Episode 33 - How to Avoid High-Achiever Burnout

In today's episode, we are diving into the real raw struggles that so many high achieving women faced. Things like imposter syndrome, the weight of limiting beliefs, burnout, and the tool it takes on our mental wellbeing. Our guest brings vulnerability and wisdom. Sharing practical tools to break through these barriers, focusing on mental hygiene, asking for help and creating space for self-compassion. We'll also explore what it really means for organizations to create space where women feel seen, supported and empowered along the way you find practical tips. Heartfelt insights and the encouragement you need to keep going, keep growing and truly thrive in your career and life. Let's get started.

 Welcome to the Women's Career Mastery Podcast, the show that's dedicated to empowering women to redefine success and break through barriers. I'm your host, Christine, and my co-host, Laura, along with our amazing guests and experts. We are here to shatter the myths that has been hindering women's careers.

Women's career fulfillment for far too long. So, if you're ready to master your career and take your life to the next level, join us in our journey together.

It's great to be back for another episode of the Women's Career Mastery Podcast. Our guest is Célia Zermatten. She is in the beautiful country of Switzerland. Célia is one of those high achieving women who was trapped in survival mode without even realizing it.

So, we're going to learn a lot from her story. To start for over a decade, she worked in. A lot of the big firms like UBS, McKinsey, and even the United Nations, and she traveled the globe managing high stakes projects. Célia is now an entrepreneur and coach running transformational programs for high potential women focused on burnout recovery and career development, and is also partnering with organizations to attract, retain, and develop their top female talent.

Her story though, deeply personal mirrors the experiences of countless strong and successful women. She's an inspiration in her mission to champion a new era where women are empowered and thriving, not merely surviving. This topic will no doubt resonate with our listeners. I'm sure of it. So, let's get started.

Célia. We're super excited to have you join us on the podcast. Would you like to get started by sharing why you wanted to join us? Yes, thank you so much, Laura. I'm really, really happy to be here and really excited to be sharing more on this topic. So, I think one of the main reasons I wanted to join the discussion is to raise even more awareness around burnouts and its prevention.

Because I think there are still so many misconceptions. So, both in the medical world, but also in the corporate world. And I think there is really a lack of understanding around the symptoms and how we get there, how we go through it, what it looks like. And I see still so many high achieving women themselves don't recognize it.

That's the going through burnout, and you can't change, you can't recover from something you're not aware of. And I also wanted to offer a message of hope because really burnout doesn't have to be the end, and recovery can lead to incredible growth. And it's something I took to my client a lot.

It's the post traumatic growth, so really how you can come out of something really challenging, even stronger with more authenticity, with more confidence, clarity, meaning for your life? So, I hope to inspire anyone going through it right now and really see that also as a catalyst for something that can be much more positive and transformative for their life.

That's great, Célia. Now, let's start with, your own story, about working and experience burnout and how you rise from it and what are the lessons you learned from it. And I'm pretty sure that is your missions and helping people who have gone through it right now. So, it would be great to hear your story.

Yes, thank you, Christine. So, I think what I went through is not uncommon, but I think the part that's the most interesting, for the audience is to understand how burnouts get completely misdiagnosed often for high achieving women. So, I think that's that angle that I want to take.

So, basically for me, for years, I worked in very, highly demanding environments. As you said, I worked for UBS, then I worked for McKinsey for about six years and I was traveling a lot, working a lot in global public health between Geneva, New York, Africa. It was extremely stimulating, great people, great projects.

I was running constantly on high stress, even without releasing it because I was getting a lot of energy from what I was doing. And when I left McKinsey in 2020, I had a series of acute stressors. So, my Dad got cancer, I had to move, I broke my knee. COVID hit. I started a new job, and all those things, those acute stressors happen over a very short period of time after years of chronic stress.

