Martha wasn’t feeling the signs of burnout until she was. She didn’t collapse. She continued until her system gave her no choice but to stop, and not because they’re unaware. But because signs of burnout in high performers are not acutely noticeable, as they are too good at functioning through it.
Martha wasn’t falling apart. She was falling silent. “I’m just tired. I probably need a holiday.” That’s what she said when we first spoke.
But her body was saying something else:
– Buzzing with cortisol
– Breath shallow and high
– Shoulders almost at her ears
– Apologising for having emotions at all
She paused when I asked how long it had been like this, then said: “I think I’ve always lived like this. I just got better at hiding it.”
Burnout isn’t loud. It’s muted. It doesn’t look like a collapse. It seems like competence.
It doesn’t announce itself. It hides behind a high-functioning smile.
This is why so many high performers miss it.
Here’s What Signs of Burnout Really Look Like:
- You stop initiating ideas or asking questions
• You stop feeling joy from wins you worked hard for
• You stop disagreeing—even when it matters
You don’t break down. You dim down.
And because you’re still showing up, no one checks in until your body does.
What Martha Taught Me (And What I Taught Her):
Signs of Burnout aren’t a mindset issue. They’re a nervous system in lockdown. Martha didn’t need inspiration; she needed regulation.
Together, we worked from the body up:
✅ Recognising her stress signals in real-time
✅ Pausing without guilt
✅ Rebuilding emotional range not just resilience
And as her system softened, her clarity returned. Her voice deepened.
She felt not just better, but honest.
She told me: “It wasn’t that I didn’t care anymore. I just couldn’t feel anything without crumbling.”
Why This Keeps Happening Even to the Smartest Women I Know
Here’s the pattern I’ve seen in hundreds of women:
- We chase success before safety
- We perform functionality instead of feeling
- We normalise the whisper of depletion
- We intellectualise emotional distress
We’re not fragile. We’re over-adapted.
And we’re rewarded for it every time we suppress a need and keep performing.
Burnout isn’t about doing too much. It’s about how long you’ve abandoned your own signals to keep doing it.
This insight has rewritten careers, saved marriages, and sparked leadership that doesn’t require self-abandonment to succeed.
Because once you stop making exhaustion your baseline, you make room for everything else:
✨ Clarity.
✨ Boundaries.
✨ Joy.
✨ Sustainable power.
That’s Why I Created “Reset and Rise”
A free masterclass for high-performing women who are still smiling on the outside… but quietly fading on the inside.
You’ll learn how to:
✅ Reset your stress response without quitting your life
✅ Reclaim mental clarity without overworking
✅ Regulate your nervous system so you can rise, sustainably
“I didn’t realise how far I’d drifted from myself… until I returned.” Client, Reset & Rise
Because the cost of ignoring your system is subtle… until it’s not.
👉 Join Reset and Rise: Masterclass Registration Link
You often wake up and realise you have been surviving on adrenaline and autopilot for months, maybe years.
You were taught to outthink your feelings. To label trauma as stress. To mistake depletion for “just needing a holiday.” You never learned how to pause with power.
You don’t have to collapse to justify resting. You don’t have to burn everything down to start again. You just have to stop waiting to feel broken before you begin to feel whole.
Want to chat Book a breakthrough call!
