Sales Mama Podcast with Sausha Davis

High Achiever Burnout: 3 Hidden Signs You’re Stuck in the Frustration Cycle

• Sausha Davis • Season 3 • Episode 2

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High achiever burnout doesn’t always look like exhaustion. It often shows up as anger, overworking, and constantly saying you “just need a vacation.”

In this episode, Sausha breaks down the burnout cycle high achievers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs get trapped in without realizing it. You’ll learn the three most common warning signs of success exhaustion, how perfectionism in sales quietly fuels burnout, and why working harder is often the problem, not the solution.

If you’re driven, disciplined, and still frustrated, this episode will help you recognize burnout early and fix the structure behind it before it costs you momentum, clarity, and capacity.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hey, welcome back to the podcast. I am your host, Sasha Davis, and today we are talking about burnout. I was actually just on a guest episode talking about burnout and my whole experience with burnout. So I don't think that episode's gonna come out on her podcast for a couple of months, but I thought, you know what? What the hell? Let's talk about burnout here because I feel like it happens so often that we don't even recognize what it can look like. So for me, well, what I'm gonna share is three ways that high achievers, how we miss burnout, and then ways that you can overcome that burnout and you know some things that I have done. But looking back in my life, burnout was always just normal. Like the chaos, the trauma, the go, go, go, that high stress situations, that was my normal. So if you think of a thermostat in your body, in your brain, in your mind, body, spirit, my thermostat was set to chaos. My thermostat was set to level 10 stress. And so anytime that I started to feel less than a level 10 stress, anytime I started to feel ease or joy or anything that wasn't chaos, I thought, holy shit, what the fuck is gonna happen? The rug's gonna get pulled out from underneath of me, some the other shoes are gonna drop, you know, all those phrases that you hear. And I had to learn how to not be stressed, how to not be burnt out. And so this is how we create these self-sabotaging patterns, how we create these burnout patterns is because when we start to feel ease and joy, our subconscious will uh create uh uh, I mean, we we will sabotage everything. Like we will screw up a launch, we'll stop calling people for sales, we'll be mean out of, you know, we'll be mean for no reason. I mean, there's endless things that we will do that at the end of the day, we're like, shit, why did I do that thing? And it's a form of self-sabotage, it's a place, it's a thing that puts you right back in that place of level 10 stress, right back into your temperature zone. And even though that is not a safe place to be, like we all know it's not good to be at high levels of stress all the time, but that is what your normal is. So for you, it feels safe. It feels normal. You are used to that, and this is why people go back to you know abusive relationships. This is why people get, you know, stay stuck in dead-end jobs, all of these things, because that is what they are used to. That is what feels safe for them because it is normal, that is their everyday, okay? So that's what I just wanted to, you know, kind of start us off with. But now that I have recognized my self-sabotaging patterns, my burnout patterns, and ways that I can overcome those and catch them before they begin to spiral out of control. I want to share with you what my burnout triggers are so that maybe you can be aware of some of the burnout triggers too. Because mine I don't think are maybe mine are different from other people. I don't know. Um, but I'm gonna share them with you. So the first one that comes up for me is anger. Like I get real short, real snippy, I have a short fuse, I'm irritated by just about everything. But I no longer, well, let me take that back. When I get to really next level burnout and I don't stop and address the the little anger fuses that are like pew pew pew pew. If I don't stop and address that, it will turn into a full-on fucking explosion. I mean, I just rage. And I get to the point where I can yell so loud that I lose my voice. And that's not the person that I want to be, but that's what happens when I just go, go, go, go, go to the point to where I just literally explode. And so anger is one of the things that comes up for me. And so when I start to be frustrated, when I start to get a little snippy, when I start to get irritated by things, I have to remind myself, slow down, breathe, it's not that serious. Okay. So these things, these little triggers will tell me that my capacity is gone. Not that something is wrong with me, not that I'm doing something wrong, but that my capacity is whoop, it is gone. Or when people start to ask for more things from me, and I already have a massive to-do list, and they're like, Sasha, I need this, I need