And, at that time, I started to develop weird, abdominal pain symptoms, I had a lot of abdominal pain, especially after meals, after doing sports, didn't pay attention to them at the beginning, you know, but very quickly they became much stronger. And by the end of 2020, I had very long period of abdominal pain, vomiting, nausea, and I started going from doctor to doctor to find a root cause of what I believe was a physical issue, and that took me on a road of like, almost three years, of, going across the entire medical world to find a solution to what I had, and all the exams, the treatments Everything I went through probably made my case worse because it was creating an additional source of stress on my nervous system that was already broken.

And it's only two or three years later when I decided to stop everything, all the medical treatments and everything, to really reconnect to my body. My needs, my body, my mental energy, my emotional energy and finding people that recovered from chronic pain and understanding how they did that, that I came to realize that I had a burnout, meaning your nervous system breaks down.

And what that means is that the symptoms you can have are very diverse. For me, it was the digestive system, we have rest or digest or fight or flight mode. So rest and digest, it's broken when you have a burnout, so digestive issues, sleep issues, anxiety, you know, reproductive health, also those type of issues, and that's what I believe happened to me, but those doctors or like the whole medical world didn't really help me because me, like a lot of other women I spoke to, high achieving women, are very much in control of the process itself, proactive.

I didn't have mental symptoms at first, I didn't have depression. I didn't have all that. So, you get kind of misdiagnosed because even in that journey, you still overachieve, you're still very much in control and they don't lead you to the right direction. So, all that to say from that place, I completely changed the way I looked at it and really was like, well, I need to heal my nervous system. I don't need to heal my digestive system, and I came to create a much more holistic approach to what I was going through, and working on physical health, mental health, emotional health.

I worked a lot with brain retraining your brain, to get rid of chronic pain, the neuroplastic pain that happened after years of having a chronic pain. And through that journey, it's completely changed me because I started to look at solving a physical issue but healed me much more holistically.

And that's where I started to realize, when you change your inner world, yes, your health improves, but your outer world changed too. And when I started to share all that journey, those realizations, those tools that came along the way with ex-colleagues, friends, especially women, there was so much of like, oh, I went through that.

Well, I'm going through that. Oh, that equals so much to my experience. How can we do that for myself? And that's how my own journey toward giving that back to people started and really trying to take all that I went through over those years, the pain, the learnings, and bringing that into something I could pass on to people, especially women, in a very, concrete, concise, pragmatic way to hopefully help them avoid that pain or go through that painful period much more quickly.

Well, thank you for your courage to share your story and for the ability to have learned so much from it that you're giving back to women. So, I just want to thank you for that. Yes. And just on that one, it's super important because I also just realized that even myself at that time, I was not vulnerable.

I would not ask for help because asking for help stuff like, oh, I should be able to handle it by myself or I'm a burden to others. If I ask for help, and those are beliefs that high achieving women have. a lot of the time. And as a result, they wait too long before asking for help or they don't ask it at all.

So also in this podcast, my goal is to tell them do it. And by the way, so many people will be there for you, and they are solution out there, but you need to ask for help. And it's actually a sign of strength. Um, that's, that's, I think that's what we, most women need to hear. It's a sign of strength too. Yes.

So from your story, I'm pretty sure there's so many lessons, there's so many insights that you learn, and there's so many tips and strategy for your recovery, but let's start with what is the most common beliefs, besides like asking for help, like, I'm strong, I don't need help, and I think you also mentioned about, being in control, I'm in control, so I do everything by myself.

What other beliefs or mindsets that I'm pretty sure this is what make, high achieving women successful in their career, but also there's a shadow part of it. Would just love to hear from your point of view, what are those beliefs that most women hold that kind of bring this to burnout?

Yes. So that's, that's an excellent question. And I think the one that's there the most, it's, I'm not good enough. And it can be conscious or unconscious, but it's something around. I'm not good enough, or I'm not enough the way I am. I have to prove something. And what that creates is that for a lot of women, it creates this energy, this drive to overperform, overachieve, overcontrol, overthink, because they want to have that external validation that will make them feel then at peace and remove that anxiety coming from that belief.

