High Performer Burnout: 7 Signs You're Operating In Survival Mode

What is up, beautiful people? Happy Monday. Hope everyone is having a good— take those off, they're kind of crooked. I have my video mirrored right now, so it looks worse when it's not mirrored. Anyways, we're going to get into the 7 signs that you are burnt out or in survival mode. So this one is for all my high achievers out there. Okay, all of my 3s on the Enneagram, the people who are just driving themselves into the ground. And you have such good intentions a lot of times too, like you want to help and you want to provide value to the world and you want to change the world, but we're just driving ourselves into the ground. And if you want to have true lasting impact on the world and you want to build something great and big because that's what you have in your heart, in your heart you want to do that, you have to learn how to work systemically. Sustainably. Yes, you're gonna have to put in the work, but there's a difference in how you're doing the work. You have to be aware of when you're getting distracted and you're in these stressful states, um, and learning to let go of anxieties and worries and stresses so they're not sapping your energy, so they're not draining you of your energy, so that you can return and focus on what matters. Focusing on what matters. Do you know how much energy you waste every single day worrying and being in a dysregulated state and resisting your emotions. All those things are incredibly expensive energetically and metabolically to your body and to your brain. So really becoming aware is, is the start. That's what we talk about in BILT, right? Um, the B is awareness. It's all about awareness first. I want to start before I get into the 7 things. Who am I talking to? I'm talking to my 3s on the Enneagram. I don't know if you guys know the Enneagram. It's— I highly recommend taking it. I've taken all the personality tests. CliftonStrengths, Myers-Briggs, DiSC, Predictive Index. Got my Akashic Records done. Enneagram. I've taken like 7 or 8. This one is probably my favorite up there with the CliftonStrengths, the Enneagram. So it ranks you on 9 different numbers and you have a dominant theme and then you have 2 wings, which are like kind of your supporting numbers that are right next to kind of next to that balance you out. But each number has a healthy and an unhealthy version. And the 3, which is what I am, right, is the Achiever. That's the performer. And the beautiful part about a 3 is that These are the people who are out in the world doing things and making things happen, and they're executing, and they have these big visions for life, and they want to go out and change the world. That's great. We need those people in this world. The downside to a 3 is that you tie what you do to your self-worth, and that's how you can become an unhealthy 3, when you're just grinding yourself into a pulp every single day because you feel like if you don't get the work done that you need to get done, you're going to be nobody. And you're— and you can become overly concerned with your image, your public appearance. You're so obsessed with how you look to other people, and you care a lot about how other people perceive you, right? Because that's how we are as 3s. So there's no good or bad numbers. Again, there's a healthy and an unhealthy version. The reason you're burnt out is because you are operating as an unhealthy 3. Right? You're that high performer, you're that high achiever, but you're, you're going towards the unhealthy side of it where you're not aware of your body, you're not giving yourself proper time to rest, you're taking things too seriously, you're working way too hard. You already work harder than most everyone else, but you're freaking grinding yourself into a pulp because again, a lot of your internal worth is tied to what you do. And this is how I was my whole life. For the last 15 to 18 years, I was constantly doing things to build myself up. So I would just completely neglect my mental health, my physical health, my emotional health, my spiritual health, all of that in pursuit of these things that I was accomplishing. Why? Because my self-image depended on it. So it's a very dangerous self-image you cultivate in your brain when you tie external things to your internal worth. Now, you're always going to have that fundamental drive in you if you're a high achiever, if you're a performer. You're always going to have that drive, and that's good. We need you to have that drive because we want you to go out and change the world, but we need you to become more self-aware, okay? I need you to become more self-aware of your thoughts, develop awareness, understand how to regulate your nervous system, understand how to cultivate a new self-image understand how to manage your emotions so that you can pursue things at a sustainable rate. If you wanna build something big, you gotta be here in 10 years. You gotta be here in 10 years. How are you gonna be here in 10 years if you're driving yourself into the ground every day? You're not. You're literally not. And we think it's noble. That's what people have taught us in this society. Well, he's not the smartest person, but you know, he's