44: The 3 Habits Keeping You Stuck in Survival Mode

Feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, or like you're constantly running on empty? In this episode, Daffney reveals the three mindset patterns that keep high-achieving women trapped in survival mode: the need to control everything, comparing yourself to everyone else, and putting your own needs last. She explains why these habits lead to burnout, how they quietly sabotage your health and performance, and what it takes to break the cycle. Plus, she shares the one question she uses with clients to tell the difference between self-sabotage and true alignment, helping you make decisions that support your energy, purpose, and long-term success.

→ Feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, or like your body is waving a red flag? Take the Free 2-Minute Quiz to uncover what may be holding back your health, energy, and performance.

In This Episode:

• (03:35) Why control doesn't create safety
• (08:10) Stop comparing yourself to everyone else
• (10:55) Why putting yourself last is hurting you
• (14:35) Self-sabotage vs. alignment

Connect with Daffney:

The Game-Changer Consult → This 60 min deep dive offers you clarity and insight into what’s possible for your next 60 days. Leave this consult feeling full of possibility and with the energy of purpose!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Busy, stressed, burnout, they're all just symptoms of the same thing. We have an epidemic of living in survival mode. Not the cute, oh, I gotta keep up and I'm making a checklist of things to do. I'm talking about the pace of life that feels like a train you just can't get off of, and the fear that surrounds the idea of what would happen if you tried. When I see clients in this state of survival mode, it really breaks down into three big questions, three big titles that really helps me dissect and help them get to the heart of the matter that sets their physical, their mental, and their future health free. So, what we're gonna do today is we are gonna dive in and talk about what those three pillars are that are keeping you stuck in survival mode. And what I'm going to share with you is a hack that I usually reserve just for my clients, but it is a question that unlocks and keeps you aligned to keep you out of survival mode and into the life and alignment you need to be successful. Welcome to Don't F and Shrink, the podcast, where we stop playing small and start showing up big. I'm your host, Daphne Allwine, and I'm here to cut through the noise, ditch the self-doubt, and get honest about what it takes to live and lead with unapologetic confidence. Each week you'll hear unfiltered conversations, powerful stories, and in real life strategies to help you take up space in your life, your work, and your world. So buckle up because shrinking is not an option here. Let's dive in. Do I have a choice? Am I allowed to not be stressed? It sounds silly. It sounds like a ridiculous answer, but it's very hard. And it's been very hard for clients of mine to step away and think that it's okay to not be stressed out. You live in a pace of a world for so long. Everyone around you is moving at the same pace and the same intervals, completely disconnected from their own choice and freedom of thought. It's as if we have decided that keeping pace is better over choosing performance, creativity, and purpose. I know we're all feeling stressed. It doesn't matter what job you have, where you're working, how many kids you have, what your geolocation is, stress is just a part of our normal everyday life. But in answer to that question, stress is a choice. When you're thinking about the things that stress you out or the things that are stressful in your domain, in your life circling around you, one of the keys that I have noticed behaviorally with clients is that stress is a default in the fact that we believe control equals safety. Control equals moving forward. When we think we can control all of the outcomes around us, that will be more successful. But that's a myth. And actually, your need to control everything around you is stressing you out and keeping you from moving forward. So here's a great example. You're a parent. Your child is doing an activity that may seem messy or will definitely take more time into your schedule. And one of the things you do instantaneously is you see a mess happening in your house. You see a mess happening in the office, let's call it what it is. And you immediately react to stop the mess, to control the mess, to control anything from happening, any mistakes from being made. And that's the error. Our constant need to control everything around us for fear of safety or for fear of things that we don't know what the outcome is going to be is the problem. You are wasting so much energy, you are consuming so much of your own function to control things that were never in your control. And what you're not realizing is you are missing the opportunity for growth, for connection, and also learn something new. I mean, one of the things as a parent, and many of you will agree, is that if you don't allow your children to make messes, to make mistakes, to have the autonomy to understand their own body and work through things. And that's even your leadership, the people that work for you, you're missing an opportunity. You know, one of the one of the home examples I like to use is we often start new things in our house, just for the fun of it, just for the challenge. And sometimes it comes with trepidation. And it doesn't always mean that it's trepidation from me. It can be from the other person having my daughter started ice skating this week. And I thought that that was so much fun. She seemed really joyful and excited about ice skating. And we get to the location and we're sitting there, we're lacing up our skates, we're going to have a great time. And she suddenly has this moment of reality where she can get hurt, where she doesn't know anybody, that she doesn't know what the outcome is going to be, and she doesn't think she's going to be very good at it. And I know adults can relate to that just as much. So in that moment, instead of trying to control the way she was feeling, instead of trying to control the dynamic because we had committed to this class, we committed to be there, instead of turning around and going home and saying, well, she said no. I saw that as an opportunity. I saw that as an opportunity to say, you're not going to be good at this. And the way I did that is by encouraging her to make mistakes. So I laced up her boots and I looked her dead in the eye and I said, I need you to make me a promise. And she looked very inquisitive at me and I said, I need you to make as many, as many mistakes as you possibly can out there today. I need you to count those mistakes. I need you to let me know what those were. I want you to just get out there and make the mistakes. Her face lit up like a light bulb in that moment, giving her the ability and giving her the job, giving her the task of not being good at something, to not have control on what the outcome is going to be, how people are going to see her, if she's going to be any good, giving her the task and taking her frame of reference away from the outside, things that she can't control, and focusing back inward and saying, Yeah, I'm going to make mistakes. I'm probably going to fall. I am probably not going to be the best in class. And uh yeah, because this is the space, whether you're a child, whether you're an adult, this is where you learn. This is where you rob yourself of the