The Hidden Cost of Discipline for High Achievers & Why I Took a Break

She’s BACK on the mic, but not in the way you might expect.

Not with a curated list of dot points.

Not with a 10-step productivity hack.

Not with the polished, peppy, “rah rah” tone you’ve maybe come to know me for.

This one’s raw. It’s real. It’s a little cracked open.

It’s the season of the messy middle , and we’re kicking it off with the truth:

👉 Why Breanna really stopped podcasting

👉 How “discipline” turned into self-abandonment

👉 The behind-the-scenes of juggling IVF, identity shifts & business

👉 The surprising story I uncovered underneath my own rules + routines

👉 What this break taught me about devotion vs depletion

If you’re someone who:

• Clings to routines because they make you feel safe
• Has a “no matter what” kind of energy that has no off button
• Hold yourself to high standards while juggling alllll the things
• Is high-achieving, high-functioning, but feeling low-key fried 

This episode will speak to you in every cell of your body.

 It’s not another pep talk.

 It’s permission to soften.

 To shift.

 To breathe.

🎧 Listen now 

And if you’ve ever found yourself stuck in the in-between — not who you were, not yet who you’re becoming... know this:

The mushy middle IS the magic.

And you don’t have to have it all together to still be powerful AF.

This season is deeper. Realer. Wilder.

 I’ve got guests coming who will shake your soul open.

School is back.

Let’s begin.

— Breanna x

P.S. If you’ve missed me (even just a little), it would mean the world if you subscribed, rated the show, or shared this one with a friend. It helps more than you know 

