In this spoken monologue, Dr. Jameca Cooper shares her personal experience of chronic fatigue and burnout, describing how the fear of appearing weak or incompetent prevents many high‑achieving women from resting. She explains that the body can literally shut down when exhaustion reaches a breaking point, and that this shutdown is a signal that the relentless pursuit of perfection is unsustainable. Cooper argues that perfection is a trap that keeps women exhausted and blinds them to who benefits from their sacrifice. She highlights how even after attaining senior leadership roles, many women feel more tired, unhappy, and unfulfilled because societal and familial conditioning ties their worth to productivity and service. The speaker urges listeners to set boundaries, redefine what “enough” means, trust their competence and intuition, and stop apologizing for being human. She offers a free self‑care checklist as a practical tool for reclaiming balance and self‑compassion.
Chapters
Confession: I used to think that if I admitted I was tired, people would see me as weak and incompetent. Nobody wants to be seen as incompetent. Does that sound familiar to you? I also used to think that if I stop and rest or take a break and/or admit that I am tired, then everything around me will crumble. What is everything? Work, family responsibilities, child responsibilities, friends, families. So in other words, if you take a break, every dish in your house is going to be dirty and unable to ever be cleaned. If you take a break and stop cleaning your house, sweeping, mopping, or whatever it is you do, that it's gonna pile up and all of a sudden you're gonna be living like you're in an episode of Hoarders. In a day or so. These are the type of thoughts that go through people's head when they think about, okay, I need to step back and take a break, right? So all of this probably sounds familiar. I hope this next part doesn't sound familiar because I did all that until at some point I hit a wall. And when I mean a wall, probably literally, figuratively, I probably hit a wall. I was in bed for a couple of days because I just could not get myself together. My body shut down. I was tired. I was withdrawn. I lacked motivation. I needed to recharge and get myself together because sometimes that is the body's way of helping a sister out. It will shut it down for you. The body's over here like, girl, sit it down, sit it down, sit it down. And then when you can't get up because you're too tired, the body won again. Because we will just keep going and going and pushing ourselves until we can't push ourselves anymore. But what I learned in this process of being shut down and unable to move and do the things I needed to do for myself is that Perfection is not excellence. I think a lot of women have been raised to feel like perfection is excellence, but instead perfection is more so a trap designed to keep you too exhausted, too distracted by fatigue, to make you notice who around you is benefiting from your sacrifice and exhaust. If you're too tired all the time, if you're too fatigued and you're too busy, then you can't sit around and pay attention to who is benefiting from my sacrifice and my fatigue. And is this a mutually beneficial relationship? Am I getting something back in return? Very different than what you receive from your children, because you know until they're a certain age you're really not going to get anything back. Your role is pour into them and guide them to get them set up right. But for other adult relationships, keeps you too tired to notice who around me is benefiting from all this work. Perfection and exhaustion. So I can't tell you how many times my clients have told me about, you know what, I worked all these years, I got these certifications, I got this training, and I was finally able to get this position. President, Vice President, Director, or whatever the case is, Chancellor, right? Leader of whatever organization. And once I got into this position, I noticed I'm even more tired, and on top of that, I'm unhappy and unfulfilled. Because many women, especially many high-achieving women, have been taught and raised and socialized both in the country and the society, in their families, that their worth lies in what they accomplish, what they produce, and how they serve other people. When actuality, in truth, you don't owe the world your exhaustion. You don't owe the world your deeds, your overwhelming amount of good deeds. You don't owe the world 175% of your effort on a day-to-day basis. You don't owe the world So much work that you're sacrificing your own needs, like dietary, physical, sleep needs, relationship, self-care. Real power comes from setting boundaries, redefining what enough is for you, and trusting your competence and your gut. If you're ready to stop apologizing for being human, start with my free self-care checklist, which you'll see the link for below. It's time you realize that not only are you human, but it's okay.
