Sara Sweat, MA – Founder, Monarch
There’s a group of people no one even thinks to check on.
People who function so well, it never occurs to anyone they could fail.
The overachievers. The hyper-functioners. The people breaking generational cycles, achieving, succeeding, and seemingly “doing it all” well.
But, despite their brilliance, competence, and wisdom – these are precisely the people most likely to burn out.
Last year, burnout hit an all time high at 66% of US employees – according to one Moodle report. And, often it’s the people that look the best that are struggling the most.
The people who are top performers at work often play the same role personally. So, there’s never a true break. Never a time when they’re not “on”. Never a chance to downshift into real rest.
I see it in my coaching practice every day – and it usually looks something like this.
You’re headed home for a holiday or family gathering. You walk in with your best intentions firmly in place; catch up with your loved ones, enjoy some downtime.
But within twenty minutes, you are running the whole operation.
Before you even took your coat off — you noticed those two people who cannot be near each other quietly exchanging death stares from across the room. You clocked your cousin’s mood and quietly started re-routing the conversation around it.
You are tracking no fewer than four emotional weather systems simultaneously, intervening where necessary, redirecting where possible, and keeping the peace.
You’ve cooked the dinner, organized the pantry, and started a load of laundry before Aunt June has even made it through her second cocktail.
You’re not even aware you’re doing it. You just can’t unsee what you see. You can’t un-know what you know. And, you’ve been working like this for so long – you couldn’t turn it off if you tried.
The problem is that while everyone else is at dinner – you’re working a second job.
So, when you finally get in the car to drive home, you’re tired – not, like, busy tired. Tired in the way a person is after running a marathon.
Hollowed out. Tired in your bones. The kind of exhaustion that a good night’s sleep doesn’t touch — because vigilance and invisible labor is exhausting – especially when no one around you even sees all the effort you’re pouring in.
But, if you’re anything like most of my clients, you wake up the next day only to do it all over again. Different people. Different environment. Same role. It’s not even a choice anymore. It’s just what you do. Because you learned a long time ago that if you didn’t, no one else would.
And, now you’re afraid that if you stop, everything will fall apart.
Liminal Limbo
This way of moving through the world is the most common trait I see in people on the verge of burnout. Because while the skills involved in running at high capacity have tremendous value, they make you the most capable invisible person in the world.
And, being unseen is incredibly lonely.
The truth is that the more we grow, the harder it becomes to belong.
Not because the people in your life are bad or your family doesn’t love you.
But because you’ve changed. You chose, consciously and at great cost, to do things differently than the systems you came from.
And that choice — brave and necessary as it is — creates a gap. Between who you are becoming and where you started. Between the life you’re building and the one everyone around you still recognizes as yours.
You are, in the most disorienting way, in between. A liminal version of yourself that no longer fits where you come from, but hasn’t fully stepped into who you’ll be.
It’s like being fluent in two languages, but never knowing which one you’re supposed to speak.
You love your family and acknowledge being around them for too long comes at a cost. You’re grateful for where you came from and exhausted by it at the same time. You love making a difference at work and have a raging case of the Sunday dreads.
Meanwhile, all that people around you see is your capability. They benefit from it. They rely on it. They don’t see you struggling – because you don’t look like you are.
So, you’re still spending most of your time surrounded by people who need you but don’t really know you anymore.
Community Matters
When you’ve spent most of your life being the one who holds it together, being that person becomes the primary way you understand yourself.
Your value is in your function. Your identity is in your role.
And this means that when you start doing the Monarch work — when you start claiming your identity beyond your survival skills, when you start asking who you are when you’re not performing or managing or holding it all together — the answer doesn’t come easily.
I mean, you don’t exactly have a lot of practice being known for anything other than what you do – not even with yourself.
The Golden Thread exercise we discussed last week is the first step in excavating the person back out from all the achievement. But, it’s slow work. And, it’s hard to see it all clearly for yourself.
That’s why community is so important for Monarchs. Without a community of people around you who “get it”, who have “been there” too – most of us revert right back to the survival skills identities with which we’ve become so enmeshed.
But, community can be tricky for people who’ve been through hard things.
We’ve got more practice putting up walls than opening doors. And, to be honest, when you’ve spent decades being the most functional person in the room – it doesn’t feel like “your people” even exist.
But, I promise – they do.
High achievers who have been through hard things. Cycle breakers who have successfully created new legacies for their families. People who are exhausted, but figuring out how to thrive – even in the very same environments that taught them how to survive in the first place.
They are out there. You just haven’t found them yet.
But that’s what the next step of this work is about.
Not more work. You’ve done enough hard things to last you a lifetime. Just the radical, simple, long-overdue act of finding your people.
And letting them find you.
The 3 C’s of Community
When building a community, I always ask my clients to begin by taking an inventory of who’s already in theirs.
We need a balanced blend of three distinct groups of people to create our next chapter. Champions, Colleagues, and Carus.
Champions are people with a particular set of skills you lack who are invested in getting you where you desire to go. Coaches, therapists, trainers, nutritionists, spiritual teachers – and a host of other professions.
These are uni-directional relationships. You’re not their friend. They don’t rely on you to “perform” or manage anything for them. But, they are fully engaged with you and working diligently in your highest interest.
Colleagues are unique. This bi-directional kind of relationship are for the people who just “get it.” These people are on your path.
The ones you call when Uncle John makes an inappropriate comment at Thanksgiving. The ones who roll their eyes at you when your boss starts sounding a lot like Bill Lumberg from Office Space.
Some will be further along on the path. Some behind you. And, some people who are banging their heads against the same walls your forehead is denting into right now. But, they’re in it with you. And, that alone is priceless.
Carus, a Greek word meaning beloved, is for the people who just love you. There’s nothing they need from you. Nothing you can do for them. They are in your life for one reason and one reason only.
They love you. And, you love them. These are the grandmas and the besties of your life. You may not be on the same path – but you’re loudly cheering each other on just the same.
Monarch was built to create community just like this for the people who don’t have one by default. The people exactly like you who have been doing it on their own for so long, they aren’t even sure where to start.
So, this week – try doing your own community inventory. Assess where you’ve got bench strength and where there’s a great big tumbleweed full of nothing in your life.
Let me know what you discover.
Next week, we’ll start exploring what to do with your new community. The one that sees you – not for what you can do, but who you are. The one that will take you where you’re finally ready to go.
This…is going to be a whole lot of fun.
Monarch is coaching and community for the people no one ever checks on. The people who are done surviving their lives and ready to step into who they truly are. If this named something you’ve been carrying quietly — share it with someone who is always the most capable person in the room who you suspect is also the most alone.
Subscribe to stay with me as we architect what comes after.
