61 | Why Trying Harder Isn’t Working (The Burnout Lie High-Functioning Women Believe)

You’ve done the lists.
 You’ve set the goals.
 You’ve pushed through.

And you’re still exhausted.

In this episode of The Honest Work, Lisa exposes the lie so many high-functioning women live by:

“If I just do more, I’ll finally feel better.”

We talk about:

• Why burnout doesn’t come out of nowhere
• How your nervous system gets stuck in “try harder” mode
• The hidden connection between perfectionism and control
• Why overfunctioning leads to resentment
• How chronic stress and cortisol quietly affect your body
• The truth about trauma wiring and panic attacks
• And why doing more has never actually created peace

This isn’t about being lazy.
 It’s not about abandoning goals.
 It’s about recognizing when effort becomes fear disguised as productivity.

If you’re the woman who:

• Feels behind no matter how much she accomplishes
• Carries the emotional weight of her home
• Tries to control everything to avoid falling apart
• Is tired of being the “strong one”

This episode will help you see what’s actually driving the exhaustion.

Because the problem isn’t that you’re not working hard enough.

It’s that you’ve been gripping instead of resetting.

You don’t need more effort.
 You need awareness.

 👉 If you’re up for trying this — just trying honesty — I created something for you.

It’s called The Honest Work. It’s free, and it’s a simple guide to help you start noticing the lies that keep your nervous system stuck in fear, anxiety, and self-doubt — without fixing yourself or spiraling.

You don’t have to change your whole life.
 You don’t have to get it right.
 You have to be willing to look at what’s true.

You can find it in the show notes or go to LisaCovert.com/honestwork.

I’m walking this way — in truth.
 You can come if you want.

I’ll see you in the next episode.

 ✨ Click Here Now. ✨

 🎶 Instrumental Acoustic Guitar Music by Viacheslav Starostin (original_soundtrack),

