Why High-Achieving Women Can't Stop Overworking: Hustle, Safety, and the Nervous System

Episode Overview

In this episode, Michelle goes beneath the surface of the burnout conversation to name what's actually driving the hustle for high-achieving, empathic women. This isn't about rest protocols or morning routines. This is about the nervous system pattern that keeps ambitious women overworking even when they desperately want to stop — and the profound physical, emotional, and identity-level cost of leaving it unaddressed.

This episode will change how you understand your own drive.

What You'll Learn

• The critical difference between soul-led drive and survival-based hustle  and how to feel the distinction in your own body
• Why high-achieving women often can't stop overworking even when they're exhausted, aware, and have done significant personal development work
• The nervous system mechanism behind chronic overworking and why it has nothing to do with ambition or discipline
• The real physical cost of chronic stress, adrenal fatigue, hormonal dysregulation, perimenopause acceleration, immune suppression, and accelerated cellular aging
• Why the hustle that got you here may be the exact pattern keeping you from what's next
• What it actually looks like to begin healing this, at the nervous system, identity, and soul level

Transcript

0:00

So somebody said something the other day that stopped me in my tracks. They said that they had 26 summers left, and I was like, "What?" So I did the math. Apparently, statistically speaking, the average American woman lives to age 81. Now, do the math and see how many summers you have left. For me, it's 28. 28 summers. And I want to ask you something before we go any further. How many of those summers do you want to spend at war with yourself? Because that's what I want to talk to you about today. Not hustle, not burnout, not just you need more rest or put your phone down at 6:00 PM. We're gonna go way below the surface of that conversation because the surface version has never actually helped anybody that I know. This is "Into the Work." I'm Michelle Pofferman, And today we're going somewhere most people don't go when they talk about this topic. Because here's what I know about you. You are not undisciplined. You're not lazy. You're not somebody who needs a better morning routine, or, "Hey, let's get some Post-it notes," and... or, "Let's get some stickies and color code your calendar." You are someone who cares deeply about the work you're here to do. You feel the calling. You feel the pull towards something bigger, and at the same time, you find yourself exhausted in a way that rest doesn't fix. You're spinning. You're doing more than you planned. You're saying yes when you probably meant no. On any given day, you're working at 11:00 PM, even though your body said to stop hours ago, right? Like, you just got exhausted, you kept going. And somewhere in the back of your mind, there is a voice that says, "This, is what it takes." I want to offer you a completely different frame today. What if it's not what it takes? I thought it was what it took. I absolutely lived that way since I was, I don't know, third grade. I went to Catholic school, and I have very v- very early memories of being... studying for a religion test, and I remember hiding coffee grounds in my bedroom at night, and I would stuff the coffee grounds in my mouth and suck them down with water so that I could stay up without my parents knowing, studying so that I could pass my religion test. Because actually, that teacher was really fricking scary. So, I mean, this is what I'm talking about. Some of us, some of us have this wired in us from the beginning, the perfectionism, the, the urgency, and some of us are catching up now and living in this culture and day and age, and this is what you're doing. So I do... I want to offer you a different frame today. What if it's not what it takes, but it's actually just what your nervous system believes it takes to survive? Because those are two very different things. The average life expectancy for American women, again, is 81 years old. We are not promised that, and yet we're, we're just burning through it. We're burning through it working, not living inside the work we love, not expanding into our full capacity. We're burning. There's a difference, and today I want you to know exactly what that difference feels like in your body. So before we go further, I wanna make something very clear because I am not... If you know me, if you've been listening to this podcast, you know I am not anti-ambition I am not here to tell you to slow down, to scale back, or to want less. Let's make that very clear. Those aren't any of the words you're gonna hear me say, I believe in going for it fully, unapologetically. I believe in the woman who's on fire for her mission, who shows up before she's ready, something I'm always working on, who builds something real from a place of genuine calling. That is not what we're talking about when we talk about hustle. So here I-- is how I distinguish them, 'cause this you need to know. You need to understand what the difference is so you know when it's happening. And I want you to feel this in your body as I describe it, not just hear it in your head. So there is a difference when I talk about, like, an embodied drive, soul-led momentum. It feels like expansion. It feels like flow inside the structure. It feels like a yes that comes from a deeper place inside you, like your center, not a yes that comes from your fear. You're tired at the end of the day, yes, but it's the tiredness of someone who gave something. You can rest. You can stop. It is up to you. You know that. You know that I have a choice here. I can stop if I want to, but I wanna keep going. You know you'll come back to it tomorrow because it's yours. It belongs to you, and it's not going anywhere. Hustle is different, the kind that we're talking about today, the negative connotation that comes with hustle, because it feels like constriction. Listen, I love a soul-driven hustle, right? But the one we're talking about does not love you back. You know what I'm saying. It's driven from feeling behind, not being called forward. So it's like you're running from something, not running to something. It's the doing that happens when you can't not do. You're