a hard worker. He's a hard worker. And so we think that, okay, if we're not the smartest, I can at least just work the hardest. I'll be something. That's kind of like the mentality of the US as a whole. It's the achieving country. Other countries are not like this. US is the achieving country. And what you achieve is who you are. Gotta be in the best college. Gotta have the best job. Gotta be the best at my job. Gotta be the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best. Rest. It's empty. It's empty. Again, I still want you to achieve, it's just how we're showing up. All right, getting into the 7 things that you can start to be aware of when you're burnt out. All right, signs that you are burnt out. First one, constant mental scanning, just scanning for things all the time. Okay. Now constant mental scanning is a trait of being in a dysregulated nervous system state. So when you go into survival mode, as I talk about all the time, and you get triggered into survival in milliseconds before your mind even comes online— email, someone makes a comment, a thought can trigger survival mode, which is a dysregulated nervous system state. And again, just to set the stage here, a dysregulated state is not like panic. Like, survival mode is not like, oh my God, I can't get anything done. You're still performing. You're still getting things done, you're still achieving, but it's like this low-grade hum in the background. I use the fridge or the AC analogy. Whenever that fridge is running in the background, it's kind of like, you don't really recognize it though. You're doing your thing, and then one day it goes off. You're like, oh wow, it's actually a lot. That thing was freaking loud, just sapping my energy. That's what survival mode's like for you. It's sneaky, and you've learned to pair it with productivity, that constant urgency and tension, but it's really robbing you of your full mental capacity. It's robbing you of your energy. So a key characteristic of that survival mode is constant mental scanning. You're just constantly like, okay, what's gonna go wrong? You're like, you're always braced. You're always braced for the next thing that could go wrong or the next fire you have to put out. You're just on edge all the time. And you probably don't even recognize this until maybe now. I want you to try to be aware of that. Are you just like constantly mentally scanning for fires or this or that? When you go into survival mode, your perception narrows, prefrontal cortex goes offline, and you go into threat scanning mode, right? Where you're literally just looking for anything that could be a threat to your current environment. And you're always prioritizing the quickest and most urgent thing, not the best thing. Because when we're in survival, we're always prioritizing the quickest and best solution. So you're not making your best decisions when you're dysregulated as a salesperson, as a leader, as a high performer in general. You're not making your best decisions. So that's a massive thing. Constant mental scanning. Okay, these all kind of work together, kind of different ways of saying pretty much the same thing, that we're dysregulated. But tight timelines— you feel like you always feel like you're rushed. You always feel like you're rushing around. You get these tight timelines for everything you're working towards, and you're always just rushing to get these things done on these timelines. That is, we're in that survival mode. Understand that all these things that I'm talking about are signs of being in a dysregulated state. And when we're in a dysregulated state, that is not a sustainable way to live. Our bodies were not meant to operate like that 24/7. They're meant to be like that for a little bit if we're in a fight-or-flight situation or we need that to power through. But if we don't have the awareness to recognize it and return to a regulated state, our body can't repair, we can't, you know, recuperate our energy, we can't think clearly. So it's really about being aware of these 7 different signs, being aware of this, recognizing that all of these 7 things are indicators that you're in survival mode, and then using the different tools that Bilt teaches— awareness, breath regulation, all this stuff— to get yourself out of that so that you can get back to your creative, laser-focused, precise, productive self. The regulated state is the most productive self. It is the most precise self. It is the most effective, the most efficient self. It's the self that can communicate with people the best, that can build the best relationships. That self. So we have constant mental scanning, tight timelines, pressure-based motivation. I just read a couple of books or started reading a couple of books, Drive by Daniel Pink and Why We Do What We Do by Edward Deci, who both studied motivation in people. Intrinsic motivation is always gonna outlast extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is the classic carrot and the stick. I'm chasing the reward, I'm running from punishment or fear. That's great, but you'll only be motivated when you're either chasing reward or running from a stick. And when we're doing those two things, it puts us into kind of a dysregulated