Feeling Successful but Exhausted? Learn How Aligning With Your Strengths Turns Burnout Into Peace S5E06

If you feel exhausted by your business even though you’re doing everything "right"… this episode is for you.

Today, I share a powerful case study from a recent client session that reveals why following "expert" advice might be exactly what’s draining you. It’s not about working harder. It’s not about time management. It’s about the subtle but dangerous misalignment between your natural strengths and your daily tasks.

I unpack the "24 Hours" myth, the difference between pruning and harvesting seasons, and why clarity often comes from quiet confirmation rather than fireworks.

You’ll learn:

✓ Why doing "everything right" on paper can still leave you feeling wrong inside 

✓ The "24 Hours" Myth: Why you need to stop comparing your day to someone else’s

 ✓ How to identify if you are relying on your "lower talent themes" and why it causes burnout 

✓ The critical difference between a "Pruning Season" and a "Harvesting Season" — and how to accept where you are 

✓ Why your strengths don't replace discernment, but support it

 ✓ 4 specific questions to ask yourself to move from hustle to alignment



Mentioned in this episode:
The Only 2 Tips You Need for Success and Balance in 2025:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2081544/episodes/16360443

If you’re ready to stop striving and start aligning with your God-given talents, let’s connect. I invite you to dive into your CliftonStrengths report, as I did for my friend, so you can find the peace and clarity you deserve.

Checked all the boxes of success but still feel like something’s missing? My new book, Discovering Your Calling, is a guide for ambitious women ready to stop drifting and build a life of true fulfillment and joy. Your calling is waiting.

✨ Get your copy of the Discovering Your Calling book today!   Your calling is waiting! 

