As a woman in business I always felt incredible pressure to be ‘successful”. The drive to achieve came from the need to feel worthy, to show the world that I could do it. That I was capable of creating amazing results. 

I totally believed that hard work, long hours, chronic stress and exhaustion were just the price I had to pay for the success I craved. I had bought into the myth that somehow, to succeed in life, we needed to make sacrifices in other areas of our lives. That having a fancy title and earning a really good salary would actually make me happy. 

My high achieving inner self was chasing results and recognition. It was chasing this idea of finally being enough and deserving success. So I set out on a path to achieve greatness in my career and I wanted to get there fast… and, I did, but I paid a prize for it! 

At age 29, I became the General Manager of a luxury Resort and in an effort to proof that I was capable, poured my heart and soul into this business; it became my greatest obsession.  While I was incredible successful in this venture, the  high intensity environment combined with the pressure to perform that I had placed on myself was enough to drive me to exhaustion. Hitting  burnout only 3 years into this role, I knew I needed to find a way to achieve greatness but in a way that felt more graceful. I call it graceful because nothing elegant was ever accomplished in a rush. 

Here was my predicament.

Keeping it all together to continue to look like a poster child of success, while feeling like a hot mess on the inside, my days were a constant fight. Chased by emails, customers, employees and that endless to-do list, I was always on the go, always doing something. Terrified that if I stopped I would lose everything I had worked so hard for. I kept telling myself that this is the only way, but when I hit the last stage of burnout and let stress rule my day, it became too much to handle. 

Being a true service industry professional, however, I had long ago learned that even when there is a fire in the kitchen, the guests can’t know about it. So I continued to keep up appearances, putting on a brave face while struggling through my day. 

I would go to sleep exhausted and wake up exhausted. I would work weekends to catch up on anything I couldn’t get done during the week, yet it seemed like it was never enough. 

If you've been reading this and have been nodding your head, because you can relate, I'm happy to report that there is a better way. 

And after spending years in the Service Industry, I can confidently say that the story of burnout, overwhelm and pushing yourself to exhaustion is not an isolated one.