Are you one of them?

You’re the woman who gets things done.

You’re driven.

You manage work, plan the meetings, your projects and maybe a team. You handle the crisis, you juggle deadlines and you're good at it. You book the holiday, remember the birthdays, and still make it to your 7 a.m. workout, pushing yourself to stay in shape.

You live by the list. And when you finally tick everything off - if that magical moment ever arrives - you don’t exhale.

You feel... uneasy. Uncomfortable. Empty. Like you’re missing something.

So you find something else to do.

Because you still think you are too lazy.

Sound familiar?

The hidden exhaustion of always striving

If you’re in your 40s or early 50's and have spent years showing up for your corporate job, climbing ladder, fitting in, proving yourself, looking the part - maybe you’ve noticed the creeping sense of fatigue. An unfulfillment that isn’t just physical exhaustion. It’s soul-deep.

You're not just tired. You're tired of being tired.

You’ve done the courses, the leadership programs, taken the career coaching, read the books, subscribed to the podcasts. You’ve tried everything to improve, optimize, and upgrade yourself.

Aiming to 'become' that women.

And yet, … nothing really shifts.

You’re always reaching, striving, chasing. It’s as if life’s a race and you have to get to the finish line.

And if you slow down, it feels as if you fall behind.

Stillness feels like weakness. Like you’re losing your edge.

And when things do slow down, when the projects end, the inbox clears, the weekend nears and it is quiet, no plans, no activities lined up, you don’t rest, you don’t enjoy the moment.

You search. For something. Anything. You try to fill the space with errands, retail therapy, a new course, a new goal.

Because sitting in that silence?

You don’t know what to do with yourself.

It feels like you’re falling (behind).

The traits of the restless do-er

You might recognize yourself in some of these patterns:

• You feel guilty when you’re not being productive.

• You constantly set the next goal, often without having fully completed and enjoying the last one.

• You find it hard to relax, even on holiday. After a day or two you are done relaxing…

• You pride yourself on being capable, but secretly long to be cared for.

• You feel disconnected from yourself, unsure of what you actually want.

• You equate self-worth with output, success, and how “together” you appear.

BUT,

You’re not broken.

You don’t need fixing. You’re not weak. And you’re definitely not alone.

This restlessness often hides a deeper hunger - a longing to belong, to be seen, to feel like we matter.

We’ve been taught that these feelings must be earned through constant doing - through climbing the ladder, achieving more, earning more, staying busy, staying ahead. So we chase belonging through promotions, seek worth through performance, and try to prove our importance through perfection. All the while, never quite feeling enough.

What if the thing you’ve been striving for all those years … is already there?

Already lives inside of you?

And if you are still reading, I assume you notice that the restless doing and achieving not only leaves you constantly feeling you haven't done enough, but it leaves you feeling empty, liveless and exhausted, am I right?

Here is an invitation to ponder over some gentle questions:

• Why the restlessness? Who or what is pushing you (forward)?

• Why the rush - where are you trying to get to?

• Would you choose to be so hard on yourself, if you could choose?

• What are you afraid might happen if you stopped doing so much and filling every hour of the day with something?

• Who are you without the role, the title and your to-do list?

• Have you ever considered there could be another way?

• Would it make a difference if you could choose to feel you have already "arrived"?

These aren’t questions to judge yourself with, they’re invitations to get curious, to raise your awareness and come closer to yourself.

To start listening to that inner whisper, that quiet voice underneath all the noise.

Three small yet powerful shifts to bring ease (without giving up)

You don’t need to burn it all down. You don’t need to make drastic changes.

You don’t need to move to Bali or quit your job tomorrow.

But you do can soften the edges.

Here are three things that may help:

1. Practice “still-doing.”

This isn’t about sitting cross-legged and chanting (unless you want to). It’s about learning to be present with everyone and everything you doing. Be there, be really there. Can you wash the dishes while breathing deeply? Can you walk to your meeting without checking your phone? Can you have a conversation without mentally checking what’s next?

Stillness isn’t the absence of action - it’s the presence of you in your life.

2. Redefine success as alignment, not achievement.

What would success look like if you felt at peace knowing you’ve already made it. What if it wasn’t about impressing or seeking approval from others but living in integrity with what matters most to you?

Start noticing when you’re doing something for the fun of it because you already feel “enough”, because it feels true and you are doing it for you.

3. Make space to meet yourself.

We need space for ourselves more than we need boundaries. Schedule moments (without an agenda) - just like meetings - where you do nothing but check in with yourself. Ask yourself: How am I, really? What do I need today? How do I want to feel today?

These tiny rituals reconnect you to your inner compass, so you’re not constantly outsourcing direction.

The Self-Leadership Effect

I get it. I know this cycle well because I lived it too.

I spent years chasing the next thing, believing fulfillment was just one promotion, one self-improvement hack away. But the truth was: I didn’t need to become someone else. I needed to meet myself - the version of me that didn’t need to prove or earn her worth.

Now, through The Self-Leadership Effect, I help women like you step off the hamster wheel and into a life that feels aligned, alive, meaningful, and whole - not someday, but starting now.

Because leadership doesn’t begin with a title.

It begins with you.

If this stirred something inside of you, I invite you to pause. Reflect. Breathe. And if you’re ready to explore a different way of being - one without the fluff, one that begins from within - I’d love to walk beside you.

You don’t have to do this alone.

Susanne Kubik - The Self-Leadership Effect

Hi, I'm Susanne. For most of my career I've worked in high pressured environments in Consultancy and Investment Banking where I perfectly adapted to the corporate soldier mentality, simply because I felt I needed to fit in, feeling otherwise invisible, insignificant and compared myself notoriously. For years I was enduring my corporate existence or forever planned my exit strategy, carrying the burden of needing to be seen as "professional" was more important than being seen as human. However, I learned that there is another way .... Finding my true self instead of chasing outward success has been the game changer that affected all areas in my life positively.

Nowadays I am sharing the simple strategies and mind hacks to silence the inner critic with others, so they can finally replace the self-doubt for inner knowing and find their brilliance beyond roles and job titles and live a live on purpose and with intention.

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