You're hitting your numbers. Your customers love you. Your manager can't stop singing your praises. But inside? You're tired. Maybe even a little resentful. And somewhere underneath all of it, you're starting to wonder why a career you've worked so hard to build requires so much of you.
That's the conversation we're having today.
In This Episode
✨ Why high performance and over functioning look identical from the outside — and the one thing that separates them
✨ How your brain gets wired to need being needed (this is neuroscience, not a character flaw)
✨ The invisible rule most high-achieving women are living by without knowing it exists
✨ What "borrowed fuel" is and why it eventually gets expensive, no matter how successful you are
✨ The exact questions to ask yourself this week to start separating compulsion from conscious choice
✨ How to stay exceptional — and ambitious — without needing to be indispensable to prove your worth
The Big Takeaway
Over functioning can make you wildly successful, at least for a while. You get rewarded for it. You win the awards, you make the money, and people tell you how amazing you are. But when being indispensable starts to cost you access to your own life, it's time to look underneath the performance — not at it. The rewrite isn't doing less. It's doing from choice.
RISE Method Connection
This one lives at the heart of R — Resilient Mindset. The invisible rule "if I can handle it, I should" is a belief we absorbed so early it feels like a fact. Untangling it is some of the most important mindset work there is.
Ready to go deeper? Get on the weekly RISE Report email list at www.michellebourquecoaching.com/risereport
Timestamps
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00:00 – High performing or over functioning? Introducing the question
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03:30 – What over functioning looks like in a high-reward industry (and why it gets celebrated)
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07:00 – When indispensable starts to cost you
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10:15 – The real difference: same behavior, completely different driver
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14:00 – The invisible rule: "If I can handle it, I should"
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18:30 – The neuroscience of being needed and how it becomes a survival strategy
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22:00 – Rewriting the rule — from compulsion to conscious choice
