The hidden cost of high performance

At the end of every year, I sit down and plan the next one.

I keep it simple:

• Three goals for the year.
• Three for the quarter.
• Three for the month.

It gives me clarity and helps me focus on what actually matters.

You may have seen me teach this system in one of my masterclasses.

Last December, during my end-of-year Goal Setting workshop, where I did the planning alongside others in the room, I made a decision that surprised even me.

One of my top three goals for the year was not about revenue. Not about growth. Not about scaling.

It was about my energy.

Energy. Well-being. Zero burnout.

That decision did not come from a place of luxury. It came from necessity.

I have two small kids at home. I run my business in 30 hours per week, as my young family takes the rest. And within those 30 hours, a big part of my work requires high emotional and mental energy.

I am an introvert.
Being on camera drains me.
Speaking to an audience drains me.
Even coaching and sales calls, as much as I love them, require me to be fully present.

And I care deeply. Which means I give a lot.

At some point, I realized something simple: if I want to create real value for my clients, I need energy to create it.

And that is where this story begins.

1. The truth I did not want to admit until now

There is something I have not shared before.

In 2025, I went through two burnouts.

I call them mini-burnouts because I was able to recover in a couple of weeks each time.

But there was a pattern that worried me. Each one was stronger than the previous one.

That is when I understood something uncomfortable.

This was not a motivation problem.
This was not a discipline problem.

This was a system problem in how I operate.

I was operating in a way that made burnout inevitable.

And if I did not change the system, the outcome would not change either.

This is important because many high-achieving women believe burnout is a personal failure.

It is not.

It is often a design flaw.

You are not lacking discipline.
You are likely running a system that cannot support your level of ambition.

Especially if you are building something on top of a demanding corporate role and a full personal life.

You are not weak for feeling exhausted.
You are simply out of capacity.

And capacity can be redesigned.

2. The system I built to protect my energy

So I did what I always do: I built a system.

Not a perfect system. A working one.

The goal was simple: create a structure that gives me energy back instead of taking it away.

Here is what that looks like in practice.

1. Morning yoga.

I have practiced yoga for over a decade. But after having kids, it became inconsistent.

So I made it non-negotiable.

Four sessions per week.
Twenty to thirty minutes.
Always in the morning.

Especially on the days when I know I will need the most energy.

These sessions do not take time away from my work. Even if I only open my laptop at 10 am, they improve the quality of what I do.

They put me in the right state. Calm. Focused. Creative.

2. Daily meditation with positive affirmations.

Ten minutes after every yoga session.

And on days without yoga, I still meditate.

Not because I have time. Because I need clarity.

3. Batching meditation with an LED mask.

For Christmas, my husband gifted me an LED mask. I use it three times per week for 10 minutes. So I paired it with my meditation.

Ten minutes of LED. Ten minutes of meditation.

Two outcomes. One time slot.

This is how I think about my time now.

Not more time. Better use of it.

4. Recovery rituals: massage and infrared sauna.

Once a week, I go to an infrared sauna. Usually on Fridays and often with a girlfriend when she can log off early.

It marks the end of the week. It helps me reset.

I also reintroduced weekly massages. Full body and face. Over two hours of total system reset.

At first, it felt like a luxury to spend this time on myself during “office hours”. Then I realized it is part of my infrastructure.

My body is part of my business. And since my business is tied to my personal brand, how I show up physically matters too.

5. The basics: drinking lots of water, and working 1on1 with a coach.

Hydration. Mineral-rich water. Consistency.

These are simple things that are often ignored. But always powerful.

And finally, the most important decision: I hired the best coach I know.

Not for my business. For me.

As someone who is creative, ambitious, and full of ideas, I tend to go in many directions.

She brings me back. She helps me refocus on what truly matters. She mirrors back what I know, but am not seeing clearly in the moment.

She is the one who trained me during my coaching certification at Erickson International School of Coaching, and for the past five years, I kept thinking of her and how much I’d love for her to be my coach. So I finally sent that email over Christmas, as a gift to myself.

And since January, working with her has been one of the highest leverage investments I have made.

The result of everything I put in place?

In the past three months, I have created more value, grown faster, and felt more aligned than before.

Not because I worked more. Because I managed my energy better.

Small, consistent actions compound.

3. The crash that almost stopped me from publishing this

I wrote this entire story just before the Easter weekend, and before I could hit publish, I crashed again.

Friday night before the long Easter weekend, and just before the start of the new intake of the Weatherproof Business™ Launchpad that I’ve been so excited about and building up towards for so long.

Suddenly, I could not think anymore. I did not want to open my laptop. My inner voice was screaming, “I cannot do it any more,” and I felt like what I’m building made no sense.

I felt mentally and physically drained. A clear start of burnout.

My first reaction was simple.

I cannot publish this story because it’s no longer true.

How can I talk about a burnout prevention system when I feel like this?

So I paused. And I brought my inner chatter to the next session with my coach.

What she helped me see changed everything: crashes are part of the system.

There is no such thing as a perfect balance. No system prevents 100% of breakdowns. Especially when the system is about human performance. We are not robots and not AI. Highs and lows are part of human design.

The real goal of my system was different.

Longer periods of energy.
Shorter periods of recovery.

And that is exactly what happened.

This time, my crash lasted two days.

Two days instead of two weeks in the past.

On the third day, when my kids were searching for chocolate eggs in my mom’s garden, I started feeling better.

On the fourth day, I was back to work, excited and fully present for my clients, kicking off the April intake of the Weatherproof Business™ Launchpad.

That is when I knew the system works.

Not because it removes challenges. Because it makes you resilient when you take a hit.

Storms do not kill good operators.

Takeaway: Build your energy system before you build your business

If you are reading this, you are likely building something.

A business. A new path. A different life.

And you are doing it alongside everything else.

A demanding job.
A family.
A full calendar.

You are ambitious, and probably very tired.

Both can be true at the same time.

The mistake most people make is this: they try to build a scalable business on top of a fragile energy system. And it does not work.

I know this may sound more like personal development than business strategy. So I’m sharing this not just as a coach, but as a peer who’s built multiple businesses and is currently building one in its year 3:

If your energy breaks, everything else follows.

So before you optimize your business model, your content, or your strategy, start here:

Build your energy system.

Do not copy mine. Build yours.

One that fits your life. Your constraints. Your reality.

Because a Weatherproof Business™ is not only about your offer.

It is also about the way you operate. It is resilient by design.

If you want to learn the full system I use, especially how I structure my limited time around my top three goals, I will be teaching it in my next free live masterclass.

You are welcome to join.

Because your potential is not the question. Your system is.