So, it gives them a lot of energy. Energy, but it's a drive that's coming from anxiety and fear. And it's not a drive that is coming from a place of authenticity, confidence, , and I think that's, that's one of the biggest one that's women have. And it's also what we call, the imposter syndrome.

Imposter syndrome means that you have that belief and that means also you completely, overlook any achievements that you have. So, every time you're doing something well, every time you have an achievement, that's just by luck, or that's just a given, so you don't look. At your achievement, or you think it's just by luck, it's just the timing, you doubt that your achievements, but you focus very much on everything that goes wrong or doesn't go as planned, and you stay stuck in that loop because when you do that, you reinforce the belief that you're not enough and that you need to do more and more and more.

That's so true. My God, I'm getting chills as you're talking about it because I lived it. It's bringing back memories, and it's also something we often hear from clients that they are struggling with that feeling of not being enough even though they know they're really good at something. They hear something, they feel something said in the workplace and it makes them feel right away like they're not good enough, even more.

It just strengthens that voice, that mindset that they're hearing. How do we get a hold of that? Like, there's this whole thing about, people fearing their performance reviews. And it's because they're going to get feedback and some of it might be constructive, but there's always room to grow, right?

But that for women, it automatically goes to the flight or fright mode, and they just get this feeling of, I'm not good enough. I should, I got to leave. I'm not treated well. Like what's happening there. Like what can we do there? So, I always work on that from two different angles.

So, one is really, you need to go and look at those, deep, conscious or unconscious beliefs that you have.

What does that mean is that 90 percent of our beliefs, they're unconscious, so they've been passed on by family, friends, society, education, past companies we worked for, and so on and so on. So, this, I am not good enough, you need to start by being fully aware of it. Look at it and then you need to go challenge it saying, hey, okay, I'm carrying that belief, but is it actually true?

Where did I learn it? And very interesting, every limiting belief we have is also bringing some positive things to us. So, for example, often we believe that because if we believe that we're much less disappointed. When something goes wrong. So, it's very interesting to go to challenge those beliefs and trying to see what we are trying to protect ourselves from.

So, for example, that one, it often comes from that, because then you're less hurt. You’re less touched when something goes wrong, because you have that belief that protects you in some sense of that. But then you need to go and really challenge that belief to say, okay, it's not true. I've learned that from the past, but realistically, when I looked at it, it's not true.

So, you want to replace it with something that is more neutral or even positive, but our brain very much has a bullshit rider. So, you cannot just say, okay, I'm the best person in the world, but you want to find something, in the middle that you can believe. So, for example, hey, you know what? I'm not better, but I'm not worse.

Probably average, like everyone that's in the company, there is no reason I don't want to, maybe I'm not better, but there is no reason I'm worse, you know? So, I believe that I can believe that I can believe that. And then we need to go and really reprogram that. So, reprogramming of belief works with the brain neuroplasticity.

So, neurons that fire together, wire together, what we constantly repeat, repeat, see, read. Every day become our new like highway in the brain, and that's how beliefs are formed. So, the same way you form the belief, I'm not good enough because maybe you've be told something and then you repeat that belief again and again and again and again.

I always tell my client, now you need to have a practice where you're going to repeat, read, visualize every day, this new belief that is more neutral because we need to reprogram your brain. And it's exactly how it works. We need to reshape our brain to transform that. So that's the deep work you want to do.

And in parallel of that, something that I've always found very powerful is to have what I call a portfolio of confidence. So, I always tell my client, okay, now as of today, every evening, you're going to write between one or two, three things that you're proud of. So, saying, okay, today I'm proud of myself because, dot, dot, dot. And you want to do that every single day because it shows you that you're doing all those amazing things. It forces your brain to start looking at them because naturally you started to not look at your achievement anymore. And it's the way your brain has been wired. So, you need to unwire that and create that new way of looking at things with, okay, I'm looking at what I'm proud of.

And also looking at that portfolio of confidence before difficult event, before performance review, for example, and then, oh, your level of stress goes down because you're like, look, I have all the proof of what I have achieved. I'm much more confident with that. So, I always say at least once a week, re read.

