709: Overachievers! What to Do When You Feel Burned Out at the Top

Overachievers.

Are you feeling burned out?

Oh, are you one of those people who always has your A game going? Or at least you try. You've been grinding. You work really hard and maybe you've had some success, maybe a ton of success. Maybe you are top level, but boy are you tired. Maybe you're even hating your work. Or maybe you've just been grinding for so long, but you still feel like you've only almost made it. Yes, I'm an overachiever, but I still have. I still haven't achieved yet. Summer, maybe you're discouraged. Maybe you're in an emotional dead zone. Would you like to know a different way of achieving being a high achiever? Yes, your same productive personality that doesn't take such a huge toll on you. Well, today I'm gonna walk you through a very different and doable path toward being a highly successful achiever without burning yourself to a crisp on the way there. Stay with me.

Flow Dreaming Still Kinda Woo Woo is just what it sounds like.

An escape into the world of woo. Also a ride into you and how.

To feel happier, wiser and more self.

Aware in every way. It's your ultimate journey into personal growth and inner power. We'll explore ideas like how your energy self influences the kinds of opportunities you encounter, or how your personal growth can drive your business growth, or even how that feeling of being stuck is really always coming from something else.

We just have to figure out what.

That's right, we're a dash of Woo Woo. A sprinkle of self care, a heap of problem solving and pattern busting, and a giant cup of encouragement. We're going to relight so much passion, purpose, self love and confidence in you that you practically still dagger. I'm Summer McStravik, your host and welcome to Flow Dreaming.

Still Kinda Woo Woo.

Hi everybody, I'm Summer and welcome to Flow Dreaming. Every week we tackle a new topic in personal growth, manifesting energy and intuition. Kind of like the intro just said. Today I really want to speak to a certain group of people who are after my own heart. We high achieving, highly productive people, we have often had a lot of successes in our life, but we've also often paid for those successes. So I want to show you a different way that I've learned over the years to be successful. A way that I teach my students and clients. And I'm sharing it here with you today. Maybe you'll recognize yourself in some of the things I say, the ways I describe myself or you. And I'm hoping that you get to take away some ways of holding this as well. By the way, we are going to do a flow dream in today's episode. I know I haven't done one in so long inside one of my podcasts, but I thought you might enjoy it, especially because some of you are like, I don't even know what flow dreaming is. And I constantly reference, oh, go learn about it, go to my YouTube channel, Etc. But I'm actually going to show you in person. So let's, let's just dive right in. To you overachievers. Well, if you're anything like me, grinding and working hard and working long hours is something we are incredibly used to. Maybe we work hard like this because we truly enjoy it. Like, I'm the first person to admit I'm supposed to take time off, right? I've told myself this over and over, and I do. However, if it's a Saturday morning, Sunday morning, in fact, right now, I'm recording this on a Sunday afternoon. I'm doing it, though, because I like it. To me, it's being productive. I like feeling productive. I like feeling like I'm making things all the time, creating things, sharing things, teaching things. It fills me up. It's as fun as well. It's more fun than going to the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon. I'm just that kind of person. I like to have my time full. However, what this means is that sometimes I get caught. I get caught in a kind of hamster wheel, a grind, if you will. And I can start to believe that the only way to be successful, to maintain, for instance, the level of success I have, is to keep being this way all the time. Maybe I've also got it in my head, and I'm talking about you as well here. We, perhaps we have it in our collective minds that really successful people also work their fingers to the nub. Work hard and you'll get payoff. You'll get good results. Don't work hard and you won't. Hmm. Interesting. On the one hand, my subjective experience, my objective experience in life has been I've worked hard. But if I reflect on it, sometimes I got payoff, sometimes I didn't. One of the first things I worked really hard at in my twenties was a literary magazine that I opened. It was a free magazine in town, kind of like the free ones you find in the bookstores and coffee shops and so forth. It was. It was very successful on the outside. People loved it. But I didn't really know much about sales or advertising or how to actually Support it month to month. So I worked a second job, and all the money I made from that job I poured into the magazine to keep it going, as opposed to just learning how to keep the magazine going on its own. I worked really, really hard, but I did not see the payoff. Now, later in life, I've worked really, really hard and seen enormous payoff. I've also hardly worked at all and seen enormous payoff. Now, the beauty of having these decades of experience is that I've been able to look back like I'm sharing with you and see that hard work does not necessarily equal success. And laziness doesn't always equal success. What does equal success? We're going to go into this because you are a high achiever, tipping on the precipice, probably of burnout. And maybe your achievements have been successful and maybe they haven't been successful. It doesn't matter is what I'm getting at. You're still a high achiever. You're still go, go, go going. Some of us who are high achievers, like I mentioned already, you know, we.

