I remember coming back from an extended international assignment after taking real time away, not just a long weekend, but enough time to actually slow down. To breathe. To do what I rarely gave myself permission to do: a full personal reset.
I used that time to take inventory. Of my role. Of my responsibilities. Of how I had been showing up and, more importantly, what I was no longer willing to carry when I returned.
I came back clear. I came back with a decision: I would no longer be available 24/7.
Within days of being back, my leader pulled me aside and asked what was wrong with me. Had something happened? I seemed… slow.
I told her exactly what happened.
I realized I am one person. I am only capable of carrying my actual roles and responsibilities, not everyone else’s, not the gaps no one else wanted to fill, not the invisible expectations that had nothing to do with my job description.
She nodded. She agreed. Her behavior said something completely different.
Almost immediately, she began redirecting work to others on the team. People who had no boundaries. People who were available at all hours. People who would do what I had been doing carry more than their share without asking the questions I had finally started asking.
I didn’t last much longer in that role.
And I want to be honest with you about something: leaving was not a failure. It was a realignment. The opportunity I moved into was better suited to my gifts, my capacity, and the kind of leader I was becoming. But it took that season of stillness to see clearly what I had been doing and what it was costing me.
There is a particular kind of tired that does not go away with sleep.
It lives beneath the calendar, the deliverables, and the meetings you run better than anyone else in the room. It is the tired that whispers you are doing too much and then waits quietly while you do more anyway.
This is not a personal failing. It is what happens when a woman of extraordinary capacity builds her entire operating rhythm around other people’s needs, other people’s gaps, other people’s urgency.
She does not burn out because she is weak.
She burns out because she was never designed to run someone else’s system.
Performance optimization asks: How do I do this better?
Life optimization asks: Is this even mine to do?
The first question keeps you productive.
The second question changes your trajectory.
When exhaustion becomes your baseline, it stops feeling like a signal. It just feels like leadership. But your body and your spirit are keeping an accurate record even when your calendar is not.
A question worth sitting with this week:
If you removed everything you do out of obligation, habit, or fear of what happens if you stop, what would actually remain?
That remainder is closer to your real operating system than anything on your to-do list.
If this resonates, subscribe to follow this series. We are exploring what it looks like to lead from a place you actually designed, not one you inherited.
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