As always, please don't forget to hit Subscribe! xxx

Transcript

Breanna Hunter: 0:00

Welcome back. I am so excited to be on the microphone after quite a long break for me, and I'm going to dive straight today this topic that is all about that fine line between discipline and self sabotage, devotion and depletion, and what has come up for me in the last few months, not months, weeks of taking a break between season four and season five of the podcast. So if you are someone who has ever really clung deeply to your routines and your structures and your consistency, or maybe you wear it like a badge of honor, if you are a high achieving woman and you just get shit done and you know exactly how to push if you are in the messy middle stage of something either an identity shift or an unraveling of who you once were, or in that weird phase of waiting for your next chapter that hasn't yet materialized, this episode is for you, and I want to say Welcome to season five of the mind school podcast. This has been a break, and after five years of recording every single week and airing an episode every single week for five years, I am back, and this season is slightly different, still the same in so many ways, but so different in others. Because honestly, I'm different, and I've been going through lots of things behind the scenes, personally and professionally, but mostly personally, that have changed me, hardened me, softened me, strengthened me, all of the things and that obviously contributed to this break. So this season is all about the messy middle. This season is bringing to you a whole new layer of depth and realness that maybe I haven't shared before. It is saying the things that nobody else says. It is interviewing guests that are cracking me wide open and also guests that are experts in the field of shadow work. I've got guests coming that are experts in the field of human connection money. There is so much juicy stuff coming, but I wanted to start with why I took a break from podcasting. And I know it probably sounds a little bit like Breanna, you took like, five, six weeks off. Big deal, but to me, it really was a big deal. And I suppose there was a little while there where I had to make a decision about what had to give, because something had to give. And honestly, the truth is, the last six months, I would say, have really stretched me. Particularly the last three months have really stretched me emotionally. I am. I have been going through IVF since the beginning of the year, since January of this year, and I'm in the thick of it, and I have been in the thick of it. And what that means for people who don't realize, I definitely didn't realize is that there's this whole other part of my life that takes up so much energy, so much finances, so much time, so much emotional capacity, that I got to this place where I was like, I actually need to choose what to Let go at the moment, because there's so many balls I'm juggling, and I'm also juggling this whole extra it feels like I was learning a new degree. And honestly, like the last two months, I went to hit record so many times, and my team, my team, would be like, Bri, have you got an episode for this week? And I was like, I just don't like I actually don't, and there were some things that came up that I will share, because that's what this is about, right? I'm all for sharing. I often like to share the lesson after I've been through it, but right now, I'm not in the knowing. I'm not at the other side. I'm really in the messy middle, and that's just me being completely honest with you, I am in the messy middle of life right now, in the phase of I've been trying to become a mother for two years, and I haven't even fallen pregnant once. I'm in I'm six months deep into an IVF journey that has really shaken me and taken so much of me, I am not yet where I want to be in that area of my life, and there's not a whole lot I can do about it. So I'm being forced to surrender. I'm being forced to soften. And yet, at the same time, my business and my work is the thing that is my happy place, and that also takes quite a lot from me. It really does. And that's not in like, a bad way at all. It's just, you know, I'm thinking about my clients strategies, and I'm thinking about my own content, and I'm thinking about what I've got coming up, and I'm thinking about funnels. And it's like, anyone who's in business knows it is, it's a lot of tabs, and it's the best, like, it's, this is not a complaining thing. Yeah. It's about capacity. And so I got to this point where I was like, something's got to give, and it's definitely not going to be my clients. It's definitely not going to be my clients, it's not going to be my content, it's not going to be my team, and it has to be my podcast. And also, there were definitely parts of me that were like, What have I got to share? What have I got to share, like, for so many years, this podcast has been a place where you come for a pep talk. You come to be like, fucking motivated. You come where it's like fire and hype or real talk, or like, whatever it is. I feel like I've always been high energy, high vibe, very optimistic, very glass, half full. And while I still am these last six months, there's definitely been more days than normal for me where I have actually felt like I'm a Debbie Downer. I'm a Debbie Downer. I don't have anything positive to say. I'm not in a good frame of mind, and I don't want to add that. And yes, there's a point. There is a part of me that was like, well, Breanna, is there some piece of you that feels you're only worthy to show up when you're on, when you're in your high energy state, when you're and I checked on that it wasn't that, it definitely wasn't that, it was more just, I don't have the energy for the podcast, and with that brought up so many things. So I am going to talk about what it brought up for me, but I also want to touch on a few things that it taught me, and that what this break has taught