experience to move forward and actually become better at the things you want to be better at. Is you have to let go of the control. You have to be willing to say, mistakes are learning. Mistakes are necessary. And not everything is a safety, life or death fear. Not everything of the unknown is something, is a bear chasing us, right? We can make mistakes, even as adults, and be better off for it. Number two, the other thing, one of the other things that I see far too often is this need for comparison. We get so stressed out when our standard of excellence is about what somebody else is doing. We don't have the same story as anyone else. I know that you look at Instagram and you're scrolling and you're looking at whatever documentary that's come out, and you're like, wow, this is so incredible. How did this person do this? But what you're not recognizing is that you're no, you're losing the opportunity to set your own standard of excellence. So it may be another parent at the school. It may be a coworker. But the issue is when you decide or let other people decide what your standard of excellence is, this is a loss. This is a big loss because you can eternally keep moving the goalpost because there are so many other people to compare your standard to. So often when I'm working with a client, I have to say, what's our standard of excellence here? What are we trying to accomplish, devoid, blindfold, not looking at what anyone else is doing in this moment, because that's where your power lies. Your power is in the opportunity to see what you do best, what you can level up on, what you can learn, what you can make mistakes on to learn, and also try to see that you set the standard. So your standard may be even bigger than somebody's in a in a realm or world. So you may have different values as a parent. You may have different uh successes in your professional realm. But the thing you need to always remember is that your story will never match anyone else's, your background, your experience, even your personality. And I think what's really important, and when I talk to clients in this realm is here's a story I hear all too often. Well, this person has been at the company for less time than me or my organization, less time than me, but has already been offered promotions, partnerships. And in that moment, you've already limited yourself to think in terms of what success looks for you. Yes, it doesn't sound fair, it doesn't sound just, but the issue is not that coworker, it's not that other person, is not that parent at the pickup line. The issue is your ability to decide what your standard of excellence is, what your goalpost is, and then set yourself forward. Because if you are always trying to be in a place where you are performing, not showing up with purpose, you lose the opportunity to actually grow and see yourself as a full human. The third thing that I see too often is serving other people first. I know that raises the most eyebrows. That probably is the hardest, hardest question and also concept for most people to understand and look at differently. When we choose to serve others before meeting our own needs or serving our own purpose first, we lose our efficacy. We actually dilute our own purpose. And what we know most, mostly from our time on airplanes, is if we are not putting our mask on first, if we are not prioritizing our own health, our own balance, our own grounding, and that's at home, that's at work, that's everywhere you go, you are not showing up and actually giving everything you're able to give. It's an equation that it's really hard for most people to actually work through in their brain. We, especially as women, have been really taught that our value is in service to others, that if we are not giving away every ounce of energy we have throughout the day to move other people forward, to be liked, to be valued, to be seen, that somehow we're doing something wrong. But I'm gonna go even further. This is the biggest challenge I have with clients. If you are not serving your purpose first, you're failing. When you serve your whole purpose first, you know, and that means in looking at your physical health, that means looking at your mental health, that means your nutrition, that means being creative and building skills that make you multiply, that make you more available to other people. It's actually very selfish in my, in my perspective, that if you are not pouring into yourself, serving yourself first, you're actually doing something more selfish by not being available to give more. You have such a dynamic purpose here, whether it's in your career, with your children, with your community or your family at large, is to show up as a whole, healthy person. I know we have been conditioned and taught that we need to be burned out. We need to completely be at our edge at every single moment, because otherwise we're not proving our worth. I need you to challenge that. I need you to challenge that with every fiber of your being. And sometimes it looks like this you cook dinner for your family and you're the last to eat, or you're eating leftovers off of everybody's plate. But the truth of the matter is you never get the amount of food that you need. So you've got headaches and you're grumpy and you're showing up grumpy with your family, your coworkers, because you are not nourishing your body first. How much better would it be if you stopped, ate, prepared for others, allowed them to eat? How much more energy would you have? How much of your actual self would you show up differently as if you stopped and nourished yourself first? When I get to a place where my energy is low, where I feel frustrated, where my body starts to push back, or my mental health starts to push back. And hopefully we don't have to get all the way there. The question I want you to stop and pause and ask yourself, and this is the hack to everything. When you encounter frustration, this is your body, this is your nervous system giving you a signal that you are not nourishing yourself properly, that you require more as a human being. So when that moment arises, because sometimes it's every day for my clients, sometimes it is weekly, sometimes it's moment to moment, depending on what age your kids are and how busy your career is right now. But when you come into a decision and you can feel the frustration, someone's asked you to add more to your plate, someone's asked you to do more in a situation, and your body starts to physically push back with what looks like frustration, this is your opportunity to pause and ask yourself the question: is this moment, is this task self-sabotage or alignment? If the hard thing you're being asked to do coincides with alignment and gives you more energy and continues to fill that cup that makes you more successful, that makes you feel connected to what you're doing, that's alignment. But if you push on after that question, it could also be self-sabotage. So pause, think, is what I'm about to do self-sabotage or alignment? If you happen to be lost right now or you feel a little bit stuck and you're not sure where to jump to next or what could be the move forward for me, visit our website. There is a great two-minute quiz that we put right up in the banner of our website. One talking about the work we do, but this quiz in particular is about you. And it's about digging into where you should start. It's so funny. There are so many ways to get distracted and to feel overwhelmed in that survival mode. But this is a great tool for you to jump in and see where can you be most effective first. I'll see you next week.