The Burnout No One Sees in High-Performing Women
By Jennifer Davy
You would know if you were slowly burning out. Right? Because burnt out women can’t function, but you are holding the whole thing together, so actually, you must be absolutely fine.
I have this kind of conversation with almost every high-performing woman I work with, and that’s in over six years of coaching. But it is never at the beginning of our conversations because she is oftentimes too busy telling me how ‘fine’ she is; a little tired perhaps, a little in need of a holiday but good overall. I know it is not true, but I also know she is not ready to admit it yet.
It is only when we dig deeper, and stop talking about her schedule, her achievements and the very impressive external life she has built that she notices how much bullsh*t she has been telling herself and everyone around her to hide the fact that she feels she is slowly but surely burning out. And at that point, she realises collapse is inevitable and no amount of scheduling will prevent that… if she keeps going the way she is.
The exhaustion, the resentment, the feeling of dread on a Sunday evening as a whole new week faces her and the loneliness is too much to hold for her. She doesn’t know how much longer she can continue like this, but nobody else knows. Everyone thinks she is doing great. They believe her performance. So I tell her that we – meaning all women trying to be everything and do everything – need to stop thinking this is fine and it is down to us to change that narrative for ourselves and our children.
The reason high-performing women miss it.
We have a very specific image of a burnt-out woman. She is not coping and things are falling apart around her. It can be hard to see ourselves in that image because of course that is not us. From the outside, things look great for us. So the idea that you could be burning out beneath all of that success doesn’t make sense.
But here is what I know after years of working 1:1 with women. The more capable you are, the more brilliant you are at talking yourself out of how you really feel. You can give a reason for everything you do, you can justify yourself so well that you could teach classes in it! You are bloody brilliant at it. You absorb what is truly happening for you and you figure out how you can manage going forward because that is always how you have been in this world. And so the cycle continues.
You may have learned at a very young age that women always find a way to keep the standard high, even running on empty. And the people around you, your workplace, your family, the life you’ve built keeps piling on, because why wouldn’t it? You’re clearly handling it. Until suddenly you’re not.
“The more capable you are, the more brilliant you become at talking yourself out of how you really feel.”
What it actually looks like.
You wake at 3am and your mind is already working. You get through the day on autopilot. Things that were normally fine now drive you crazy and you can’t quite explain it, which makes you feel guilty. You have stopped doing the things that used to make you smile because there aren’t enough hours in the day, and you honestly don’t have the energy anyway. You’re everywhere you need to be in body, but your mind and your spirit are not quite present in any of them.
The thing nobody tells you.
The exhaustion is real but it isn’t the actual problem; it is a consequence of the problem. In every woman I have worked with, there is a belief running in the background and it is often completely hidden to her. It can sound like ‘if I don’t do it, who will?’ or ‘taking a break is nice, but just not possible for me right now.’
You picked them up in childhood, in school, in homes where you saw other women always ‘doing’, always the last to sit at the table, always picking things up, folding or tidying, driving from here to there. Always, always doing. That is what you saw and that is what you learned women do. So you emulate that now and call it your role as a woman, but those beliefs are old: they belong to someone else and they are running the show.
More sleep, a holiday, a spa day, a new designer handbag will not change them. Even a new morning routine will feel good but won’t really change anything long term for you.
The only action that has real impact is looking directly at those beliefs. Identifying them and asking yourself, is this actually true of who I am now? Or is this someone else’s story that has been playing in the back of my mind?
What I want you to take from this.
You are a woman who has been very fu*kin’ strong for a very long time, in a world that keeps asking you to do more of it, with very little consideration of what that is costing you.
The burnout beneath your success is not your fault. It was inevitable because that is what your belief system told you to do. How could you have done it any other way when you didn’t know any different? Here’s the good news; you absolutely can change it. By choosing to go deeper, by separating the lies you tell yourself from who you really are, you gain total control over it.
That is the work. It is the greatest gift you can ever give yourself.
With love,
Jennifer xoxo
Bio;Jennifer Davy is an award-nominated women’s empowerment coach, neuroscience-based life strategist, global speaker, and founder of Wellbeing Warrior®. With a background as a secondary school teacher for over 14 years, Jennifer combines neuroscience, personal development, and lived experience to help women break free from self-doubt, emotional overwhelm, and people-pleasing patterns.
www.wellbeingwarrior.ie