Have this feeling like if I get.

Off the rat wheel, the hamster wheel, if I stop the spin, everything will fall down, everything will stop, everything will collapse. And again, I'm going to ask you reconsider that too. There have been times when you have had to step out of your career, step out of the spin of the constant. Maybe you had a health issue or something come up or a family member to take care of. I bet you you came back and either rebuilt it very quickly or found that they didn't really need you at all. Yeah. When we tell ourselves that, it's often a justification for continuing a cycle of energy that we've simply become used to. And then we become scared. If I don't keep doing this energy, something else will happen, expending this output, something terrible will happen. I'm bringing all this up because I'm telling you, some of the head trips I guess, that we go through, when you're getting to that point of burnout or when you already are burned out, like some of us are already exhausted, we just want to throw down everything we have, but we can't, for whatever reason. So we're just going through these motions constantly feeling like, I'm doing this, I'm putting this huge output out there. And maybe I have seen success and maybe I haven't. Now I'm thinking about a gal I spoke to a few weeks ago. She was considering joining me school. She did not. And you Know, whenever I think about a student like this or a potential student who doesn't join that, I just like, God, we could have fixed that. It's just like. It's heartbreaking for me. So she's still in my head. And she works in a profession where there's a lot of giving. I'm gonna keep her a bit anonymous. Anonymous. Anonymous here. But she works in a profession where there's a lot of giving. She works in a profession where it's acceptable to ask for more and more pay. But she feels a bit guilty about it. She feels like her clients and customers can't really support that. So she doesn't. As a result, she struggles to pay payroll. She struggles to pay the lease on her building. She is struggling with credit card debt. And yet she works and works and works. She works 12 hours a day, minimum. And I said to her, you know, there is a better way. We have to just make a shift in what you're doing. You're thinking, life is responding to you right now. Your expectations, your fears, your hopes, all of it. But you're not making any changes. So life can't respond any differently. You're holding on to barely holding on. You don't want to go on like that. You can't physically go on like that. You can't continue to help people if you keep going on like that. And I said to her, you know, you need to make like 2000 more a month. 3000, 4000, 5000 more a month. And I said, you know what else you need to do? Because it's not just about working harder. She's like, I don't have any more time to make that. Like, that's not what it's about. You think time equals money? Let's get rid of that. First of all, high achievers, we know time does not equal money. Okay? We got to get rid of that. But also, I said, I want you to get the feeling that having 3000, 4000, $5000 more a month is absolutely and perfectly normal. Like, that's obvious. Like, that should be money that doesn't even feel like big money to you. It should feel like teensy money to you. Because until it starts to feel like teensy money, you're gonna be struggling just to make what you're making. Cause that's gonna still feel so big and so hard. So we're gonna shift the way you feel about money itself. Shift your energy of what those dollars mean and the amounts mean. Shift how they can reach you and who they can come from. And the opportunities that will give you this and shift the way you're thinking. I have to work more, more, more to get that. Well, maybe you can work less, less, less and get that. What do you think about those bones? And she said, I'm too scared. I don't have enough time. I don't have enough money. And I said, yes, I see that. And you will stay in that until you shift that fundamental understanding about yourself and your life. So it made sense to me that she didn't actually join me in me school or the private coaching, because until she can shift that feeling in herself, like I need to do something different to get different results, she will just continue to perpetuate that. And you know, the funny thing is, as high achievers, when we see the same results coming from what our actions are, they become very real for us. And they are real. It is real for us. We keep proving it to ourselves over and over. No, this is how it is. No, I've got to work like this. No, I've got to keep doing this. No, I've got to. Because that's what I have to do to get XYZ and life obliges. Your life, your flow, your future obliges. It says, yes, ma'. Am. Yes, sir. If you believe that's what you need to do to get that, we're going to make sure that you continue to be right about that because you feel right about that. So we feel right about that. This is where I just want to take some TNT and go. This is why having a personal growth focus in your life should be number, number, number, number, number, number, number one. Because you get to stop, then pause, say, hey, is this working for me? Hey, am I feeling like my energy is going down or going up from the work that I'm doing? Hey, do I feel like I'm grinding without really getting anywhere? Is there a better way, a different way? What would it take for me to trust in my heart that I could do it differently? A story I sometimes tell about this is about eight years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Invasive. It had traveled. In other words, stage two. And I freaked out because flow dreaming, my company was doing great. I had a beautiful staff, you know, many, many, many students. I mean, just growing, growing like gangbusters. And I thought to myself, oh, my God, how can I continue to grow this company, this technique, share it with the world when now I have to give so much less than I've been giving. Can I still do it as an overachiever? That is like one of the freakiest questions you can possibly ask yourself. Because I had become very reliant on giving a certain amount of myself to get what I expected to get from that give. And overnight that changed for me. Overnight I had to change my work completely. I worked for three weeks and I took a full week off, did not open my computer, worked for three weeks, took a full week off. I did that for five or six months while I went through multiple surgeries and chemo and radiation and everything. And being a parent to kids in grade school, I might add. You know what it taught me? It taught me, you don't have to have cancer to work for three weeks and take one week off. You know what it taught me?

