For a long time, I thought high performance was about pushing. Work harder. Train harder. Be disciplined. Keep going. As an elite athlete, those qualities mattered. You don’t get to the Olympic Games without discipline, consistency and the ability to do difficult things when you don’t necessarily feel like doing them. But over the years, I’ve come to understand something else about high performance. You can’t perform at your best if your only strategy is to keep pushing harde

High achievers are often very good at carrying a lot. We get things done. We solve problems. We take responsibility. We anticipate what needs to happen next. We keep going when things get difficult. And usually, those qualities are rewarded. They help us build careers, lead teams, raise families, create businesses and pursue ambitious goals. I know these qualities well. I’ve been an elite athlete. An Olympian. A working mum. A leader. A business owner. A speaker. I genuinely

Last month, I sat at my desk staring at an email. I must have read it five times. The words were right there in front of me, but I couldn’t absorb what they were saying. Something in me said: Go home. There was a time when I would have ignored that feeling. I would have pushed through. Answered a few more emails. Finished one more thing. Maybe taken some work home so I could “catch up”. Because somewhere along the way, many of us have learnt that pushing through is what high

The thing about feeling constantly “on” is that sometimes you don’t realise how much pressure you’re carrying. You move from one thing to the next. The meeting. The deadline. The school run. The presentation. The emails. The conversation you’ve been putting off. Your body might be sitting still, but your mind is already thinking about the next thing. I know this feeling well. As an Olympian, I spent years learning how to perform under pressure. There were moments when I neede

YYou’ve booked the holiday. The suitcase is packed. Your out-of-office is on. Your body is lying beside the pool or sitting on a beach somewhere beautiful. But your mind? It’s still in your inbox. You’re thinking about the email you forgot to send, the project waiting for you when you get back, what needs to happen next week, or whether you should just quickly check what’s happening at work. You’ve physically stopped. But mentally, you’re still going. And this is something I’