Transcript

Sheri Miter: 2:15

Sometimes clarity doesn't come with fireworks or instant answers. It comes with confirmation. And when your strengths, season of life, and inner nudges finally align, you don't feel rushed. You feel at peace. Welcome to the Discovering Your Calling podcast. I'm your host, Jerry Miter. I'm here to help you unleash your strengths and get clarity on your calling. I believe when you find your purpose in life, fulfillment, joy, and success will follow. If you're ready, pop in those earbuds, hit that follow button, and join me on this journey toward discovering your calling. So I want to share something a client said to me after a recent session because it captured what working in alignment with your natural strengths actually feels like. But to make it make sense to you, I need to take you back into the conversation that came first. So this was with a friend of mine that we were doing, I was going to do a coaching session where I did a coaching session with recently. And when she booked the coaching session, she was feeling unsettled. She was feeling exhausted by the way she was working her business. And on paper, she was doing everything right. Everything that the world or the experts were telling her to do to run a successful business as an entrepreneur. But internally, something felt off. Not wrong necessarily, but just misaligned. And she knew that something had to change, but she wasn't quite sure what. And to be honest, she was a little nervous to let go of what she had worked so hard to build. And for somebody listening today, that might sound familiar to you because I hear that over and over again, that you know something has to change, but you're not sure what it is, and you're definitely nervous about giving up what you work so hard to build. And that is human nature. And that's why I think what I'm going to share today about our conversation and how she felt afterwards is so vitally important. So as I was preparing for our session together, um, I always have my clients fill out a little questionnaire survey so I can get to know where their heart and their head is and where they want to be. And of course, I pull out their Clipton Strengths 34 and dive into it. That's what the pre-work looks like for me. And as I was doing that pre-work, what really stood out to me almost instantly was that she wasn't using her natural talents and strengths doing what she had been doing. And that was huge. That was like, like I said, it was almost instant as I read it. It's like, oh, no wonder, no wonder she's exhausted. No wonder she's not seeing and feeling the success she deserves. Now, just for context, her top 10 talent themes are achiever, responsibility, discipline, communication, activator, futuristic, maximizer, strategic, learner, and significance. And if you don't know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about strengths, I am referring to Gallup's Clifton Strengths or Strength Finders. If you're new to the show, that may not, that may be like, what is she even talking about? That's what I'm referring to here. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you know that we talk a lot about strengths here. But anyway, back to my friend and client. So as I was preparing, I'm reading through there and I realized that not only was she not utilizing her top 10 talent themes, but she was actually having to rely on some of her lower themes to run her business the way she was currently doing it. And it was again, it was like, no wonder she was exhausted. So during our session, we talked about this and we talked about how her strengths assessment reveals that she is high in executing themes and influencing themes, but low in relationship building themes. Now, side note, that doesn't mean she can't build relationships. She absolutely can, but she does them in her own unique way. But knowing this information, again, really pointed out why she felt drained doing things the way she had been. Because the way she was running her business was small, intimate groups. And that wasn't just not using her talents, her talent themes correctly. And we identified, we also identified some of her purpose-driven problems that she's passionate about. And we really started talking about how rather than teaching how others should speak in small groups, that perhaps it was time for her to get back on stage, for her to start sharing her voice again and start really, really letting those executing and influencing themes lead the way. Her strengths, like achiever, responsibility, discipline, communication, and activator, make her naturally suited for that individual performance and public speaking. And as I shared with her, it doesn't mean she can't coach others on speaking, but that she should do it from a position of being the successful speaker herself and then coaching those elite clients to follow her suit. Again, some of the things that we really realized as we had this conversation that one, running the group's programs were exhausting her because they relied on her lower talent themes. The thought of being on stage energized her. And she had felt that before because she had performed before. So she knew that she thrived on the stage. But it wasn't until we had this conversation and named it out loud and looked at her talent themes that she was able to really embody this again. And I instantly saw that not only did her body feel it, but her spirit responded immediately. Because understanding her strengths helped her to make better career decisions and would help her make better career decisions in the future because her strengths confirmed she's suited for speaking and individual performance and not running the small group programs she had been doing. Again, there was nothing wrong with those programs. They were beneficial to many people, but it wasn't utilizing her natural talents themes. Now, the other thing that we talked about during this session that was so vital and so important, you know, once we got the strengths piece kind of laid out, we also started talking about the season of life that she's in and the reality of that season of life and how that played into her time and her energy. She felt like she was struggling to balance motherhood and homeschooling and all her business aspirations. And we talked about perhaps it was time to have a strategic pause and that to in order to really focus, refocus her business in 2026 on what was really going to align with her talents and strengths, that she might need to take time to just pause what she was doing and give herself the space to recreate things in a way that felt more in alignment with her talent themes. Now, the thought of that pause was really scary. And I get that. It is scary when we think of pausing things because we're so used to having to strive for things and hustle for, you know, to create a productive business. And especially in this world where, you know, it's this constant noise and constantly people are preaching to entrepreneurs, like even on the podcast, consistency matters in social media, consistency matters. So when we're thinking about like just pausing things and not showing up like we're used to, that is really, really scary. Now, to soften the fear for her, I did share that one of my highest listened to podcast episodes ever was the one I recorded right before my pause last year. Last year at this time, December 2024, would have been, yes, because this is December 2025. Um, I actually recorded some an episode letting all of you know that I was going to be taking a pause because I had to let some things go to work on my book and my course. And in fact, if you're curious about that episode, I'll share that in the show notes. But anyway, when I shared that with my friend, she kind of had that like, oh, okay, maybe I can do this. We also talked about the need to pause and get still and get quiet because that helps us really listen to our gut, to our God. And it also just lets your strengths guide your decisions instead of the noisy world. Now, at one point when we were talking about all this, um, my friend said something about, because I know we all have the same 24 hours as every, you know, as everyone else. And I could sense this little bit of guilt of not getting more done in her same quote unquote 24 hours. And she is, you know, obviously a classic high achiever who loves to be productive. You know, high achievers love to just tick the boxes and, you know, get all the things done. And I had to gently remind her that yes, we do all have 24 hours in a day, but we don't all have the same 24 hours. And in fact, I shared with her, I really hate that saying of, but we