trapped. When stopping feels dangerous, when success feels like it's urgent, when your worth and your output have become so entangled that you genuinely don't know who you are when you're not producing, these are issues within the hustle culture. One is- A woman in her power, and the other is a woman running from the absence of it, okay? And here's the part that makes this complicated. They can really look identical from the outside, like same hours, same output, same person, same woman, same you. The internal experience and the long-term cost could not be more different. So why do we do it? Why do high-achieving, deeply self-aware women, women who know way better, who've done the work, who teach others to regulate, right? You, you, you might even be out there in the world teaching other people to do this, still find yourself unable to stop. Because the nervous system doesn't respond to logic. Here's the truth that changed everything for me, and for most of the women I work with, is that chronic overworking is not a productivity strategy. It's a survival response. We think we're just being productive, and that's our problem. We can't stop being productive, but we don't understand why. When the nervous system doesn't feel safe enough to simply just be, to be still, to be seen, to be, in the uncertainty, it reaches for control. And for the high-achieving woman, and for you, the most socially acceptable, most praised, most rewarded form of control is productivity. Is it not, right? Doing more means that you're safe. Doing more means that you can't be criticized. Doing more means that your worth is visible and measurable, and no one can take it away from you. The hustle is not a character flaw. It is a nervous system doing exactly what it was wired to do, and that is to protect you from the threat that it learned somewhere early was real. Maybe that threat was conditional love. Maybe you grew up with a level of conditional love, like you're loved when you succeed. You get all the love and praise when you're doing well. Maybe it was chaos at home when you became the one who, who controlled what you could. Maybe it was the message that you had to earn your place, prove your value, justify your existence with output Or maybe you were the good one in the family, and maybe there was a sibling or somebody else that caused a lot of trouble, and so you were gonna shine. You were gonna be loved, right? You were gonna be the good girl. Whatever the origin story is here, the system you learned was staying busy equals staying safe. And the cruel irony is this: that the more successful you become, the louder that wiring gets because now the stakes are higher. Now there's more to lose. Now the hustle that got you here feels like the only thing keeping you from losing it all. And that is what I call chasing safety through doing, and it will never, ever give you the safety it promises. It's just never gonna do it because the safety you're looking for isn't in your to-do list. It isn't in what you're accomplishing. It's in the nervous system's capacity to tolerate rest, to tolerate uncertainty, visibility, and enoughness. That is the work. And so I really want to come back to those summers because here's what most of us probably aren't talking about, and I think we need to. Chronic stress is not just emotionally exhausting, it is physiologically destructive. When your nervous system is running in a sustained state of activation, when your cortisol is chronically elevated, when your body never fully comes out of fight or flight, it accelerates your cellular aging, okay? All women need to hear is that your skin's gonna look like shit, and you're like, "Okay, I'm on board." But raise your hand if you've had inflammation issues, if you've had cortisol issues, if you've had adrenal fatigue, if you've had, um, you know, mystery symptoms you can't explain. It's all related to your nervous system. You know, it drives systemic inflammation that shows up as joint pain, brain fog, digestive issues. Okay, raise m- your hand if you have digestive issues because now half the women in the world are raising their hand. You've probably been told to just manage it all, right? It-- You've probably been told to eat this way or do this thing differently, And also the real story is it dysregulates your hormones. And for those of us in perimenopause or menopause, chronic stress is just an emotional burden. It is literally gasoline on the hormonal fire, and you know it, right? As I say that, you're like, "Yes." It worsens hot flashes, disrupts sleep, accelerates your bone density loss and the issues there. It makes an already complex transition significantly harder than it needs to be. It tanks your adrenals, which are all part of the system, and the glands responsible for your energy, your resilience, your capacity to recover, until you find yourself exhausted in the morning, wired at night, and wondering why no amount of sleep feels like enough. And yes, it increases your risk for cardiovascular disease, autoimmune conditions, cognitive decline, all the shit that we are trying to avoid. Your body is not designed to run hot indefinitely, and it will tell you that. First thing, it comes in as a whisper, and in symptoms, and eventually in a way you cannot ignore, most women that I work with, or a lot of the people that I work with, with autoimmune issues are women, because, 80% of people with amo- autoimmune issues are women. And we also know, statistically, the research shows, that these women have poor boundaries and that they also hold back, from sharing all the feelings they have that are negative, right? So they stuff a lot of their feelings, and they push through, and they overgive, and they overextend. That is what we look at at the personification of autoimmune disor- disorders, right? So, like, think about that. So when we talk about 28 summers or however many you counted, I'm not just talking about the quality of how you spend that time, and that is important, but I'm talking about the quantity. We're gonna lessen those numbers. It's gonna be fewer summers. So chronic hustle, the kind driven by dysregulation, not desire, it is not a neutral force in your body, and it's slowly, silently drawing down your account. And I'm not saying this because I want to instill fear, because that's what this whole thing is