3 Reasons Pushing Yourself Harder is Actually BLOCKING Your Sustainable Success...
There was a time early in my coaching career when I bought into the hustle culture. Being a naturally determined person (AKA stubborn), combined with my training and first hand experience and patriarchal religious trauma, I was CONVINCED that if I just put my head down and worked hard enough, I could succeed at anything.
I didn't know I'm AuDHD. And if I had, it probably wouldn't have changed my mind!
It took years of burnout and illness, followed by years of healing and dismantling the trauma, internalized ableism, and misogyny before I could learn a different way of achieving. One that wasn't fueled by adrenaline, anxiety, and dissociating.
The mainstream coaching industry is NOT made for neurodiverse women!
Having spent almost a decade in the coaching space, I can confidently say that many of the things motivational speakers and high performance coaches preach are actually HARMFUL to high masking neurodiverse women.
The “you’ve gotta push yourself” hustle and force mentality is definitely up towards the top for multiple reasons. Here are three.
1. As a neurodiverse woman you are already operating near or above full capacity. Between masking, meeting neurotypical expectations, executive function responsibilities, and feeling all of the valid feelings about how messed up things are sometimes, you are EXHAUSTING yourself just to maintain some level of continued functioning.
Pushing yourself when you are already on the edge of burnout might get your short term success (possibly even big success) but its not sustainable and comes at the cost of your mental and physical health. And when you crash hard (which you will) everything you built will crash with you.
2. Pushing hard to do the things you “should do” in order to create the life you want means that you are creating a life that is not actually right for who you are and what you need. Or at least, the methods you think will get you there require you to work AGAINST yourself. Which is not sustainable. Will power is a finite resource people!
Any time you use the word "should" think about where it is coming from. Nine times out of ten, it is a shame based response to get you to meet the expectations you internalized from someone else. Ain't nobody got time for that!
Instead of pushing to do the things, you need to find the path that works WITH who you are. The life that is calling to your soul is meant for YOU and that means there is a path to it that doesn’t end in burnout!
3. When the pushing becomes unsustainable or fails to get you the expected results, you get overwhelmed with shame. “Clearly you didn’t want it enough, sacrifice enough, or work hard enough. It worked for all these other people so what is wrong with you???”
Nothing. There is nothing wrong with you. You have just spent your whole life trying to operate a way you were never meant to trying to achieve things that aren't actually a fit for your true self.
But that shame will make it harder to create a life that IS a good fit for you because you'll spend all your energy doubling down on the path you were already on.
It is NOT your fault. You do not have to push harder. In fact, my clients learn to succeed by doing LESS but doing it in a different way. Stress is a killer!
Creating a sustainable life of peace, presence and impact is a unique process for each person. It involves deep connection and falling in love with your true self. Healing the harmful ways you were taught to hide and push yourself. And completely shifting how you view your life, goals, and the world around you.
Stay Spicy Friend!
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