this, I need this. And my immediate response is, I'm already fucking doing all this other stuff. Like, what do you offer? You know, like I immediately just and I don't say it in my head, I say it because now I have learned to, you know, emotionally regulate and control myself and not freak out at the drop of a hat. Oh man, you guys should have met me 20 years ago. Like I was a fucking hothead. Um, I still can be, but I have learned to regulate. Regulate. Anyways, I digress. So when somebody comes to me and I'm already working on everything, I'm already hustling, I'm already doing all the things, and then somebody's like, hey Sasha, let me add some more things to your plate. And I immediately go into my red zone. Like, immediately I see red, and I just am like, I want to fucking throw my computer. Like, I just want to get rid of it. I want to walk out the door and be like, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done. And so that is another level that I know that I am just completely burnt out. I'm at capacity, like I need to take some things off my plate. I need to ask for help. I need to take a break. Those are all signs that burnout is inevitable. And so I need to stop what I am doing and go take a minute for myself. Okay. So that's how anger shows up for me. Anger, frustration, all of that stuff. The next thing that I want to talk about, and this is maybe like a precursor to anger, but when I start to get burnt out and overwhelmed in life, and this is gonna sound so silly, but when I start to get burnt out in life and motherhood and parenting and my relationships and marriage and just doing all the household stuff, I will actually go and work more. I'm not even kidding you. I know it sounds crazy because then that just leads to the first one that we talked about. And so this is again why it's so crucial that we need to like take time for ourselves and recognize these things. And so one thing that I will do is if I'm like super stressed, super burnt out, and like overwhelmed by all the things that the kids are doing or my husband's doing, or all the shit that's happening in the house, and it's just like dogs are barking and cats are all over the place, and there's shit here and there's stuff there, and I'm just like, I have I have work to do. And I'll go in my office and I will work. And I know that sounds insane to some people, but work is my controlled chaos, if you will. Like that is my control zone, that is my safety zone. And I love like I am a workaholic, I know that I love working. And if I didn't create boundaries around work, I would probably be that person that works 24-7. I was that person that worked 24-7. Even though, you know, I'm a projector in the uh human design and I'm not I'm not designed to work 24/7, and I have realized that, but I totally could. Like I totally could. I could like sit here and like grind some shit out. But I have realized that if I do these like creative bursts, I'm much more productive. And so when I start to get burnt out in, you know, in my home life, what I will do is I will just go work instead of slowing down. So I'll take more on. I'll be like, and this is even in the summertime, you know, I'll start to get burnt out and I'm like, let's buy a dog, let's go start a garden, let's do everything myself, let's rearrange everything. You know, it's like I add more projects, and it is a distraction from the thing that I am currently overwhelmed and burnt out with. Okay. And the reason that I do this or that other people do this is because that new thing that you start, you control that. Okay. And so you are replacing your overwhelm and your burnout in the thing that you don't want to face with something new and exciting that you feel like you can control. And so that's really how the cycle starts. But really, what you're doing is just adding more to your plate, which is adding more burnout, more overwhelm, more all the things. Because again, we're putting ourselves right back into that level 10 stress zone because that is what our body and mind is used to. Especially if you've, you know, been in that spot, you know, space for the majority of your life. You're gonna do things that are gonna put you right back into there, whether you realize it or not. That's what we do. And so we need to bring conscious awareness to why we're doing it, when we're doing it, how we're doing it, so that we can change the pattern and so that we can start to slow down and replace some of this stuff with more positive patterns. Okay, and not saying that, you know, working is bad or gardening is bad, or you know, going and randomly getting a dog or a chicken or something like that is bad. It's all within context, right? So if we're avoiding the things that are causing us overwhelming burnout instead of facing them and figuring out ways to simplify our life, well, yeah, then adding more stuff to our plate is just like that is a form of self-sabotage, okay? But if you're doing it out of joy and abundance and because you're feeling expansive, like that's obviously a totally different thing. But if you're doing it