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Joanna Gaines had success knocking on every door — and she decided to stop answering.
At the height of “Fixer Upper” fame, the home design and lifestyle expert and her husband, Chip Gaines, walked away from the nonstop grind despite pressure from their representatives to keep going.
Years later, Joanna explained that she had reached a point where she was experiencing what she called “soul weariness.”
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Joanna Gaines details why she and Chip walked away from “Fixer Upper.” (Christopher Willard / Disney)
“When you start realizing you’re living on a thing that’s now… the intentionality is gone, and you’re just showing up… that doesn’t feel fulfilling,” she said on the “Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb” podcast. “It actually feels as though we’re part of this machine that is like, ‘What’s the life here?'”
She added, “I would say that was our first pause of like, ‘We’re doing all this and seeing great reward … this is wonderful,’ but also never at the expense of … our like livelihood, our happiness, our souls.”
That pause would become a blueprint for how Joanna thinks about work — and burnout — today.
“Stopping in that moment was basically us saying … ‘What’s worth it is, like are we healthy? Are we good? Is our family good?’ That’s the most important thing. So that was really a very pivotal moment for us.”
“Fixer Upper” turned Chip and Joanna into television stars, but even as the HGTV hit reached new heights, the couple knew they couldn’t keep running at full speed forever.
Joanna Gaines said “Fixer Upper” fame left her with “soul weariness.” (Getty Images)
The Gaines’s first stepped in front of television cameras when the “Fixer Upper” pilot aired in 2013. The series followed the husband-and-wife duo as they took on rundown homes in Waco, Texas, and transformed them into polished spaces for their clients — all while growing their increasingly influential Magnolia brand.
The show quickly became a hit, making Joanna and Chip familiar faces far beyond the world of home renovation.
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In September 2017, the couple announced they would end “Fixer Upper” after its fifth season, choosing to step away while the series was still riding high.
Joanna said she and Chip have spent almost 25 years building their business. But about three years ago, she said, they stopped seeing where they were headed.
“We stopped seeing vision. We stopped remembering, ‘Like why are we doing this?’”
The couple decided to take the summer off.
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However, the decision wasn’t consequence-free.
Joanna acknowledged that stepping away meant putting pressure on their team.
“Which meant disappointing our team, disappointing a lot of things … So it cost us something. It cost people something.”
“But that three months was time for us to go, ‘We need a break. We need clarity. Why are we building this? What are we doing this for?’”
Joanna remembered the moment she felt the burnout was impossible to ignore.
Chip and Joanna shared how their son leaving for college changed their perspective on parenting. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
“When you start dreading your days, like ‘I don’t want to do that.’”
For Gaines, that sense of dread eventually became so pronounced that she found herself looking for almost any excuse to hit pause — even an unexpected illness.
“You start like wishing for a stomach bug or … ‘Okay, maybe back surgery this year would be great.’ Like how do I force myself?” she laughed.
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Physical exhaustion, Joanna explained, is something she knows how to push through.
But the deeper exhaustion is different, she argued.
“So there’s that part, but also just … where your soul just feels weary.”
She described the “soul” as the deeper part of a person — the place that can run dry even when the body is still capable of performing.
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“From a physical standpoint, I can work till I can … I can push past the weariness the physical, but then you get to that layer of like the soul weariness and that’s dangerous.”
Joanna said that was the warning she is now determined not to ignore, describing the feeling as a “holy fear.”
The couple, who created the Magnolia Market empire, has five children. (Nathan Congleton)
For the entrepreneur and television personality who built an empire by constantly creating, the hardest lesson may have been learning that she cannot simply outwork exhaustion.
The Magnolia Network stars tied the knot in 2003. Joanna and Chip are parents to five children — Ella, Drake, Crew, Emmie and Duke.
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As the Gaines’s planted their roots in Waco, Texas, their Magnolia businesses took off.
The couple’s Magnolia Market at the Silos in Waco pictured. (Getty Images)
After five seasons of “Fixer Upper,” the original series ended in 2018. Magnolia Network programming later debuted on Discovery+ in 2021 before the linear Magnolia Network replaced DIY Network in January 2022.
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The couple’s Magnolia Market at the Silos in Waco includes Magnolia Market, the Shops at the Silos, Silos Baking Co. and Magnolia Press Coffee Co. They also operate Magnolia Table elsewhere in Waco.
The design duo additionally publish “Magnolia Journal” and have written a series of lifestyle books. They have a Magnolia Home furniture and accessories collection, and Joanna created the Hearth & Hand with Magnolia collection for Target.
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Chip and Joanna also opened the 33-room Hotel 1928 in Waco in 2023 after renovating a historic building in partnership with AJ Capital. The couple also offers Magnolia vacation rentals in Waco.
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