You Don’t Look Like a High Performer. You Look Exhausted.
It’s Saturday morning and the weekend is finally here (I can almost hear the cheers from your beds!) You’ve made it to the end of another week…just. Maybe you’ve just woken up and grabbed your phone, already scrolling through emails, maybe you’re half-planning the next seven days while still feeling the weight of the last five. How was last week for you? You’ve pushed hard, performed as best you possibly could and tried to deliver some amazing stuff, but underneath it, you’re flat as a witch’s tit. Wiped out and feeling disconnected from the part of you that’s meant to be thriving, not just surviving.
Yet, you probably think that’s just part of the job. That being in leadership is meant to feel like this. That high performance and constant fatigue somehow belong together, because if you’re not pushing, pushing, pushing, how can you expect others to? But they don’t. What most people think is stress, pressure, or burnout is often something far simpler. Their system is under-recovered and sleep is one of the biggest levers they’ve never truly addressed.
We’ve normalised the worn-out look. The glassy eyes, the afternoon slump when all you really want is a little nap and everyone to piss off and leave you alone, the fog that never quite lifts…dragging yourself towards the end of the day, only to get home and have your other half moan about what you’re having for dinner and how shit their day has been. We chalk it up to pressure, pace, or leadership being demanding and we accept the toll it takes on our bodies, on our sleep, our relationships and our performance as if it’s just all part of the deal.
But what if it’s not?
What if the reason you feel flat or reactive or one step behind isn't your mindset or your workload but the fact that you’re simply not sleeping well enough to function at the level you’re aiming for?
I used to think I was one of those people who could get by on four or five hours a night. I had a big job, a rammed full calendar, and endless deadlines. Sleep felt optional; something I could catch up on later. On paper, I was doing fine and anyone who looked at me would have probably thought the same. But when I finally gave sleep the attention it deserved, the shift was unreal. I got more clarity, better energy and more space between stimulus and response. I didn’t just feel sharper, which of course I did, but I felt like myself again.
That’s why it comes up with almost every client I work with. They come to me for support with performance, seeking greater clarity, or feeling overwhelmed and emotionally out of control. Often, what we uncover together is that they’ve built high expectations on top of a foundation that isn’t holding. Sleep isn’t the only thing, but it’s almost always a key factor, and when we sort it, everything else starts to move forward more positively.
Most people think of sleep as passive; the part at the end of the day, once everything is done, but it’s actually one of the most active biological states. Your brain clears out the waste from the day, processes emotions and consolidates your memories. Your muscles repair, your immune system resets and your heart rate drops. Your nervous system gets the recovery it’s been waiting for all day and your hormones rebalance. When you don’t sleep well, all of that is disrupted. Cortisol, your main stress hormone, rises, keeping you wired and on edge, even when nothing’s wrong. Testosterone drops, which affect not just sex drive but confidence, physical recovery and motivation in both men and women. Oestrogen becomes harder to regulate, which can massively affect mood, body temperature, energy and sleep quality, especially in perimenopause or menopause. Glucose metabolism becomes impaired, leading to more cravings, more energy crashes and less stable blood sugar throughout the day. Then there’s my favourite, your HRV, or heart rate variability, a key measure of how well your nervous system is adapting to stress. When it’s low, you’re less resilient, less creative, and far more likely to feel emotionally reactive or overwhelmed.
You don’t need to understand the science to feel the impact. You already know what it feels like to snap at your partner, lose focus in a meeting, or lie in bed wired but exhausted as your brain thinks a thousand thoughts, and nothing seems to let you let go. You know what it’s like to feel like you’re pushing through every single day without ever quite catching up.
That’s not leadership, that’s survival, and it’s not sustainable.
Inside Built for More, we start every coaching relationship with a complete lifestyle audit. Not a wellbeing chat, but a proper look at how your days are structured and how you’re actually living. When you train, what time you eat, how often you travel, whether your mornings are grounded or chaotic, what’s happening in the margins that no one else sees. Because sustainable change doesn’t come from copying someone else’s routine, it comes from understanding your own. Once we’ve got the full picture, we build from there and one of the most powerful levers we pull first is your morning routine. Because how you start your day shapes how you sleep at night.
Getting natural light in your eyes within 30 minutes of waking, even on a grey day, helps reset your circadian rhythm. It tells your brain it’s morning, regulates cortisol and helps your body know when to start producing melatonin later. If you skip that signal, you stay out of sync and you feel groggy in the morning and wired when you’re supposed to be winding down later in the day. That’s not poor discipline, it’s poor rhythm.
The second game changer is consistency. Going to bed and waking at the same time every day, and yes, even at the weekend, gives your brain and body what it’s craving most: predictability. Your body is desperate for a regular, predictable routine. That’s what improves deep sleep, recovery, energy and focus.
Then there’s training. Everyone loves to tell you that movement helps sleep, and it does, but the timing of that training also matters. A recent study by WHOOP, analysing over 40,000 workouts, found that people who trained within one hour of going to bed had significantly worse sleep and recovery scores. Late-night workouts keep your heart rate high and your core temperature elevated, which can delay deep sleep. If you train in the morning, you’ll likely sleep better. If you can’t, as I appreciate not everyone can or wants to train in the morning, try to finish at least three hours before bed. Your recovery and your results will thank you for it.
If you’re recognising yourself in any of this, you’re not broken, you’re just human. You might be running a high-performance life on a low-recovery system. That doesn’t make you weak, but it does make it harder than it needs to be. So if you’re ready to shift the way you feel, not just in the margins, but across the board, here’s where you start.
Sleep Better, Lead Better
· Get outside within 30 minutes of waking - even five minutes helps
· Keep a consistent wake and sleep time and yes, even at the weekend
· Avoid training within three hours of sleep, as your body needs space to come down
· Follow the 3, 2, 1 rule:
3 hours before bed — no food (your body needs time to digest the food)
2 hours before bed — no screens (the blue light is hideous for allowing you to go to sleep)
1 hour before bed — no drinks (otherwise you’ll be up all night pissing!)
If you want more tips like this, feel free to follow me on Instagram or pop over to my website, where I share lots of helpful tips across a range of subjects to support people becoming the best version of themselves.
If you’re tired of relying on willpower, frustrated that the mindset work isn’t sticking, or just feel like you’re not performing at the level you know you’re capable of, it’s probably time to rebuild the system.
Inside Built for More, we work with high performers, leaders and founders who want to operate differently. We examine your full picture: your sleep, habits, energy, triggers, nervous system, calendar, team, and routines. And we rebuild it in a way that works with your life, not against it. This isn’t about adding more pressure to your life; it’s about gaining more power and building from a foundation that actually lasts.
If you’re ready for that kind of change, drop me a DM or book yourself in for a Free, no-obligation Discovery Call, where we can have a chat about how I might be able to support you in transforming your life.
Whatever you’re up to this weekend, I hope you have a wonderfully well-rested one.