state where we're more prone to burnout versus if you're doing things intrinsically, right? You're doing it because you love it, because it aligns with your values, because you feel like you have purpose, because you feel like you're contributing to something bigger than yourself. You're just gonna do it for the sake of doing it. And money is just a byproduct. So understand that intrinsic motivators are gonna be a much more sustainable way of working. But pressure-based motivation as well is like putting pressure on yourself. Well, that's just how I work. I work best under pressure. Yeah, 'cause you've trained yourself to do that. You basically got into this high performance role and because there's a lot of stress in the beginning, you learned to operate under pressure. And now that's all your system knows. All your system knows is how to operate under pressure. It doesn't know anything else. That does not mean that's your most effective state though. That's the difference. Just because you can get results there doesn't mean it's the best state. And if you look at the science and the physiology and the psychology, all those things, all that points to a regulated nervous system state. Prefrontal cortex is back online. You're not as reactive. You're not in threat scanning mode. That's where you're going to get your best results because you're still going to be laser focused, you're still going to have the intensity, but you're not going to have all the noise around it. I use the analogy of a boat going across the lake. When you're going across like and it's super windy, there's a lot of chop in the broads, which is like the middle of the lake, and the boat is just— but it's like it can only go 10-15 miles an hour. It's so much extra stuff going on. So much distortion in the waves. When you go across the lake in the morning and it's glass, glass lake, right? You can fly across the lake, it's so easy, there's no friction. Same thing with you and your day-to-day. You can— incredible focus, incredible intensity. And I would even argue that in order to have really, really good focus, you need to quiet down all this other stuff, quiet down your system, get rid of the pressure, get rid of the stress, Get rid of the urgency. All of that is taking you out of your best thinking mode. You gotta get out of that. You gotta be aware of these things and regulate so we can turn back on our highest selves. This is true high performance. This is true high performance. Over— 4, overthinking disguised as responsibility. So Yeah, we, we often think that by like worrying about things and just like— I call it the hamster wheel of the mind. What happens is like you start having thoughts and worrying about things. You think that you are being responsible by worrying because first you're like figuring it out. You're not figuring it out, you're just reeling. There's a difference between issue occurs, you sit down, you think about the options, you decide, hey, what's the best path, what's the best path forward? And you decide on that path. That's productive. After you decide about what you need to do, what happens? You're re— oh, is that really the best option? Should I do this? Should I do that? What if this doesn't work out and that doesn't work out? Maybe I'll tweak it like this. Maybe I'll tweak it like that. You already made the decision. You already sat down with your team, with yourself. You figured out the best thing. All that extra worrying isn't doing anything. It isn't doing anything but just dragging you right back into a panic state. Because as you worry, what is it doing? It's dysregulating your system. If you're getting into that kind of survival mode, oh my God, what if it's not the right decision, the right, the right option? So again, overthinking disguises responsibility. That is not being responsible. Being responsible is sitting down, looking at the options, thinking about it, choosing the best option. Once you choose the best option, let go of everything. It's going to be what it's going to be. You sat down, you made the best decision, let it go. 5. Rest feels unsafe. Again, you have trained your system to be in pressure mode so often for so long that it doesn't even know— it, it perceives like calm and regulation as a threat. So your system has been operating from this low-grade pressure and stress so long, every single day, all day long, because our nervous systems associate familiarity with safety, and our system wants to keep us safe. That's like the number one objective of our system on this earth— keep us alive. And what's familiar is associated with what's safe, because if it's familiar and hasn't killed us yet, let's just stay here. It prefers a familiar hell to an unfamiliar heaven. So you've trained yourself to be in that pressure, in that stressed-out state. So when your system tries to think, act, and feel in a different way, in a regulated way, in a calm way, in a focused way, your system's like, whoa. You feel guilty, right? You're like, oh my gosh, no, I gotta, I gotta keep going, I gotta keep going. You sit on the couch for 2 seconds because you're actually exhausted, and your body's like, hey, we need to rest so we can recharge our batteries so we can go for the next