me and the IVF journey and my trying to conceive journey, my fertility journey, has taught me about discipline and self sabotage and how sometimes consistency and routines and habits and all the things that we often do as quite a high Performing women. And when I say high performing women, I mean probably everyone listening to this podcast. Because let's be real. We are in a time where most women are juggling so much. We've got career and ambition. We've also got ambitions for the kind of mother we want to be. We've got family. We've got roles that we play in our family. We're taking strides financially. We're trying. We're keeping our health on point. We do a lot, and we hold a lot of balls, and we play a lot of roles in our lives. And we have to perform. Me personally, I like to perform to a decent level in those things that matter to me. And so to be able to perform in all of those different areas, all of the balls that I'm holding, you have to have really strong routines, really strong habits, really strong identities, really strong boundaries, really strong standards for yourself, because you will fall to the standard of your habits. Whatever your habits are is what you will just become your automated thing when you've got nothing in the tank, nothing left to give your habits are what will carry you. And so when I started the podcast five years ago, I made a commitment. I made a commitment to myself that I was going to show up every single week, rain, hail or shine, I would show up, and at that time, in that season of my life, that was a really great thing for me, and it did so many great things. It taught me so many great things. What I noticed, however, in the last few weeks, when I went to go hit record, was that from this energy of push, of force, of should of have to of, why am I actually doing this? And I started to sit with, well, why do you actually have to do this today? Why do you have to do another episode on a Wednesday? You're the one that made the rules. So when was the last time you checked on the rules? And I sat with this, and I thought about this, and I've seen this with a lot of clients, where we've got these high performance rules for ourselves, all these non negotiables for ourselves, again, these are fantastic standards and habits we want we need to be able to achieve in all of the different ways. However, there is a time, and there was definitely that time when I decided, oh, wow, I need to take a break where that actually becomes a fine line between self discipline and depletion or self abandonment. And what I mean by that is the thing that was there to serve you in the beginning is now actually being used to your detriment, and you haven't even got the self awareness now to know this isn't serving me, because it's so deeply ingrained that it's even become part of your identity. And as a high performing person, as a high performing woman, a lot of your identity could even be tied up into how consistent you can be, how much you can push through, how much you can hold, how disciplined you can be. And what that means is it's even more of an ego hit to make a decision to take a step back and to take a step back from the consistency or the discipline or the routine or the habit or the rule that you set for yourself, the standard that you set for yourself. And so to give another example, obviously, I'm using the podcast right now to share an example that you hopefully, I'm hoping, and the invitation is that you can think of something in. In your life, or just do a little bit of a discipline routine audit, if you will, that you may have set for yourself a long, long time ago that doesn't actually match the season you're in and the signs that you will know it is time to do an audit where your discipline might actually have turned into self abandonment, or where habits have turned into prisons, is that a lot of the things you're doing don't even feel good anymore. You're doing it with that energy, like I said, where it was like, Oh, it's this like, oh, do I have to it doesn't feel good. It doesn't give you more energy, it doesn't serve you. It doesn't actually take you toward your goals. It doesn't align with your highest values, and it's coming from a place of expectation pressure and should so if you feel like that around any of your habits, any of your routines, or if you're just feeling burnt out, if you feel like your capacity is like beyond over full, you have nothing left to give. You have nothing left in the tank, that is a great sign that it is time for you to do a little bit of a discipline audit, similar to what I did before. I decided to take this break from the podcast and to give you another example, there was a time again I when I do things, I don't do them half assed, and when I was very deep in my gym girly era. Don't get me wrong. I still am. It still forms a part of my identity. But there was a time when Jim Gurley and like Jim junkie, was pretty much my whole identity, like my whole identity, fitness, health freak, the whole shebang, like all the books that I read was around sugar and how to maximize your everything. I was full peg on hormones, on nutrition, on lifting, on fasting. I wanted to understand the human body and how to maximize potential. And I wanted to look good. I'm not gonna lie. I am also a vain a vain person. I like to look good. When I look good, I feel good. I perform better. I'm better to the people I love. Anyway, there was a time when that was a huge part of my identity, and because it was such a huge part of my identity, I clung. And like when I say clung, I was ridiculously disciplined, almost to the point where I can understand, I can understand how some people from the outside looking in would be like, she's gone too far. I didn't think at the time that I had because I really, truly was doing it from a healthy place, from a curious place, from an excited place. I wanted to, I always wanted to see how far I could push myself. I was really