I kept my house, I kept my.

Family, I regrew my health and my company continued to expand. What it took was an outside force saying to me, you do not need to do it that way. You're just choosing to do it that way. Let's try something else. Little miss high achiever. And I remember that, I remember this periodically in my life, whenever I start to feel like I plunge too far into the grind or the productivity or the overwork or when I get into that state, like that potential student of ah, that's too much. It's gonna be really hard to reach that level of success. It'll be really hard to reach that income goal. It'll be really hard to have that book published. It'll be hard to get myself booked on that stage or podcast. It'll be really right. I'm just using examples of the way that I have to grow, you know, my business and my life. But anytime I say it'll be really hard to, what I'm saying is, oh, we just set up some hardship for that. You just said it's gonna take difficulties, stress, disappointment, late hours, not paying attention to your health. It's going to take all of that to get the success you want. And then a part of me goes, okay, because that part of me says, I know how to do that. And another part of me pipes up and says, yeah, but we don't want to do that anymore. We've discovered other ways. Same goals, different path there. So what, what is that path there? Like how do we, how do we change? Like how do we, how do we shift out of that once we become aware that really we're kind of in a self fulfilling prophecy the way we do things and come back in just a second and I am going to.

Tell you, sometimes we need a good old cathartic do over.

We've been flatlining, emotionally spent and wrung out like an old wife washcloth. We want to feel a different way, be a different way. We've plateaued. We're stuck. We need to gain purpose and direction and feel good again. We want to find the self worth, confidence and inner strength that got wiped away from years of frustration, disappointments and emotional depletion.

We're ready to uplevel and go bigger.

And when we do, we want to know that we'll be wildly successful at it. This is what's kept me busy these last couple of years. I wrote a book all about how to reinvent yourself up level and find your path again. I wrote three books actually, but only one is on its way to you. It's called Stuff Nobody Taught you and I took all the lessons from MI School and wrote them out. Not only that, but I go through MI School in the book with you, right alongside you. We both reignite and maybe even reinvent ourselves by the end.

There are 40 actionable lessons.