out of avoidance, then yeah, you're it's a form of self-sabotage and you're just going to make yourself burn out even more. So if you're somebody like me, where your go-to is like, I'll just hustle more, I'll just work more, I'm just gonna add more things for myself to do. Maybe you should stop and take a minute and instead ask yourself, what can I take off my plate? Who can I ask for help? What can I delegate? What actually needs to get done? And when's the last time I took a damn minute for myself? Okay, like this weekend I'm going to get an uh I'm gonna go get a facial for myself. I haven't gotten a facial in like a year. I'm like, what the hell? I used to get these like every other month, but I'm telling you, 2025 just like really kicked me in the ass. So 2026, I'm like, no more, no more. We are doing the self-care on hyperdrive this year. I'm taking all the fucking time I need. And then the last thing that I say, and this is kind of funny, but it's also not kind of funny. Um, and my husband, like, I think he gets so irritated with me. But when I get really burnt out and overwhelmed, I'm like, oh, I just need a vacation. I just need a break. I just need a fucking break. I just need a vacation. Oh, I just want to go to Mexico, oh, I just want to go to Hawaii. And I'll start to say those things, and like I'm totally serious, but I also know that if I just magically disappear for a week, that that's not really going to fix anything. Like that rest period isn't going to fix a broken system, isn't going to fix a broken structure. And so as soon as you come back, you still have to face all of those things that caused burnout in the first place. But that's kind of a trigger phrase for me and how I know that I'm feeling burnt out, where I'm like, oh my god, I need a break. Oh my God, I need a vacation. Oh my god, I just need to get out of here, like that type of stuff. And if you work with me closely, you probably have heard me say stuff like that before where I'm like, oh my god, I just need a fucking break. That is a precursor to my, you know, my then I go and I work a bunch, and then I get really angry. So this is kind of like reverse priority of how I burn out. But that's really what ends up happening is I'm like, oh my god, I just need a fucking break. And that's what I'll literally say it like that. And that's one thing that I realize is that I'm just starting to feel all of the pressure, all of the things. And if I don't stop and take a break in that minute, if I don't stop and create a system or a process or get rid of something off my plate, I will end up doing it myself, and then I'll get mad about it, and then I'll have a short fuse, and then the whole thing starts all over again. And so we're not really solving the burnout problem, we're just emphasizing the burnout problem. And so when I start to say these things, when I start to notice these things, I, you know, I brain dump them, I journal them, I try to get things off my to-do list. Sometimes I'll close my computer and go for a walk, I'll go for a drive, I try to do pattern interrupts, uh, you know, where I take a different route, or I go to a coffee shop, or I walk on my treadmill, or I go for a walk outside, or you know, switch up my day so that it is that pattern interrupt. It disrupts what my normal working pattern would be, so that I have to choose differently. You start to notice different things when you do a pattern disrupt. It's like if you take a different drive home, you're like, oh wow, I never noticed these things before. That's kind of what a pattern interrupt does. So if you start to notice yourself burning out, you're like, okay, I'm gonna take the rest of the day off. Don't just sit at home and do nothing. Go do something else that's relaxing. And so for me, I have to set up these times so that I, you know, like the facials, like the massages, like the half days where I get to be in my creative zone where I don't take any calls, or, you know, the the slow mornings where I have to journal and meditate and do all these things. Like I have to set my day up in a specific way. You know, I'm pretty flexible. So I'm not gonna be like a stickler if, you know, I don't have my specific water and specific this or specific that, but you know, I do have a rhythm and a routine to how I like to start my day. And if I don't, then yeah, the burnout cycle can start pretty quickly. So that's how my burnout starts. And I want you to ask yourself what emotions start to show up first when you feel burnt out, when you start to feel overwhelmed. Okay. And the next thing that I want you to ask yourself is do you tighten up under control or do you create space for yourself when you're under pressure? Because sometimes what people do is they'll really start to control everything. And then other times people are like, you know what? Nope, I'm like, I'm under a lot of pressure, but I gotta create space for this pressure and I'm gonna ask for help. Okay. And the last thing that I want you to think about is that are you actually solving this problem? Like, are you solving the burnout problem