stringent with my diet protocols. However, there was a time again, like, for an example, I was hard into the fasting world for people who have done it, if you know, you know, I still believe fasting is a great tool. I still believe fasting can be done perfectly at the right times for your cycle, if you know how to do it as a female, depending on your goals, again, this is not health advice by any means, but I was right into the fasting world for autophagy. I used to do quite long fasts. Once a month, I would do at least 48 hours, and I felt incredible, the best I'd ever felt, honestly, like me, personally, I felt really, really good on fasting. However, then there were a time where I had a fitness coach, and she was like, I need you to stop with the fasting, because you're not getting enough calories in and because you're training so much, it's really hard for me to coach like, I need you to eat. And I was like, Oh, I'm eating. But I was very, very, very, like regimented and tightly disciplined was the word I would use. I was disciplined to my routines. And I was like, well, these are my standards. These are what this is what I do. And I wasn't willing to to drop it, when, in actual fact, there was a time where I had to re look at, hold on a second. What is this all for? Now, like you've got the health benefits. You look amazing. You're extremely fit. Now move. This is going back quite a few years ago, I was coming into a season where I thought I may want to have babies. I may be looking at, you know, trying to conceive soon. I don't know if being this shredded was actually the right thing for me. My periods weren't coming as regularly like there were actually signs where from an actual grounded, neutral place. You could say you've now gone into the realm of unhealthy. There are signs that is, this is not healthy. But because I had so much attachment to my discipline, to my routine, to my identity. I couldn't see where this was then unhealthy. And this is not to say that my podcast has become unhealthy. This is to say that there is a time where we need to just stop and reflect and go. What am I doing this for? Does it still align with the goal, and does it still align with the season I'm in? And so the last few months, like I've said, I've been in the, want to say the IVF trenches, because the last few months, that's actually how it felt. And I still had this narrative of, like, I show up every week no matter what, and it was coming from a really, it was coming from a place that didn't feel good, and I didn't want you the listener to hear that, or to feel me faking it, or feeling like there. And I also wasn't ready to really share all of it like there's also that there is a time and a place to share from a vulnerable, maybe really tender place. I wasn't there, and I still honestly am not fully yet. However, later in this season, I actually am being interviewed by a good friend of mine, Heidi, who is also my PR agent. She is going going to come on the show to interview me about my journey, which has been two years. But like I said, I had to stop. I had to reassess, why am I still pushing Why am I still forcing myself or imprisoning myself to this rule that I set for myself five years ago and I decided to take a break, and when I actually sat with why am I holding on so tightly? For me, there were stories that came up, and this is why it's so good for us to have a little bit of a think like, why am I holding myself to this standard? Why am I holding myself to this discipline? Why am I still pushing and what comes up if I were to stop? What are the stories? What are the narratives if I were to stop? And this is a really powerful exercise, what I have found, especially for high achievers, is is that what we say is just our routine is just how we like our structure is actually an incessant need for control. And like I said, while our habits, our routines, our rituals, are absolute gold, and we do need them if they have become so important in our life, so deeply entrenched in who we are and our sense of our identity, if they make or break us, if you cannot function or perform without your rigid routine, you don't have a healthy habit. You have a prison let me say that again, if you cannot perform without your rigid routine and you spiral without it, it's not a healthy habit. It's a prison, and it is just your way of getting a sense of control. Again, it's not right or wrong. Habits are great. Habits are healthy. Habits can be our absolute anchor. I'm not saying get rid of them, by any means, but check into the story underneath it about what would happen if it were to go away. For me, it was like, it was all ego shit. If I'm completely honest, it was ego shit that sounded like, well, what's going to happen to my listener account? I've just hit 200,000 downloads. Next will be half a million. Let's fucking go. Am I going to lose momentum? So there was that. There was also, are people going to forget about me again? It's all this like ego stuff, as opposed to my soul going. I need a break. I am tired, I am heartbroken. I am sad. Please don't hit record. And there's so much that comes with this. Let me spill the tea for a second for those of you who have a podcast, or are thinking about a podcast, want a podcast, or just want to know a little bit behind the curtains of running a business and a podcast, when you make a decision to have a podcast and it is part of your business uni, I'm going to be real. It takes a lot of budget for me, personally, because I don't have the time nor the want to do the editing, to do the uploading, to do the marketing emails, to do the podcast descriptions, YouTube descriptions, all of that to stay up with the trends, to like it's a full time thing. If you want podcasting to be a full time thing. But if podcasting is something you do because you love it and it's part of something you do while you also run a full time multi six figure company, you've got to hire people. I personally