I want you to read just one small chapter a night and then do or think about whatever I ask you to do at the end. It's a formula and it works like crazy. If you pre order the book today, I've got some fabulous bonuses for you. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, wherever you get your books. If you're listening to this and the book is already out though, don't worry, I've got some goodies for you too, including downloadable worksheets that will make reading it so much easier. So here it is. Stuff Nobody Taught You. I sure hope you love it. That's right. I wanted you to hear a few words about my book, Stuff Nobody Taught You. It is all about revitalizing yourself, renewing yourself, pivoting, learning new and better ways of doing things. It's totally based on my program, my boutique program called ME School. Which by the way isn't rolling right now, but it's almost done. It is starting on September 10th. It is your last opportunity to actually join me in this program. So if you've been sitting on the sidelines for years thinking about how cool it would be to work with me to, you know, plunge into all of these concepts. Now, is it now or never? As they say? Just reach out to me, like through my website, flowdreaming.com set up a time, get on my mailing list, my email list. Really, that's the best way and we'll talk about it. But you can also get the book. The book is A great place to start. All right, with that, I promised you that we are going to do a flow dream, and we're going to. We're about to do that right now. But first, if you don't know what flow dreaming is, please, please, please go check out episode number 704. 704. Ignite your manifesting power through flow dreaming. I teach you what the process is. You can also find the same tutorial on YouTube. It's a playlist right there of the same name. And you will get a really good background in very short segments, very short bites that teaches you what this process is. So in a nutshell, we're going to do something for a few minutes, I don't know, 5, 10, 15 minutes, where I'm going to ask you to daydream. Daydream, right. We're not meditating. We're not programming our subconscious mind or doing hypnosis. We're daydreaming. So see things, let your imagination run, and then I'm going to say I want you to feel some things. This is how we communicate when we're in this state. It's tempting to try to use words, but you don't have to. Words are not the universal language. We don't all speak the same words. We all feel the same feelings. Even animals, plants feel feelings. Life here, the most primary and potent way to express yourself is through a feeling, like when you say the word love. That's a feeling that would take hundreds of words, thousands perhaps, to describe in all of its different contexts and variations. But when you feel a certain type of love, you know it instantly. So I'm going to ask you to feel things with me as we daydream. Excuse me. And last of all, we're going to go into what I call flow. Now, flow is a state of being that you will drift into naturally. If you are daydreaming with me and really releasing, There is a sense of alignment, of direction. There is a sense that I am moving and traveling in my life toward the best and most perfect outcomes. In all ways, I'm being carried. I am a, you know, bird flying on the wind with the currents, barely having to do anything, as opposed to flying against the currents and struggling and flapping and getting nowhere. You take these three elements together, and that was a very nutshell version, and you end up with a very potent technique that sculpts not only your own inner emotional landscape, but external energy as well. The energies of life and flow and your future, your spiritual energy, your. Your. Your destiny and direction. If you will. And I've spoken countlessly into what Flow Dreaming is and what flow is over time, in the years. And like I said, if you're super curious, not only my book stuff nobody taught you, but my first book is called Flow Dreaming. It's a beautiful, slender little volume. You can read it in like an evening and it will really help you understand the depth and power and what this is and the whole concept behind it. But this is what I'm going to use with you right now to help you shift out of this burnout, teetering feeling of I just can't do anymore, I don't want to do anymore. I'm too afraid to stop or I'll lose my success, or I can't stop because I haven't even reached the success yet. All of that needs to change because as long as you're feeling those feelings, life is going to answer with exactly what you expect. The results of what you just said. What I just said right there. We must do it a different way.

The way we do that is we.

Start by painting and feeling a completely different way of doing things. A different outcome, a different flow.

Let's begin by closing our eyes. Take a deep breath, inhaling, allowing your lungs and abdomen to expand.

And release.

Letting your chest fall, your shoulders drop, relax your neck, Roll your shoulder and release your jaw and your brow. You'll carry no stress, no tightness into this state of flow. So you let your body relax. You allow yourself to daydream, to loosen and let go, feeling yourself gently drifting upward in your mind as if you were a kite going up, up, up into the sky, held aloft, doing nothing yet held, flying, floating in the easiest, most gentle of braces. You float. You see a space around you. Look around. Beautiful clouds, tall mountains with snow, rich green forests. It's lush. The air is sweet, scented. And you descend, descending down into this gorgeous and lush forest or jungle even, until you find yourself on a little path, clear, smellless. You allow yourself to walk or float, glide forward on this path, feeling it roll under your feet, unfurling as you go. There's something familiar about this, sweet and guided, a part of you that says.

I'm not worried about where it's taking me.

Because wherever it takes me is perfect and right. And it pulls you, calls you, guides you. You can't see the end of this path, but walking it is pleasurable, fulfilling. It fills you up.

You feel the strength and the energy of the trees and the green around.

You, the roots coming up through the soles of your Shoes infusing you with strength and vitality.

You've been walking this path a long time. Path of success, path of doing things the right way or a certain way or working hard. And yet.

You'Re ready for a different way. You're ready for a path that gets.

Broader and easier, One that lays in front of you, lays itself out in front of you.

And says, spread out, slow down, get clear. Do less, receive more.

And you can feel these ideas, this thought, this energy swirling through you.

Do less, receive more. Do less, receive more.

How is that possible? As you say, you look around you and you wave your hands around you as if little stars or flicks of.

Light were coming off of them.