all have the same 24 hours in a day because that's so untrue. You know, I'm an empty nester. So my 24 hours looks very different than her 24 hours. She's a wife, she's a mom of three little boys, and she homeschools and she's trying to run a business. That looks way different than my 24 hours with no children. I have grandchildren, but they're not my responsibility 24 hours a day. I have my husband who supports me, and he takes a lot of the load off of my to-do list. And I'm, but I'm just trying to run a business. So my 24 hours looks way, way different than her 24 hours. And maybe, my friend, you needed to just hear that reminder right now. Our 24 hours look different. Everybody's 24 hours looks different. And especially right now, it's you know, beginning of December. So there's so much of a rush of the holiday season. So your responsibilities look different than my responsibilities, uh, you know, which look different than somebody else's. So if you get nothing else from this episode, maybe that's what you needed to hear. That gentle reminder that your 24 hours are your 24 hours. So stop comparing, stop feeling guilty because you're not checking all the boxes off. Do the best you can in the season you're in. And that's how we kind of finished that part of the conversation. We ended by just talking about the seasons we were in. Because every season looks different. The season of life we're in sometimes demands that we need to pause things. Sometimes that season of life is about abundance and harvesting. And we need to be okay with that. Because when I was raising my three little boys, what I got done and what my priorities looked like then looks totally different than what it looks like today. So instead of fighting that and being resentful, we need to just embrace it. But it was actually, so that was kind of what we covered and a lot more. I mean, we spent over three hours together on this session. So we talked about her strengths, we talked about the season of life she's in, we talked about just what it would look like to pause. I was able to leave her with clarity, but it was after we finished up our call that really left me feeling like, oh, that was such a godly call. Because afterwards, a few hours afterwards, actually, um, she messaged me over on Facebook. And this is what she shared. And she she told me, you know, in her own words, that she felt like that session, she could really feel that it was Holy Spirit-led, where both faith is important to both of us. She felt very affirmed. And she felt like there was a divine alignment and confirmation with the nudges that came afterwards. She felt very inspired and excited to work on her plan and her next steps as she does her year-end review and plans for 2026. And, you know, we continued this conversation over in the DMs, this ongoing chat. And we talked about how she's, you know, she's been honing her craft and she does see small improvements over time. And she shared with me that she knows even if nobody else is noticing or seeing it, she knows God does. And then we talked about having to prune things, that maybe she is in that season of pruning. And what God is doing inside of her right now is she does allow him just to prune things and maybe accept that maybe she does need that quiet pause. And that she felt like that she is striving to use her gifts for his glory and not hers. You know, that is one thing that we had talked about too was that, you know, in some seasons of life, we are in a pruning stage where we need to cut back. We need to be quieter, we need to let some things go, and that's okay. And then other seasons of life, we are in the harvesting stage. And that's where we get to see the fruition of our work. And it's there that we just need to accept what, again, what season of life we're in. And that was something that was really impactful on her, is just kind of leaning in to accept that maybe she's in a pruning season, not a harvesting season. But when you accept that, the harvest is bigger, the harvest is bigger, and that's a whole nother conversation. But I just want to mention that here. So as she was sharing what she got out of our time together and what she named so beautifully, is something that I see over and over again with my clients because I see that when you are aligned, you stop striving. When you can let your gifts be for God's glory and not ego driven, it feels so much better. You still work, you still grow, but you're no longer hustling for the likes, hustling for the worth, hustling for what the world tells you you need to be doing. And when you recognize what season of life and work you're in and accept it, whether it be again that season of pruning where momentum slows but depth increases, or maybe you're in that season of harvesting right now, where you see the fruit of your earlier obedience and effort, and you know that both are necessary in life and business. That all of this is really about alignment, it's about trust, and it's about obedience to our inner nudges. And what was really beautiful about this session, my friend was ready to receive. She was ready to be coached, and she was ready and open to know that her strengths confirmed where she should focus, her faith confirmed how she should move, and together they created the peace that she felt afterwards. Because here's the thing, my friend, strengths don't replace discernment. They support it, they give language to what your soul already knows. There's something powerful about seeing it and black and white on that Clifton Strengths report that lets you know who you are at your absolute best. And when you can read that and look at it and see it, that's where peace, peace will align. That's where success sustainable success will follow. So I know I've thrown a lot at you here. And it was a powerful session that we had, and there's a lot you can take away. And as we close today's episode, I want to give you four questions. Four questions for you to ponder, four questions for you to find that quiet place to journal about, so that you can start to feel that alignment, like my friend felt. So, number one, where are you striving in a hustling type way instead of aligning? So, where do you feel like it's just hustle and hard instead of just feeling like it's easy and aligned with your goals and your life and your strength? Number two, what feels heavy right now? What are you doing right now that might be fighting against your natural talents and strengths? What just again feels hard and is exhausting? It might just simply be like my friend, that you are trying to do something that doesn't align with your top 10 talents. And until you flip that around, it's always going to be exhausting and feel heavy. Number three, what has been gently nudging you that you've been too busy to hear? What has been gently nudging you that you've been too busy to hear? Let your gut speak here, my friend. And number four, what season are you in right now? Is it a pruning season? Is it a harvesting season? And will you accept whichever one it is? As I close here, I want you to really embody that sometimes the next step isn't louder, it's quieter. And when your strengths, your season, and your calling line up, clarity isn't stressful, it's settling and it's peaceful. And just like my friend, that's what I want you to feel. And if looking at your natural, God-given talents and gifts is your next best step, let's connect. I would love to help you dive into your Clifton Strengths report just like I did for my friend and see what your natural talents are revealing about your work in life so that you can find that peace and you can let go of all the things that feel hustling and hard and heavy because you deserve that inner peace, like she felt. So just message me, send me a DM on Facebook or LinkedIn or an email at sherry at discoveringyourcalling.com. I would love to hear from you. And either way, I'd also just love to hear what was your biggest takeaway from today's episode? And I will catch you back here in two weeks. Thank you for spending this time with me. My hope is something you heard today inspires you to take action toward discovering your calling. I just have two favors to ask of you before you go. One, if you found value and enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and you might hear your review read on a future episode. And two, can you share this episode with three friends who will also enjoy it as much as you did? By doing these things, you will help us grow the podcast to make a bigger impact on the world. And until next week, remember. You've been created to live a life of fulfillment, freedom, purpose, success, and joy.