What you wrote during the entire week, before performance review, before a big meeting, before promotion, or even something in your personal life. You can take that portfolio of confidence and read it again.

I have questions on that. I think that's a great thing to do to remind ourselves or change our belief systems. But here's the thing about. The challenge about, I'm going to be a devil advocate here, this is a challenge about being a high achiever, it's a challenge to rest, it's a challenge to pause, because what you just said, requires us to slow down and even questioning, is that really the true belief?

Is that really, like having a self-doubt, is doubting our belief. But that requires a slowing down and really, Self-reflections and what you said about, remind ourselves, saying things that are affirming, and also the writing what I'm proud about myself is requires slowing down.

And I know the biggest challenge of that. Therefore, there's a lot of women have to go through the burnout because that is when they don't have choice. We said slow down. So, what would be, a good way to kind of help that we feel like we have to do something to feel our worth, or at least to experience that we worth something by doing to slow down.

So, that one, I think, yes, there is the point that you mentioned around. Having a strong why, you need to really want to be willing to change something. And yes, often we want to change something when we're in pain, physically, mentally, or emotionally. So that's a strong why. So, in terms of prevention, what can be done before you get to that stage?

I think, there is a lot of awareness building, even what we're doing today, people may listen to that and say, oh interesting, because for me, society and organization corporates have been very focused recently in the past few years on everything around physical health, this whole sleep nutrition exercise, it became a thing that was not there 20 years ago.

And I think the next evolution, it's everything around mental fitness. And we already have mental health, which is becoming a thing, but the mental fitness part of it, it's exactly the type of thing I've shared before around starting to get in control of your thoughts, of your beliefs, having a daily practice around that, people now got very used to, okay, I need to do physical exercise every week.

But I think more and more with awareness building. Science, also research, showing you data, things I'm sharing today, people also, especially women will start understanding that this mental hygiene is as important as the physical hygiene, and it's something that we need to keep pushing and focusing on because in my opinion, it's even more important that the physical exercise of the physical part of it.

Because it impacts even more so your emotional health and everything else going on in your life. But I don't know if it answers your question. Yes, I think from what I get from you, and I have a strong voice in here because I know, most women experience this like without self-awareness.

Without wanting to be better, like you said, without wanting to feel better without that why, without that, there's no way we're willing to stop. So, the key is like, when you have that self-awareness, when you have a desire to feel better mentally, then you, you have to work on it. Just like the way you work going up through your career, you work hard on it.

So, you work hard on your mental health too. Why not? Because that is your, capital to move forward, to respect yourself, to love yourself. And I love your point about mental hygiene. What, what is mental hygiene means? I think that will be a great discussion, what is mental hygiene for you so other women can, know that, because I think it's a kind of a new term and, I kind of liking it.

Amazing. So, for example, I always send my clients mental hygiene, think about what your brain consumes. And I said, imagine you wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is that you check your emails, or you check the news. It's like 99 percent chance that it's really bad news out there in the world.

That's what you're doing to your brain. That's part of hygiene. All the information you consume it's part of hygiene, same, for example, you're gossiping or like you're sharing in and out negative information to your brain in and out, so think about it, all the information you consume.

That's one thing. The other thing, it's really more like how you're using your brain, you know? So, for example, as I said, everything around our beliefs, our thoughts, they're the only thing that we should control in our life. I always tell that to my clients who are very controlling, they have controlling tendencies, and I always tell them, you know what, you can put all those controlling tendencies on one thing, your thoughts.

That's mental hygiene. It means your thoughts, they're just thoughts. It doesn't mean it's the truth. It doesn't mean it's the reality. They're just sentences in your head. So mental hygiene means being able to be in control of that brain power that is one of the biggest powers that you have, but that can also be your enemy,  so how can you get in control of those thoughts? How can you be able to stop when you have that overthinking, those negative thought loops? How can you start learning about beliefs, what are beliefs, and what are the beliefs, what are the programs that I have in my brain, which are like your beliefs.