chose to hire people. I have two team members to support the podcast. So when I say to my team, hey, there's no podcast for the next indefinite amount, they go really and then you feel that pressure, and you're in a season where it's like you're not meant to be feeling any stress. You're going to calm your nervous system. You're going to let this freaking stubborn baby come through. And that means Husa, focus on your clients. Focus on getting yourself to the beach. Focus on getting in the sauna. Not much else. So I've been doing that, and yet taking a break while it felt really soul nourishing. It also comes with the added part of there is some truth to the fact that, yeah, people, maybe some people, will go find a different. Podcast. That's fine, but I also have the belief now, especially after this time off, people are going to find this podcast way more now in this new energy and with what's coming. But just the the honesty there is that there are two team members who are like, but Bri, that's our job. I need hours. And then you're like, fuck. So you've got the financial side of it, you've got the emotional side of a team that you don't want to let down because you are responsible for them. And this is just some of the things that people don't realize. So if you're thinking about a podcast, and if you're thinking about integrating it into your business, just as a random side tangent, I would say to you, get very clear on why is this a hobby? Is this a business endeavor and something that you're going to integrate into? Integrate into your business, or is it that you want your podcast to be your full time fucking gig? You're going to be the next Diary of a CEO. You're going to be the next Mel Robbins, and, of course, I'm me, so I'm like, I want both. I want both. I want to be the next Mel Robbins. I want to be the next Diary of a CEO, and I don't yet have the full on team and production that they have, and I can't be comparing myself to them right now. I could maybe compare myself to where they were when they started, but even still, it's apples and oranges. So for me, it's like, yeah, I want the podcast to be the number one in the world, but I also need to be real about where I'm at, the season I'm in, and the capacity that I have. I have a full time business, a multi six figure business. I'm going through IVF. I'm heartbroken most months, for the last six months, and I'm still trying to have a life like I maintain and cultivate strong relationships. I still maintain my health. I still go to the gym, all these things, and podcasting is another piece to the puzzle. So it turns out, after I'd really decided that, okay, Breanna, this is fully coming from your ego, get your ego to shut the fuck up and just ask your soul, like, what does it need? And it was like, I need a break. I just need a break. And I had no timeline for when I was going to come back. I really didn't, and if I'm honest, I thought about whether I was going to come back at all. I was like, is it just not my season? How long am I going to be in this hole? I felt like, you know, yeah, IVF really, really has stretched me. And so I said, I don't know, I'm just going to take a break and focus on my clients. And that was what I was really craving. That is what I've been craving. It's funny. It's like I am in the messy middle where I'm still I feel like I'm in the UN No, not the unbecoming. I'm in the mush. I'm in the mushy season. And it's something I talk about in my programs, where it's like, you know, there's this season where you're not a caterpillar, you're not a caterpillar, but you're certainly not a butterfly yet, and you're just in this mushy cocoon, but you don't know what it is. You don't have wings to be like, Oh, I'm a butterfly, but you also aren't really a caterpillar anymore. You're just in this mush, and you're like, What the fuck is happening to me? That's kind of the season I'm in right now. And because of that, I have actually felt this softening and this real craving for my deep, intimate spaces. I'm loving my one on one containers. I'm loving my small coaching circles. I've launched a Business Mastermind that sold out behind the scenes, and I cannot wait to just be like, nitty gritty in deep places. And so there was a season where I was like, You know what? I'm going inwards a bit. I'm just going inwards. And I don't know what's going to happen with the podcast, but what's super interesting is that after three weeks, maybe, and it was three weeks of I went to Albany. I cried with mum for a while. I spent a few days just crying with Paul. I really had to let a lot out and just surrender, and proper surrender, like, proper surrender, like, I can't fucking control this anymore. I can't give it like, of course, I want a baby, but it just is what it is. And I really let myself be in, like, the grief of it all. I started missing the podcast, and I started being like, I want to interview this person and that person, and this person and that person. And so there was so much that came from the break, and so much that it taught me, so much that it taught me, and one of those things was, when is as a high performer, our discipline and our consistency and our rigidity actually going into the territory of our need for control and our need to push, And when is it actually turning into self abandonment? Because I could have kept recording. I know I could have, this is the thing about me. I could keep recording, even if I was in a grief period. I could and I would probably deliver a great podcast. I would, but it was like I would have been abandoning my soul and what it was craving. Hmm. And so this is about a bit of an audit on your habits, on your discipline, on your consistency and on the badges of honor that you wear. What are the badges of honor that you wear, and is it still feeling good for you? What are you tied to, imprisoned to? That is for an old version of you that no longer makes sense. And what stories do you have about