Joanna Gaines reveals why she and Chip walked away from Fixer Upper at the height of its success

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.”“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.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.In September 2017, the couple announced they would end “Fixer Upper” after its fifth season, choosing to ...