W E B S I T E - LisaCovert.com

I N S T A G R A M - @lisamcovert

Transcript

Speaker 0:03

Welcome to The Honest Work. This is the podcast for the woman who is tired of trying harder and still feeling behind. You've done the lists, you've set the goals, you've pushed through, and somehow you're still exhausted. I'm Lisa Covert, and I'm not here to hype you up or to fix you. I'm here to help you tell the truth. The truth about your nervous system. The truth about perfection. The truth about why burnout didn't come out of nowhere. Around here, we don't perform confidence, we don't chase approval, and we don't add more to the pile. We slow down enough to see what's actually going on and let clarity regulate. If you're ready to stop living from fear and start living from truth, you're in the right place. Let's do the honest work. Hello, welcome. This episode for today comes from a place that I believe is more common than the world wants to admit. This is coming from a place, truthfully, the lie. We're going to expose it today. And I hope by the end of this podcast you see this is a lie. And when it comes to mind, you stop and pause and make a different decision. I called this podcast Why Trying Harder Has Never Worked. The lie to that is if I just do more, I'll finally feel better. I'll finally be happy. I'll finally be at peace. If I just do more, I'll finally make that money I want. My kids will finally follow the way I want them to. This is a complete nervous system. Nervous system is it's it's the system that runs completely through our body. It's all the time, it's it's so detailed, but you've got to understand that the nervous system affects how our hormones work, how healthy we are, how our moods are. I like to think of the nervous system kind of like electricity. And when there's too much surgeon through, you're gonna get too much of a hormone, less of another, too much of some emotion, and not enough peace and calm. And how you know if your nervous system is off balance at all, it's when you feel behind. When you feel like things are like out of your control. And instead of slowing down, all you want to do is speed up. That is a true sign that the nervous system is talking and you're just in that wired pattern that you've been doing it for so long. It's when I feel powerless, I'm gonna grab towards something else that I can control. I always think of my mornings. I have never been a person that's gonna get up at five o'clock and be ready two hours early and have so much done and whistling to walk through the door. Nope. That doesn't, that is not my criteria. Now I'm not saying that I don't enjoy mornings sometimes, but at five o'clock, nope. So I was always the one that kind of snoozed the button and laid in bed and enjoyed it. That was my piece. I enjoyed those moments. Knew I was getting up. I also knew the deadline time and when I had to get up. But it when it was by myself and I was only taking care of me, and the only interruption could possibly be a cat that did something in the in my apartment at the time, that I could deal with. I can go and say, okay, I can't I don't have time to handle that right now. That mess that's on the floor, I will do it when I come home from lunch or after work. There I could easily do and move on. Have the coffee. I had the coffee prepped. You know, like I knew the things because I was taking care of myself. But now, with kids, it is high stress. If I keep pressing that snooze button, all of it, it's a high stress. And to look forward to that, I would always look forward to the coffee break. Like, oh man, when I get my coffee, I could sit at my office desk, enjoy it. Ah, get in there a few minutes early. I mean, like five minutes early. I wasn't the last one, but I was definitely cutting close. But by the time I do that coffee break with the kids, that could be two hours later. By the time we're up and moving, and who did this and who did that, it's putting me last. When I find when I do all of this, I can sit down and be happy. But my baseline just got higher and higher, and I didn't even notice it. That is trying harder instead of resetting. That is a prime example of just going harder and not looking at the truth and resetting the situation. And that's when control can step in and it's like disguised as effort. Oh, well, I'm trying harder. That makes me feel at least I'm doing something. At least I'm not just sitting here doing nothing. Because at times freezing feels almost worse. But that's really fear trying to regain control. At least I'm doing something. No, no, no. That doesn't mean you're in power. That's like a robot. You have those vacuums, the roomba, it can go keep hitting the same corner. It's moving, but it's literally stuck in just enough amount of room that it keeps going back and forth. But it's still stuck. And it's going back to those moments in life where didn't plan. I still will go back to the story where the first time I ever gave up control and or the first time I was comfortable with the unknown and almost felt good about it and almost loved it because I didn't have to control it. I didn't have to stress about it. It was out of my control, was my first son's birth plan. Nope, I don't have a plan. Not in my control. And that was the first time when I felt uncertainty and was okay with it and didn't need to control it. And I want to be clear, that that wiring that was there and that's here of the let me control, let me control, that will give me some power. It doesn't start with motherhood. It's so much deeper. It ties directly from control and trust. When we can stop and trust and take faith that something's going to work out, you're the most important thing that you're doing is just to keep being present and go, okay, so here's the situation. Go back to my mornings. It's high stress. I'm doing more and more and more. And I'm becoming more stressed out. Don't even want to get out of bed in the morning to do this routine with my kids. It's so stressful. I am literally keeping the volcano within me from erupting. How could I do this differently? Do you want to wake up an hour earlier? Absolutely not. Okay. So then what are some things going on in the morning that don't need to be done in the morning? Oh, okay. I can prep their lunches, even their breakfast, set their alarms on their own in their room. I can make sure that my clothes are picked out, theirs clothes are picked out, but we have certain times, okay, this is the time block, we are done. Now it's time to go brush our teeth. If one child takes 15 minutes, then that child gets stopped 15 minutes earlier until they get to that routine to be shorter. And here's the deal: if I don't stop and see that truth, that's a lie, telling me if I work harder, I'll feel better. Seeing that physically and saying, okay, so what am I taking too much control over? What am I not taking