right now? Or are you just escaping it? Are you doing something else to distract you from it? Are you adding something else to your plate to distract you from it? Or are you actively doing something to solve this burnout problem? So things that you can do to solve the burnout are making sure that you're sleeping, making sure that you're drinking enough water, making sure that you're getting exercise and sunlight and asking for help and meditating and journaling and all of these things that seem really simple and stupid, but they actually work. They actually work if you fucking do them. And the other thing is asking for help. Like if you have a to-do list that is 10 miles long, you don't have to be the only person that does them. And I know for those of us who are these hyper-independent, like, you can't tell me what to do type of women, it's really hard to ask for help. It is so hard to ask for help because you're like, you know what? I know I can just do it. I'll just do it. I'll just do it myself. Um, it's it's a learned skill, it's it's an ability that you have to find within yourself to be able to ask for help. You know, it's really funny. Years ago, I heard this gal, um, oh, there's some Slack messages. I heard this gal once that was on um, I can't remember if it's a podcast or Instagram or where, but she was like, Oh, I was so sad one day because I really wanted to go to a movie and I couldn't find anybody to go to a movie with me. And I'm like the total opposite. I'm like, if I want to fucking do it, I'm just gonna go. Like, I'm not gonna wait around for somebody to come with me. Like, I will just go do the thing by myself. And I'm totally fine being alone. Like, I prefer to be alone. In many situations, I prefer to be alone. Do I enjoy working with a team? Yes. You know, do I enjoy being around people? Yes, in small increments because people can really drain me. Like, I can be extroverted, but at my core, I'm actually an introvert. Like, I want to be left alone. I want to be in the woods in the middle of nowhere with my horses and a creek and a good book, and you know, and that's it. That's it. You know, I don't mind speaking on stage in front of a bunch of people, but then I want to go home and not talk to anybody for a week. And I know that probably sounds crazy, but it's true. You know, I am like this high energy personality, but at the same time, like I need to recharge and to rest. And how I do that is very internal. And I, you know, I ground myself in nature, I ground myself with horses, and so you have to think about how are you grounding yourself and how are you setting yourself up for success? Okay. So again, ask yourself, are you solving your burnout problem or are you just running away from it? Okay. And so recognize that burnout doesn't make you weak. It doesn't make you any like you're not a failure if you're burning out, and you're not super awesome if you're burning out either. Okay, it's just feedback. And I want you to fix the problem, not just over-schedule yourself, not just keep pushing through it. Fix the problem, okay? Fix the problem. And if you're looking with help or if you're looking for help with this, I'm actually hosting a live training next week. It's called Scale Your Business to 25k months or more. And burnout is one of the things that happens a lot, especially for solo entrepreneurs who are, you know, in that five to 10k range and they're wanting to get to that next level and they just don't know. How to do it without working more hours. So I'm actually going to be talking a lot about that next week. So if you head over to salesmama.bizslash scale25K, I'm going to be talking all about that next week. All right. So come, I'd love for you to check it out. It's totally free. Um, and my trainings have a lot of value in them. They're not just like, you know, you coming and listening to me sell shit for an hour. I actually teach some stuff, and then uh I will have a special offer for you and we are going to be doing a giveaway. We'll be giving away uh two private VIP sessions and then some other surprise giveaways too. So I'd love to see you there. It is January 15th. So depending on when you are listening to this, I would love to see you Thursday, January 15th at 11 a.m. Pacific time. We will be having another live training later this month. So I will also give you the details on that after we get that all set up. So all right, ladies, thanks for being here. Take a screenshot, share this with a friend, uh, leave a review. We are also doing a review giveaway this month. So everybody who leaves a podcast testimonial, a written podcast testimonial, gets entered into our giveaway. So we're doing um Amazon gift card giveaways. There'll be a first place winner, second place winner, and a third place winner,$100,$50, and$25. So um you'll get an entry for your written review, and then you'll get an extra entry if you share it and tag us on social media. So sasha.davis or sales mama school. Uh that will be going on the rest of this month as well. Okay, now I'm done. Catch you guys later. Have a kick ass day.