Do less, receive more. I want to see what that looks and feels like, you say, as if you were somehow programming the space around you, this vitality, this life. I want to know what that means. Do less, receive more. Do things that are more right for me, that yield more rewards, that take.

Far, far less from me.

Yes, I want to know what those things are. I want to discover them. I want them to fall in beside me as we walk this path. I want to encounter them.

I want those people, the opportunities, the.

Awarenesses, the ahas, the pivots, the offers. I want them. I want all of them, any of them that say to me, yeah, do this. If you want more reward, more gold, more love, more health, whatever it may.

Be, whatever you've been really working on, then do this. Let yourself do less. Let yourself receive more.

Let the right things come in. Let the world around me shift like a kaleidoscope of colors changing before my very eyes. I want to know this place. I want to feel this place. I want to understand it truly exists. I can just push my finger through what feels like a gentle wall of light and pass through. And there I am, out of the forest in a brilliant and gorgeous clearing. There are waterfalls surrounding me, green grasses, a sweet meadow of flowers and joyful life. A blanket where I can lay in this sun and drink in these rewards. It is time. More reward. While I receive the reward, you look back and you think, all that grinding along, all that work, work, work, work. All the time thinking reward is just around the corner, or I have to do this to keep these rewards. I look back and I say, silly, silly, silly thoughts. I can stop thinking that way. And that doesn't need to continue to be true.

A new way of receiving can be true.

A way of receiving that says, you've done enough. Here you go. It's time to enjoy. It's Time to drink it in. It's time to experience, take it in, feel it.

Life is easy for you.

Yes, life is easy for me. You think life is easy for me? Life is full of rewards for me. People and opportunities and offers and whatever it is, it's just come in one after another and I just think stand around with this big grin on my face, my arms wide open, saying, okay, yeah, sure, I'll have that. Yep, I'll have more of that. Absolutely. Yes. Oh, yes, I'll have more of that.

I receive it and I agree.

It's time for me to discover, learn, just let myself go into a way of doing things that is so, so much more full and fueled by ease.

Where I receive, where I do so much less.

So much less is asked of me. And yet I receive so much more. Yeah, I'm still going to be productive. I'm still going to be out there in the world making, creating. My personality is such that I love. I love to be busy and do things.

But the things I do now are full of pleasure, full of joy. I've learned a different way and life responds to me in a different way. Starting now. Starting now. This is the new path. I feel it.

I feel things shifting and getting lighter and lighter around me already.

I can still have great successes and they come easier and easier and easier.

Starting now.

Every day, every week, every month, easier and easier and easier. You look around at the beautiful place you're in.

You can feel a bit of your life here and there, the things that are freeing up like little glittering bits of light and energy and matter floating upward into the big beautiful sky.

Lighter and lighter and easier. And as you say this, as you feel this one more time, you allow the imagery to fade.

As you come back.

Returning from flow and opening your eyes.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that little.

Dip into flow with me.

And if you like the theme of today's episode, I have a couple suggestions. Suggestions for you. I have a series of courses that I have recorded. You can find them at flowdreaming.com under classes and courses. There's one called Everything is easy. Create ease and abundance in everything. That would be particularly good for you if that sense of it gets so much easier to get done is part.

Of your life in a much bigger way.

Also, if you are feeling quite burned out, I really recommend enthused, inspired and happy. Rekindle your drive, desire and forward energy. That's another great one. But you can look through all of them and see which ones speak to your heart. Of course There are also collections of flow dreams that do very similar things. Now with that, I'm gonna let you go and I'm wishing you a blessed and beautiful rest of your week and hoping that you are committing to making life be a little EAS easier for.

Yourself as you go forward.

As I stated before, I look forward to talking with some of you about mi school. This is the last chance you have to get in. I have some pretty awesome bonuses going so please don't be afraid. Give me a call, set up a time. I'm very approachable. I talk to people all day long. It would not be out of sorts or character or strange whatsoever. If you think I can help you, if you like the way that I think. I have a whole community who does this kind of work and this thinking every day, all day, all month, all year and I invite you in. Lots of love. I'll see you next time.

Hey.

We don't have sponsors for this show yet, but we do have our parent company, my company. It's called flowdreaming.com if you are curious about exploring your full potential There are over 250 audio meditations and flow dreams and courses there that can completely reshape your world. So take a quick jump over and check out flow dreaming.com and with that, thank you so much for joining us.