sprint here. That's how you work productively, guys. You work, you get tired, you rest. And then once your batteries are recharged, you go to work again. And if you take that 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes to reset and recharge the next sprint of whatever you're doing, you're gonna get more done in because you recharge your batteries. You gotta understand this piece is a performance multiplier. You work for 3, 4 hours in the morning, you're tired naturally. Okay. Take a break. And then get back into the next sprint. But if, you know, a lot of times we say no, we're just going to keep pushing through, I can't take a break. But your, your productivity drops because you're so exhausted. You're just not as efficient anymore. You're kind of just like dragging, getting through the work. Instead of if you were just get through that morning, 8 to 12, take your 30 minutes, completely disconnect, and then the next few hours you're going to be more productive more productive. You're gonna be less productive if you push through when you're tired. That's not what, what helps you freaking crush. Okay, Caleb, what's up, dude? Um, looking forward to those leads, bro. Um, and, and the other thing too, and this is what I struggle with a lot, if you're resting but then you feel guilty about resting, guess what you're not doing? Resting. So if you get out of the work and you're like, oh, all— like, you go for a walk and then all you're doing is thinking about work and getting back to work, that is not true rest. And why can't you rest? Because you're so associated with your thoughts. You don't have awareness. You don't have awareness. You don't know how to observe your thoughts and beliefs and let them go and be in the present moment. So you're like caught in your thoughts. You can never escape them. You'll never be able to escape them if you don't cultivate the skill of awareness, you'll never be able to do anything in your life. You know, like, you'll never be able to, to regulate or be at peace or do anything. Okay, so we have to learn to, to train our bodies to look at, like, as calm as safety. We want to cultivate a new baseline operating system of, like, peace and focus and regulation. Understand that inner peace is the most laser-focused state of being that you can be in, right? Pressure and stress, it creates that distortion and that noise. We don't want to be there. All right, number 6, speed over clarity. Your system is prioritizing speed over clarity. Again, what I talked about, you go into survival mode and your system is just— it's— your perception is narrowed to like what's in front of you. Because if you're in survival, your brain doesn't want to be in the reflective and creative and imagination state because you're like prioritizing survival. So you're not like— you don't want to be thinking about, oh, how's the business going to move forward and what's the best strategy? So your system is just like, right here. So if you're in that survival mode while you're trying to do something creative, you can't even see all the options because you're okay, what's like the quickest and best way to do this? Okay, I gotta do this and I gotta do this. You're not You're, again, you're not being the most responsible person you can be in that situation. You're not being the most effective because you're in an altered physiological state. State precedes everything. If you are in a dysregulated physiological state, your perception will be narrowed and you're only going to think, you're only going to see a certain section of the field. But when you regulate, it's like, oh, the system feels safe now. Now it's going to open its perception. Oh, now I see. Oh yeah, clearly this is the best thing to do. Clearly that's the best thing to do. 'Cause you've opened your perception. So learning to, what's the point I was on? Oh yeah, speed over clarity. Speed over clarity. So you'll know that you're like burnt out, you're in survival mode, right? When you are just prioritizing the quickest thing versus maybe the most effective decision, okay? And last thing, calm feels like a loss of control. Yeah, because you've trained your system to be so stressed out all the time, being calm actually feels like you're being irresponsible. Like, oh, I'm a loser. Or, you know, you'll say things to yourself like where you literally can't stop. You can't stop. You're in the car, you've gotta listen to a podcast. You wake up, you've gotta get going right away. You're go, go, go, go, go, go, go. When you sit down, your body's just like antsy. Like, oh, I gotta get to the next thing. Your body's like an animal. It's like a dog and you train that dog to just fricking bark at everything it sees. You've trained that dog just woo-woo-woo-woo! The second anything walks across the front of the house, you got to train that dog to not react to everything, not fly off the handle at every thought, at everything that someone says. You gotta train the animal. Your body is like an animal and you have trained it to be stressed and operate from urgency and do this thing because you think it's the thing that gets the most done for you. I'll tell you, it's not. Because I operated like that. And it kills your energy, it