Joanna Gaines built a career by embracing opportunity at every turn — until she realized it was time to stop opening the door.
At the peak of “Fixer Upper,” Gaines and her husband, Chip Gaines, chose to step away from the relentless pace of their success, even as representatives encouraged them to continue capitalizing on the moment.
Looking back years later, Joanna said she had reached a state of what she described as “soul weariness.”
“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 said the decision marked their first real pause to assess what their success was costing them. “We’re doing all this and seeing great reward … this is wonderful,” she said, but added that it could not come “at the expense of … our like livelihood, our happiness, our souls.”
For Joanna Gaines, that choice became a lasting framework for approaching ambition, balance and burnout.
“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” made Chip and Joanna Gaines household names, yet the couple recognized that even a wildly successful HGTV run could not sustain an always-on lifestyle indefinitely.
The Gaineses first appeared on television when the “Fixer Upper” pilot debuted in 2013. The series tracked the husband-and-wife team as they renovated neglected homes in Waco, Texas, turning them into refined residences for clients while expanding their fast-growing Magnolia brand.
The renovation series rapidly developed a devoted audience, transforming Joanna and Chip Gaines into recognizable stars well beyond the home-design world.
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.
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.”
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“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.
“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.
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.
“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.”
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.
As the Gaines’s planted their roots in Waco, Texas, their Magnolia businesses took off.
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.
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.
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.