letting it go or just not even letting it go, but giving yourself a breather, giving yourself a break? You know, I remember there was a time where I fucking hated rest days at the gym. I hated rest days. And yes, on the one hand, it's because I love exercise, I love moving, and on the other hand, it was like, but that's literally like, that's where I get my routine and my control and at the beginning of my health journey, it was probably also like an unhealthy place of like, where am I going to burn calories today, if I'm honest? So it's like checking the intention behind your discipline, checking the energy behind it, and asking yourself what stories you have when you feel like you're doing it from a pushing energy. What I realized in this season is that what I was calling consistency was actually for a little bit there fear of being left behind and sometimes the bravest thing to do, especially as someone who loves to go, loves to do, loves to achieve, loves to and there's nothing wrong with that, by the way, there's nothing wrong with that. But sometimes when that's who you are, it feels uncomfortable to slow down just for a minute. And what I've found is that's actually where the magic is. In the last few weeks, I have found so much surrender, so much peace, so much excitement, to get back on the microphone. The guests, I have lined up, guys, seriously, like we are talking about discipline, but softness, like I've got the discipline expert coming in. I've got identity crisis, emotional intelligence. I've got the Shadow Work Queen coming in. I've got my business mentor who's been my mentor for two years coming in. I've got some big names lined up, and this is going to be a season that's just about fucking all of it while I'm in the messy middle and yet still showing up in the awkward, weird contradiction that is, I'm a mindset coach. I'm an emotional intelligence coach. I teach coaching. I'm all of these incredible things, and I'm also in a messy cocoon phase right now, personally, and I'm still figuring out how to show up in all of it, but I'm doing it, and I'm giving myself grace and for you, you high achieving Mad Dog listening to this right now, the woman who is holding it all, the woman who wears so many hats, the woman who has high standards for everything she does, the woman who loves to be more, do more, achieve more, and has really high standards and consistent routines, and you lack structure and you need things a certain way. My invitation to you today is to check in and ask, what is the space it is coming from? Is this still a devotion to who I want to be? And is it coming from a really grounded place? Is it coming from a place of love and self service and self love and connection to self and honoring your values and honoring the season you're in? Or has it dipped into depleting yourself, abandoning your needs and pushing on, because I have worked with so many high achieving women who have lent way too far into the keep pushing on, and they end up in cycles of burnout. And they end up in cycles of why aren't I feeling creative? And they end up wondering why the hell business feels hard, and why I need to take a sabbatical all the time, and why I need to burn my business to the ground, honestly, and this is something I'm not just sounding like a fucking I don't sound I don't say this to sound like a knob jockey. I've never I can't relate to the I want to burn my business to the ground and having to take months off and go to my business and come back. I've never felt that, because I constantly check in with the energy that something is coming from. And if I need a break, I take the damn break. My boundaries are very strong in that regard. However, that season, that break, this season between seasons, the season between season four and season five, of this podcast has been about me allowing myself to actually slow down so that I didn't get burnout in the podcast. And so I'm back, I'm back, and I'm really, really, really excited. And like I said, there's so much exciting stuff coming, guys. I truly mean it when I say I love this podcast. It is something I would do if I always, you know, the question I ask clients all the time, and the question that I have in my program level up your life, is if you could do anything, and money was no issue, and the answer was yes, and everything would be granted to you, or you got 500 wishes from your genie. What would you wish for? And of course, I would still podcast. I would still podcast. I. Love it. I absolutely adore it, and I want it to make impact. I want it to be far reaching, and you guys are the only ones who can help me with that. So if you could, please subscribe to the show, and if you enjoyed this episode, please, please, please share it to your story. Share it with a friend, and don't forget to subscribe. It really, really, really helps. I cannot wait to bring you this season, the messy middle being the humans that we are, high performers and soft, bringing the both, the both to everything. I want to be an example of the fact that you get to build a life and a business that feels incredible, where you get to have softness and hustle, ambition and soft girl era, and you get to have all the things. You get to be feminine and still be a hustler. You get to make all of the money and still have a rich, rich life. This season is about showing you that you get to have both, and showing up in the messy middle and still being an absolute fucking powerhouse. And I hope that I get to be an example of that, so that you know you get to show up with all parts, and just because you've had a bad day, just because you're in the cocoon or the mushy or they're not quite there yet, or the becoming, doesn't mean you're not still fucking powerful, and you're not still completely able to create every circumstance in your life. So Let's fucking do it together. I'm so excited to be back for season five. Thank you so much for being here, and I'll be back next week. You.