kills your focus, it kills your clarity, it kills your creative thinking. I can work much longer, get much more done from the regulated state of being I have now. Much more, much more done because I'm not wasting all that energy on the worry and the stress and all that stuff that like saps your energy significantly. All right, so those are the 7 things. Just to recap, constant mental scanning, you're always scanning, right? You have tight timelines, you're always rushing to get to that next timeline. Pressure-based motivation, the only way you get things done is by pressuring yourself. Overthinking disguised as responsibility, we talked about this. If something needs to get done, sit down, figure out the best option, decide on it, and then you have to learn to let go of everything else. Sitting there reeling it over in your head isn't doing anything but robbing you of what you're currently doing. Because if you had a problem and you figured it out, and now you're back at work doing whatever else you're doing— sales, team, content, whatever— and you're still worrying about this thing, you're robbing your focus. Your focus is lost in these thoughts and it's not on doing what you're doing. You're wasting energy. Again, awareness, guys. Gotta cultivate awareness. Gotta cultivate awareness, learn how to regulate. First two foundational pillars to be able to do anything. Rest feels unsafe. Again, you've trained your system to operate from urgency and pressure. You have to learn— you have to begin to rewire in and trust that when you are calm and regulated like this, that you can still perform at a high level. So you're gonna have to take a little bit of a leap of faith, you're gonna have to trust, you're gonna have to do the things to see that that is the best way to do it, okay? You're prioritizing speed over clarity. Again, you're not choosing the best option, you're choosing the quickest option. That is a sign of survival mode. And then when you're calm, you feel like you're out of control, and I gotta be in this state. Again, these are all patterns, guys. All of these are patterns. And you know why pushing harder is gonna backfire for you? Because more pushing just reinforces the already existing system of like pressure is the only way to get things done. So you push through it and you're reinforcing that pattern. All this stuff is just a pattern. It's all just a pattern, guys. Everything is a pattern. You've trained yourself to operate this way and you don't have to continue to do that. You do not have to continue to operate this way. You can retrain your patterns. Retrain them. Okay, but first you got to see them. You got to see the patterns, the thoughts, the beliefs, the everything. Then you got to be— then you got to be aware of them without judging yourself, for one. And then you got to regulate in real time when those patterns dysregulate you and make you stressed and anxious and burnt out and guilty and whatever they are, or angry. Regulate and then act as the new self. We got our built North Star awareness— awareness of the pattern, When am I dysregulated? When am I acting as the old self? It's the first point. Second point, regulate. Am I regulated enough right now to be doing anything? I'm not regulated enough, I'm not doing anything. Point number 3 on the star, how would my future self act? How would my 2.0 self act in the situation? Move as that person. 4, emotions. What emotions am I resisting in the situation? Like, was it when I got triggered, did anxiety come up? Did stress? Did guilt? Did fear? Whatever that emotion that was there, let it come up and feel it. It's the only way that you let that thing go and release the trigger of that thing in your environment. You gotta let it go. And then T, am I acting in alignment with my values? That's the fifth point. So you got awareness, nervous system, identity, emotional regulation, and values is the fifth star. Am I acting in alignment with my values right now? Am I acting in alignment with my values? My values. All right. So I'm coming out with a YouTube video in a couple of weeks. I just recorded one on the 7 signs of burnout. I go a little bit deeper into it with some other practices. Another practice you can, you can use to regulate. So I gave you the 7 signs of survival mode. Now, what do you do? Well, you gotta be aware of them. This, this, this video is really about just being aware of those things, right? The next step is to actually regulate them. So you're aware of it. And then you regulate because your system is always going to get triggered and go into survival quicker than your conscious mind. That's how we're wired. But when we do, we want to be aware of it and then regulate, right? Aware, regulate. So things like the breath, physiological sigh, 2 sharp inhales, slow, because you can't think your way out of dysregulation. Again, prefrontal cortex is offline when you're in those moderate to severe stressful states. So you have to do physical things. Breath is probably the simplest way. Or you can just do anything where your exhale is longer than your inhale. 4 seconds in, 8 seconds out, whatever you need to do. All right. Hope everyone has a wonderful Monday. Till next time, all the peace, all the power.