enough control over? Because while I'm trying to control them on the times and doing what I ask them to do, I could be putting that effort in the night before and saying, hey guys, let's make her a lunch. Let's get that done. Help out. A little bit more peaceful and calm. Because here's the thing, too. Okay, I like to say this and clear this up. Patterns are patterns. We're human. Some patterns are beneficial to us, and some patterns are absolutely detrimental to us. They're patterns. Welcome to being human. It's like having an array of emotions. Anger is a natural emotion. Shame is a natural emotion, and it could be used for good. However, when it goes over, that's not good anymore. And by over, I want to use the word trauma. Now, when I say a trauma response, this is what I believe a trauma is. Yes, there is abuse and all of that, and I'm not downplaying because I've been there. However, trauma is really a deep, an emotional event that wired fast. So again, let me say that again. Trauma is just a deep emotion. At one point in time, there was a deep emotion, a deep loss, a deep betrayal, just to name a few. That's that's what that is. That's not like, oh no, I don't want to label that trauma. You can label it or not. You can, it was a deep emotion. That's it. But that's what trauma is. And when we avoid something and say, I don't even want to think about it, push it to the side, it's still there. There's a book called The Body Keeps Score. I like to say, our bodies remember. Our bodies remember what it felt like. You can try your best to ignore that and not look at that situation. Again, that's where the honest work comes in. It's not always painful, but you can shift that perspective of a deep emotion that happened in your life, and you can shift it so that it doesn't have as much power anymore. You do. You see it for the truth, and you see where you do have power, and that's where you put your energy in. Because here, these traumas, you may not think it, but your body will go back to that deep emotional event on its own. Our bodies and minds are protected or created to protect us. And if that's what keeps playing in there, that is what happens. So even when nothing has happened, it could be a small trigger, it could be a sense of smell that the body is like, I remember that smell. And the brain says, I do too. Let's get away from it. And you're what's going on? That's where people have had panic attacks. That's me. I was at low-level stress constantly. And then a trigger that I didn't even know just flipped it off. And I was too high already that it went to panic. That's when you think, oh, it came out of nowhere. It didn't come out of nowhere. I'm realizing it now, but not then. I didn't at the time. I was so disconnected from what my body was communicating to me or my brain that it almost started to take power over me. It's almost like did you ever get angry and you're like, I couldn't even control myself. That's because you have let the body, the mind, those all take over instead of training and saying, no, we're gonna think about our response. No, wait a moment. I am going to breathe. I mean, come on, we have children. They could send us in five seconds. You know there's a difference between screaming at them, yelling at them, and at the moment, it feels like the right response, but it never works out well. No one feels better, and most likely everyone's getting punished. But if you've ever had the moment where you're like, I don't even know, you just sit there and breathe for three minutes and then respond. Say, okay, that was a not a great decision. But the first things that come in our mouth is, what are you doing? Why'd you do that? What made you think of doing that? That is directed at the person. This is the part is that when we convince ourselves or go live by that lie that says, if I do more, I will feel better. If I do more, I will be more loved. If I do more, I will feel happier. We are going to start to project that on our children and the people around us that we love the most. And that is then we become the person that's hurting now. When there is something wrong, a child does something, a human being sometimes does something. We don't direct and say, well, that person is bad. No, it's the choice. But our words cannot project that unless the words are trained. There's a whole different response of saying, Why did you do that? That was a bad thing. We're going to say, okay, we don't paint the walls. That is a bad decision. A good decision would be over here. We're not saying the child's bad. We're not asking them why they're doing what they're doing. We're not projecting all of this anger and hurt on them. Now we're slowly choosing different, and that can make an entire difference by speaking the words. And I want to go back to that, you know, the morning routine stress, but the panic attack, pretty much they just went hand in hand. I thought I was fine. I really did. I was just living in that low-level stress constantly. Those little micro moments of calm were not existent. There was no reconnection with myself and saying, okay, so we had a good day. Nope, it was next. What can I do more? I need to do this and do this and do that. Look at that list. There's so much still going on. No. And I have to tell you, cortisol, you're just asking for constant inflammation. And we all know what that means. You don't know that connects to chronic health issues, more stress. And now, by the micro changes that I have made, by looking at situations and seeing those micro lies, and by lies is what it means, it doesn't align with me. Someone else might feel like the way that they're speaking to that child and saying, what's wrong with you is better than the way they grew up and they enjoy that. That doesn't align with me. So if I am going to be reacting in that way, then I'm constantly going to be under stress and feel disconnected, disconnected from myself. And that is the absolute opposite of what brings absolute peace and we connect with ourselves. It is, there's no balance without that. And I want you to put it in perspective. Let's say, like, we don't do things, let's say money. We believe that the more effort that we put in equals more success. We know now and today in the world, and these kids on YouTube and people being entrepreneurs and doing different things, you don't have to say, hi, I've got this hobby and I made $20,000 this year. Well, I want to bring it to 60,000. I need to put three times the time in. No, that's wrong. Your time is your money. And that's the same thing in life with all of these things and the doing. Your time is your value. Your time is your win when you get to choose what you do with that time. Think of an example. If I did 20, if I wanted to get from that 20,000 to 60,000 in one year, and I put in three times the amount of effort, how many times