about, is less fear, right? But I, I want it to bring in clarity. We only have this time. Let's- Really step into owning and being sovereign in our mission to not just help and serve the world and, and the people in it, but to fully live in it as best we can. That is like my goal for the next half of my life, right? And beyond the biology, there's a cost of presence because what I see in my clients, these brilliant, intuitive, mission-driven women, my own self, my own work, is that they, we are achieving without arriving. Think about that. You get the win and immediately you're like, "Well, what do I gotta do next?" The launch succeeds or whatever you're accomplishing succ- succeeds before you, you even exhale. You're looking at what is next on the table, what you have to do next, what-- how you're gonna follow up, what... You know, all the things. And so the joy is always deferred to some future version of done that never comes. So you don't get those summers back, We don't. So the question is not can you afford to do this work? The question is can you afford not to, So let's talk about what the work looks like. I'm gonna give you like bite-size, actionable something to leave here today with, okay? So what can we do here? The first thing, and this is foundational, is noticing, not fixing. Noticing, okay? I know that seems like maybe even a little lame, but trust me, it's a, it's big deal. Really big deal. So the next time you feel the pull to overextend yourself, to push forward when everything is pretty much telling you not to, I want you to show up and notice it. Be present. I want you to stop yourself in your tracks. I want you to notice it and stop and evaluate what's happening here. I want you to ask yourself, "What am I afraid will happen if I stop here today? If I, if I put a boundary in?" What's gonna happen? That's a very important f- question for you to ask. And the second really important question that you need to ask yourself is: What is the feeling? What is the emotion that is driving this? What do I feel right now? And name it. This is powerful stuff. We have awesome research on this, that naming the emotion is pattern stopping, okay? It keeps you from being on autopilot. It shifts, systems in the body. The emotion gets heard. The e- energetic emotional content in your body gets heard and seen. It's really a big deal, okay? If you do not know-- if you do not have a vocabulary of emotions, I have actually worked with a lot of really intelligent, beautiful, emotionally intelligent women, yes, but a very short amount of vocabulary for words around emotions. So I tell people, "Just go on Google, or go onto AI and just say, 'Hey, give me a list of all the words I can use for emotions.'" And they're gonna give you a long list of different categories of like how to... what is another word for anger? Because sometimes actually the accuracy of the language actually changes something within you, okay? And so I want you to really get good at saying, "What am I doing here?" Right? "What am I afraid is gonna happen if I stop? And what is the emotion that's driving this? What emotion do I feel right now?" And sit with that question. Because the answer that comes up, that is-- that's the story your nervous system is running right now. You can't change a story you can't see, and that story is crucial for you to see and debunk. The second thing is understanding that this isn't a mindset problem, okay? You cannot think your way out of a nervous system pattern. It, it lives in the body. It lives in your breath, your baseline activation, your baseline emotions, your capacity to be in the unknown without reaching for your phone or your to-do list, right? The work of healing this is also somatic. It's relational. It's energetic. It's identity level. It's asking, who am I if I'm not producing? And learning to answer that question from power rather than panic. And the third thing, and this is the one I wanna leave you with, is understanding that the capacity to stop, to receive, to be enough right now is not the opposite of ambition. It is the fuel for sustainable ambition, okay? And so if you were to stop in the middle of whatever you're doing right now,, if you're, you know, listening and doing the dishes, if you're, whatever you're doing, if you were to stop and just end it right now and leave it undone, I want you to see, can I feel like I'm still enough, I've done enough, I am enough, and I am worthy of whatever it is I need in this moment. And if that were to be to stop, I'll survive it. I'll be okay, right? That's resiliency, and that's really important and crucial for this work. So as we wrap up here, I wanna just clarify, as you look out and look at women you admire, um, I want you to look at the women who are building the most powerful, aligned, soul-led work. They're not the ones necessarily working the most hours. I think that's a misperception. I think that people that are doing it right and growing aren't doing it like we think they're doing it, like we're doing it, right? They are the ones who have healed the part of themselves that needed to, and that's the woman I want you to become. That's the woman I believe you already are underneath the hustle. So here's your invitation this week.. I want you to ask yourself one question: Am I building this all, whatever you're working on, from a place of safety, or am I running from the absence of it? Am I moving towards something or am I moving away from something? That question alone can be the beginning of a profound shift. If this episode landed for you, I would love to hear about it. Share it with a woman you love in your life who you know is running on empty and calling it ambition. Have, have you hit subscribe yet? I would love for you to do that so that you can... Yeah, no. Have you hit s- also, have you hit subscribe yet? And have you left a review? Those reviews and hitting subscribe make this show reach more people, and if you're on a mission to help other women, if you're on a mission, if that means something to you, then let's support the shows that do that so that we can get these messages out there, and so that more of us can grow and band together and really create something beautiful. So keep going and keep coming home to yourself and just know that both are totally possible. All right. Have a great day. Bye for now.