Professional burnout: recognizing my limits

Since the end of the 2025 season, there has been a mental crash.
At first, I didn’t understand it. Anxiety and resentment appeared, along with defense mechanisms, overthinking and trying to do things whenever energy showed up, depending on mood swings.

Then December came, with the holidays, and that’s when the full crash happened. It was no longer emotional, no longer ups and downs. It was there. A crash unlike anything I had experienced before.

In short, there is no energy left. No endurance. No inner fire. 

Being exhausted is one thing, but losing creativity when you are a project-based entrepreneur is something else and blurred ambitions much harder.

So how did I get here?

I won’t share my private life here, but one thing is very clear: I didn’t get here because I spent too much energy building the farm or running the summer season. I got here because I didn’t recognize my limits.

That was the core issue. I have believed I could be the one who do and carried everything.
The crash came when I finally accepted that no, I couldn’t, not under the current conditions. I was placing too much pressure on myself to deliver as much as possible. And above all, doing it without a framework. 

In other words, I was everywhere at once, without a clear “why,” without a clear plan.

In the garden, this showed up as a lack of structure, equipment, and process optimization. Side projects became overwhelming and mixed together, administrative tasks were neglected, pressure kept building, I lost my temper, and cancelled events.

Why was there no plan or structure?

When I created Nordiska Örter, I started from zero. I had no background in farming or market gardening, product making, entrepreneurship, collaboration, communication, branding, and so on. I did have strong, natural skills in working with plants, harvesting them, as well as biological and ecological knowledge, and a natural inclination toward teaching and sharing. Everything else, what makes the core of a business and its economic viability, I learned on the go. And I started with 0 SEK.

Optimization, equipment, and efficient systems were simply not in my thoughts. I said yes to every request and every interest that came my way, seeing them as opportunities to learn, to spread knowledge about medicinal plants, and to introduce more people to the plant world. So it wasn’t necessarily my intention that led me to burn my energy, but rather a lack of knowledge and awareness.

Simplify, Focus, Optimize.

That awareness came after exhaustion. Today, the exhaustion is such that I only have energy to rest, and I can only work a few hours a day.

I had to adjust my work contract, and I am forced to rethink the system I operate in, to examine all my agricultural, sales, and administrative practices. Prioritize projects and to focus on what truly matters.

This is also an opportunity: to be more aligned in my activities, establish an efficient work system to maybe one day to be able to carry all the projects I dream of carrying.

I have reworked my accounting systems, which used to take endless hours, to automate bookkeeping. I am redesigning the 2026 garden plan, simplifying it and focusing on the plants most in demand by you. My interns made a list of the equipment they would need to work more efficiently. I am investing in more tools and centralizing workflows to avoid time loss during peak season, running back and forth between the garden, the tool shed, and the drying room, especially as production is set to double.

I am simplifying as much as possible: less wild harvesting, bringing plants back to one central location on the farm, and letting go of what works too little are examples. 

Expected delays and changes for 2026

Usually, in January, the garden plan and activity calendar are ready. The second half of winter is normally dedicated to communicating the farm project through email and social media.

This year, it is January, and nothing is ready for the coming season. Goals are not fully defined, optimization work is ongoing, and some activities need to be paused.

Of course, this takes time. And exhaustion is part of the picture. I am also spending time learning, reading and listening content about optimization and how to think about farming and business systems, especially through the work of Jean-Martin Fortier, which I adapt to medicinal plant cultivation.

I won’t have the capacity this year to build new partnerships or actively promote the farm before the 2026 season starts. This creates some anxiety, as in previous years my summer season reflected the communication work done during winter.

The biggest change for you in 2026 is that I will not be offering in-person workshops. Only wild plant walks will continue. Workshops will likely return in the future, on the farm.

That's why I am introducing CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). As workshops are paused, the CSA becomes a new way to learn how to use medicinal plants with me. At the beginning of each month, you will receive (or pick up at the farm) a box of fresh medicinal plants. With it comes a video explaining how to cook with or transform each plant into a remedy.

A new way to share both the plants grown on the farm and the knowledge around them, without needing to be in Uppsala.

What to take from this?

Working with plants, on a farm, or close to nature is deeply meaningful and joyful. But when we do this professionally, within an entrepreneurial structure, exhaustion and questioning are part of the path. Even those who are prepared are not immune: difficult weather conditions, crop loss due to disease (like my second mint harvest lost last year), losing a collaborator, economic crisis, family.

This phase is teaching me that rest is not optional. Rest is necessary and mandatory.

Rest is not just sleep. Rest is anything that makes life flow through us again: reading, walking in the forest, writing, singing, dancing, playing, laughing with friends and loved ones. I am the kind of person who is not always keen on resting, but right now life is placing it straight in front of me, showing me how to (re)-appreciate it.

Second this phase is teaching me to gain clarity. Living and working with clarity. The more honest and clear we are with ourself, the more we are encline to trust ourself and the less anxious we become.

Third, and probably the hardest, being realistic and patient. I don’t like these words. I could get angry just by hearing them! They create so much resistance in me.

Being realistic about what I can do at a given time, with real limits: time, energy, finances, relationships, emotional capacity. Being patient and faithful, understanding that everything which is meant for me will come, just not all at once, and not all under the same conditions.

If you have read this article until the end, thank you very much. You might be reading to know what is going on at the farm, to see behind the scenes, or because the title sounded familiar to you. If you have been, or are, where I am right now, I want you to know that you are not alone, and that there is always something to learn from it. I believe this moment is offering an opportunity to design a farm that runs more easily, more efficiently, financially viable, and with more flow.