do you think that side hustle is going to cause me to go get takeout and stress and spend more money? That doesn't equal out. Also, let's see this. So let's say more takeout. Could be more doctor visits, that increases. Maybe higher medications to deal with the stress. Maybe more people helping out and paying to help with the kids and getting homework done and all of that. Was that the goal? No, the goal was to increase the income. The goal was not to suck your time away. I just want you to see this from the doing and how doing does not equal happiness. Doing does not equal, or time three times the amount of your time does not equal the success. You've seen successful people that are absolutely stressed out and would trade anything to go back to where they were. You are the COO of your family. That's the way I like to think of myself. Fix your mom, wife, school manager, emotional therapist, the volunteer, the vacation planner, the crisis manager, the all the things. And that's not even adding a job on top of it. Outside. I mean, you have the unexpected school projects that will never end. They come out of nowhere, and you're constantly in that active therapy mode and calm with the kids and just trying to stay calm and not lose your temper. That's trying harder in real time. That does not work. And I will tell you, you will, if you haven't even realized it, you will realize how resentful you do or will feel. I always think back to cleaning the toilets in the house. That's one of those things. I started to become so, so resentful. It was like cleaning toilets daily basis. I was starting to feel like Mother Teresa, and it was ridiculous. The kids running around, running into the bathroom last minute. If you're a boy mom, you understand what I'm talking about. And I felt almost separate from the family because I was doing it all alone. That's what it felt like. I was like, nope. These kids are a little old enough. They're not listening about it. So let's experience it. Not from punishment. I went straight out and said, after doing the honest work, guys, mom's getting a little resentful here. I'm the only one not standing. So I know it's not me. We're just gonna come up with a routine and accept what it is. And four people are going to clean up the bathrooms every week. And each person gets a day. And this was my hope that maybe seeing it would lessen it, that they didn't want to clean as much, but even if it didn't, at least we're all taking part in this. When you feel that, you gotta honor yourself because honoring yourself, it's okay that you don't feel 100% about that. That is okay. And the beautiful, oh, I gotta tell you about this one. We were having people come over, and my husband husband wasn't home. It was very last minute. I think he was late on the plane. I don't really remember what happened, but we had like 45 minutes to clean this house, and it was unexpected. Um I'm always like, okay, whatever, you can see my house, but I can't have my toilet look like a truck stop. Well, I'm cleaning the downstairs bathroom, and I asked the boys to do something, and all of a sudden my older one comes down. He says, Mom, I cleaned the upstairs bathroom. I'm like, what? He's like, Yeah, I got the toilet, I got the floor, I got the counters. I mean, he was so I could see how empowered he felt. And I felt so such relief. This thing that I thought was wrong for me to want help with ended up being amazing. I not only helped me, but I helped him. He was capable. And I was overfunctioning. This is power. So the lie is not hard work is bad. Not at all. The lie is if I push enough, I'll finally feel enough. Or if I do more, I'll feel in control. I want that to sit in your heart for a moment. That's the lie. Not that something's wrong with us, not that hard work is bad. It's that. Maybe we don't need to add more. Maybe we need to look at where we're gripping. Maybe the shift is in how you're working. So with that lie comes the truth that perfection is not necessary, that being human is human. And that when we feel like we need to grip on control, it's resetting. What are we really gripping to? Is it gripping to the fact that maybe I had enough when I feel like I haven't completed enough or done the to-do list, I don't feel enough. Well, that's the work. That's what the truth reveals. And then you get to choose and do that work. That is where the connection comes with us. That's where that deep separation with yourself ends. And you become to connect with yourself. I'm not walking toward perfection at all. I'm walking towards truth. And my truth is that working harder does not make me feel certain. Does not make me feel enough. It makes me feel burnt out. Nothing positive. But when I do feel good, when I sit down at the truth and say, okay, the situation of the toilets, I'm becoming resentful. I don't want to do it all myself anymore. What can we do that I don't feel alone in this? And it's everyone having a day a week to just clean the toilet. If it's one toilet that everyone is mainly using, go ahead. We can all do it. Like I said, I'm not walking toward a perfection situation. I am just walking toward the truth. And you can come with me if you want. All you have to do is go to LisaCovert.com slash honest work. And I have created the free document that puts out for you how to do the honest work on your own. I even added a little audio so I can help you walk through those three. And those three images that I have sent to you, you can save them on your phone. You could sit there in the car at a pickup line. You could show up 15 minutes before an appointment and sit there and review something. You will get it so ingrained in your mind that you won't even need it. But having that picture view and also having those images on top of doing the work will repeat that and have it in your memory more than you realize. I hope that the truth can set you free as much as it set me free. Talk to you soon. Bye. Did you have fun with my mom or did you learn something from my mom? Then hit subscribe because we've got way more coming your way. If this episode made you pause, reflect, or even breathe a little deeper, would you do me a favor? Take 30 seconds and leave a quick review for the show. It helps more women who are stuck in the same overwhelm we've talked about today actually find this podcast. I'm not here for everyone, but I am here for the woman who's tired of holding it all together and ready to live a life that finally feels like her own. And hey, if you're feeling brave, take a screenshot of your comment and email it to me at Lisa at LisaCovert.com. Every month I do a little giveaway drawing for listeners who share or review the show. You never know, you might get something special. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being here, and most of all, thanks for choosing to keep showing up for you.