So, it's really working at that level and those different hygiene level. In your brain, like we do in our body in terms of what we consume, what we eat, how we wash ourselves, we brush our teeth to two times per day, you know, but the same with our brain and the same with all those elements as well. I love that.

Thinking of my brain, how do I protect it? Right. Like, how do I keep it shielded? Because we know it learns from whatever we tell it, just like. If we tell something negative, it's the negative is going to fester. How do we protect it? How do we, grow it? Like how do we help it grow and, develop in, and get nourishment like, never thought of the brain that way. So that's really cool. Célia you actually make me think that not only I spoke a lot about what we should avoid, but then it's exactly what you said. It's that then we can prime our brain with all the things we want to put in there. So, say now the first 15 minutes in the morning, you’re going to repeat, you're going to consume what you want to have in your brain.

And we know that the brain is much more neuroplastic the first 15 to 30 minutes when you wake up and before you go to bed. So, first thing when you wake up, read those new beliefs you want to have, you know, I'm doing well, I'm confident. I'm proud of myself. I'm doing so much better. I did that a lot for my chronic pain.

I would tell myself I'm comfortable in my body. I'm healing, I'm doing better. Do first thing in the morning because you can prime your brain with those things. Same with thoughts. emotions. How can you really, when you have positive thoughts, instead of letting them fly away very quickly, go to the loop.

We don't do that. We go into a negative loop for negative thoughts. But when you start having something positive happening to you, go into it fully, think about it, leave it, feel it in your body. It's also the power of visualization, affirmation, all those techniques are also using that power of the brain.

And they're part of what I would call, mental fitness and mental hygiene. And it's extremely powerful, especially for, high achieving women, high achiever overall.

This all, it sounds practical, it sounds doable, I can start to do that in my morning routine for sure, but I get to work, and I get hit with the, the same, the thoughts come back, or the challenges come back, or I go into auto drive with my overachieving self. What can companies do to help women struggling with that?

So, I think two things there. So, one, I'm a very strong believer of empowerment. So, I think there are so many things that are in our control. And, as a woman, as a person going through that, doing those changes, making those changing, practicing. It's about practice, resilience, patience. So, it doesn't mean that it's going to change overnight.

It's like when you start running, you need to practice weeks, months, years before you run a marathon. So, it's also for you to think at some point, okay, is the environment in which. I am, can't you think of the person I want to be? So, if you're in a company and it's okay, actually there are things that are toxic or it's really not aligned with who I am, maybe it's for you to think, is it the right place for me?

You know? So, I think there is a part of individual responsibility to choose to be in a certain context or with certain people, then from the company perspective, especially when it comes down to, women, female talent, attraction, retention, and growth. I'm a strong believer of having women more at the top.

That's the center of the solution recreating and rebuilding. So, what I will answer to your question, is that in each company, and I'm focusing now more on women, but it's really, how can we hear those voices? You know, what are the things that are still happening at organizational level that are creating an environment that is toxic for women or not conducive for women to be their best selves?

And often those voices do not get heard. Or women do not speak up before the time they leave,. So how can companies create, whether it's anonymous ways or forum where women are really being, heard. Another big element for me, it's really just creating environment and culture that supports women.

So, for example, encouraging more feminine energy, so those qualities of receptivity, collaboration, nutrition, creativity, more care, also recognizing that women have very different physical, mental, and emotional needs. Compared to men, also recognizing that women will always juggle more roles than men.

It's known that women take on more caregiving role, whether it's with kids or with, parents and so on, and last but not least, there is also a big responsibility for companies to create, more support for care advancements. For women, especially while they go through motherhood, so for me at company level, it's really how do we create that, and companies should put in place initiatives that then also supported by the right levers.

And what I mean by that is one of the biggest and most important one is to have a performance management system. So, performance management, reward recognition that is aligned to those priorities and that is aligned to the environment you're trying to build as a company. That's a big one. Another one, it's role modeling from top leadership, so how leaders are really role modeling those behaviors and creating that environment that we say, yes, it's our priority as a company.

