.

Notice when things aren't working.

Ask for help.

Fuel it.

Rest it.

And remember that you are allowed to be a person, not just a performer.

Maybe the most powerful way to raise awareness is to live the message

If I'm asking athletes to stop treating exhaustion as something they should simply push through, I need to listen to my own exhaustion.

If I'm asking people to fuel their training, I need to fuel my work.

If I'm talking about recovery, I need to recover.

If I'm talking about sustainability, I need to build RED-Scue sustainably too.

Because I don't want to build a brand about helping people stay in the sport they love for life...

by burning myself out trying to build it.

That's not the story I want.

I want RED-Scue to still be here in five, ten, twenty years.

I want to keep having these conversations.

I want to keep meeting athletes.

I want to keep learning.

I want to keep building.

And I can't do that if I treat myself like an unlimited resource.

So maybe the question isn't:

“How much awareness can I create?”

Maybe it's:

“How can I create awareness that lasts?”

Because sustainable impact matters more to me than doing everything at once.

And maybe that's another lesson from REDs that applies far beyond sport:

You don't have to keep pushing until you have nothing left to give.

You can care deeply and still stop.

You can be ambitious and still rest.

You can want to change something and still take a day off.

You can build something meaningful without destroying yourself in the process.

Because fuel without fear has to include more than food.

It has to include how we use our energy, too.

And if we're serious about helping people fuel the sport they love for life...

we need to make sure we're building a life that lets us do the same.