14 ways high performers get stuck (and the cost of staying there) - Ep 89
High Achiever Burnout: Why You’re Feeling Stuck
(Even When You’re Successful)
Episode 89 - Available 16 may 2025
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You’re ticking the boxes. You’re showing up. From the outside, things look solid—maybe even impressive. But on the inside? You’re tired. Disconnected. Stuck.
This is the part no one talks about.
Because high achiever burnout doesn’t always look like collapse. Sometimes it looks like high-functioning productivity. You’re doing everything right and still feel like something is wrong. You’ve built something good, but it doesn’t feel good anymore. And when you finally do slow down, you wonder how long you’ve been white-knuckling your way through.
In this episode of Superfreak, we unpack what burnout looks like when you’re performing at a high level, how it quietly shows up in leaders, creatives, coaches and business owners, and what it’s really costing you.
Let’s walk through it.
Burnout Doesn’t Always Start Loud
You don’t need to be in a crisis to feel stuck. In fact, the most quietly exhausted people are often the ones doing everything “right.” You’re hitting your goals. You’re showing up for others. You’re productive. You’re growing.
But your energy is fractured. Your joy is fading. You’re overwhelmed by things that used to feel easy. And the worst part? You might not even realise how long you’ve been operating this way.
This kind of stuckness is what I call functional burnout. And it’s more common than most high performers will ever admit.
For Creatives: Drowning in Output, Starving for Momentum
If you’re a creative, you may be full of ideas but struggling to finish anything. You keep refining, adjusting, tweaking, but you’re stuck in a loop of preparation. You avoid structure because it feels like a cage, but without it, everything feels messy and overwhelming.
You’re creating non-stop, but the work isn’t reaching the people who need it. You start to doubt yourself. Maybe you even convince yourself that you’re not cut out for this.
You don’t need more content or time. You need structure that protects your creativity instead of stifling it. You need the confidence to share your work before it feels perfect. And you need support—not just in execution, but in nervous system regulation, so you can handle being seen.
For High Performers: Overcommitted and Quietly Drained
The phrase “I should be able to handle this” is your poison. You overcommit because you’re capable, but it slowly chips away at your wellbeing.
You stay in routines, relationships or roles that look great on paper but feel lifeless. You avoid anything that challenges your sense of competence. You don’t want to try something unless you can guarantee you’ll be good at it.
Over time, success loses its shine. You’re exhausted, not because you’re doing too much, but because none of it nourishes you anymore.
You don’t need another productivity hack. You need to slow down enough to hear what you’ve been ignoring. You need a new way of working that doesn’t run on pressure and performance alone.
For Leaders and Coaches: Doing the Work, But Still Doubting
You’ve done the mindset work. You hold space for others with grace and depth. But behind the scenes, you’re unsure if it’s really landing. You doubt yourself. You quietly feel like a fraud.
You take on clients that don’t feel aligned because you need the income. You avoid showing up online because it feels too exposing. You keep buying courses, hoping the next one will fix you, but you’re too overwhelmed to implement what you already have.
This leads to coaching fatigue. It chips away at your confidence. And over time, it creates a gap between how you lead publicly and how you feel privately.
You don’t need more education. You need integration. You need a clean, trustworthy inner compass. One that keeps you grounded even when things feel uncertain.
For Business Owners: Mistaking Activity for Progress
When you run a business, being busy becomes the default. You’re posting, emailing, launching, managing, tweaking. You keep moving because slowing down feels like risk. But without clarity, all that motion doesn’t create momentum.
You’re stuck selling offers you’re no longer passionate about. You’re tolerating underperformance from your team to avoid confrontation. You’re operating a business that doesn’t reflect who you are anymore.
Burnout in entrepreneurs often comes from doing too many of the wrong things for too long. Not because you’re lazy or undisciplined, but because you’ve been trying to survive something that was never sustainable to begin with.
What you need isn’t clarity. It’s courage. Courage to admit that something’s not working. Courage to rebuild in alignment. And clean systems that support your vision without burning you out.
What It’s Really Costing You
Staying stuck might not feel urgent, but it’s not neutral. Every day you ignore it, you’re paying for it in energy, in clarity, in joy. You miss the signs. You lose momentum. You start to wonder if this is just how it has to be.
But it doesn’t have to be.
There’s a quieter, cleaner way through. One that helps you rebuild your internal clarity, regulate your nervous system, and create momentum from a place that feels more like you.
So, How Do You Get Unstuck?
You stop outsourcing your power. You stop collecting information you never use. You start listening to yourself again. You start making decisions before everything breaks.
This is the work I teach inside Be Your Own Coach. It’s not about pushing harder or hacking your mindset. It’s about learning to guide yourself through change with clarity, integrity and presence.
We begin in May. You can learn more here, or send me a DM with the word NLP on Instagram and I’ll send you the details.
If you’ve been feeling stuck—even with a full calendar, a solid income, a life that looks great from the outside—it’s not because you’re doing it wrong. It’s because something wants to shift.
You don’t need to burn everything down to move forward. You just need to slow down long enough to hear what’s already true.
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