And the last two, it's around communication and education, supporting, educating through training, mentorship, coaching, and that's true for everyone, including men, but also women in this part of how we support them to be more, in their energy to bring their whole set at work to work on all the challenges that we discussed earlier in the podcast,

I like what you're saying. And also, it seems like, when it's about work, it's always about the external, right? The output, our work, our project, our accomplishment, but also one thing, at least I get from our conversation today, what you said, supporting women in the work, the inner world or inner experience of them to be a woman or to be naturally them in the workplace with authenticity, with, with more like feminine leaderships, and creating safety for them to be themselves as well.

Célia, where can our listener find you? Yes, so they can follow me on LinkedIn. It's where I'm the most active for news, contents, events, and they can also visit my website, CeliaZermatten.com, to know how they can work with me or also explore free resources that are covering all the challenges faced by high achieving women.

So, lots of the things we spoke about today, including a survival guide to survival mode, which is a very nice deep dive on chronic stress and burnout. And then also find a lot of resources on brain retraining, beliefs, and so on in my blog post. And I think you'll find all these in the podcast links as well.

Awesome. Is there any other last message you want to share with our audience? Again, I think a big one for me, it's, asking for help, if anything that's been shared today resonates with you, don't leave it there, just take the step, move forward, find the right support, the right people, and, and ask for help.

You don't have to carry all those burdens by yourself. You're not meant to do that.

Oh, thank you, Célia. I'm sitting here listening. It's very profound. It's very caring. It's really, generous of you to share your time and all of your work with us, with our listeners as well. So, thank you for all of that. I also want to add something about what you said about asking for help.

You know, I'm pretty sure most high achieving women, when someone asks for help, we help them. We are there. And why not doing the same thing for ourselves, ask for help so people can help us too. Thank you for that message.

Awesome. Okay. So, Célia, before we close, we want to do the lightning round of questions with you. Ready?

Yes.

Okay. Question number one, where do you go for inspiration? I would say nature. So, for energy recovery, cleaning my mind, my mental hygiene, reconnecting to my intuition, creativity, and I'm obviously extremely grateful to live in gorgeous Switzerland.

So yes, that's my place.

Awesome. What is one habit you adopted that has greatly improved your career?

I would say, staying hundred percent true to myself. So, I think from a place of authenticity and focusing on why I'm doing something versus what the outcome should be, or what do people think about it?

I definitely see that in all the work that you do. Again, thank you for that.

What is one thing that keeps you moving forward each day?

I would say helping people. So really having a positive impact on people around me, whether it's family, friends, clients, of course, and just doing my small positive contribution to this world and hopefully bringing a bit more peace, hope, and joy.

And you work globally, right? Yes, yes, yes. I do. I do. Awesome.

What is the most valuable piece of advice you ever received?

So, one that I really like is don't chase, but attract. So, focus on the energy you're putting into what you're doing and surrender to the outcome. Don't try to control the outcome.

So, whatever is meant to be, will be. And let go of what has to go.

That's, that's very beautiful, Célia. And how amazing it is because I think we are good doers, meaning that we can do things, we can envision things and to attract is such a more effortless to do. And I also want to add something out of what Célia said.

I found this. This, quotes that I've thought, yeah, it's true. This is regarding what Célia said about, the mindset, like asking the questions about our belief in stuff, this is what it is. You can feel out of control, but you are controlling that. You can feel lack of confidence, but you are confident about that.

“You can experience, that you lack trust, but you are trusting that. And the most amazing things is all the good things about, you are in control, you're out of control, your confidence, even your lack of confidence, because you, you, you need to have confidence to be confident of lack of confidence.

And if you feel like you, our lack of trust, you have trust because you're trusting that.” So that's, that's kind of interesting. Just, some things to ponder when we go and questioning our beliefs. Thank you everyone. If you enjoy today, episode hit, follow and share it with someone who's love it too. And leave us a review. See you for the next episode.

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