High Achievers

You’ve built yourself around results and drive.

Pressure has always sharpened you.

But now you’re getting poor results, somehow even before you begin.

And the absence of results is becoming sensed and seen.

So you double-down to force, continuing the sprint/collapse cycle.


When Overdrive Becomes Unsustainable

Common experiences include:

  • Perfectionism that raises the bar after every win

  • Restlessness not letting you calm in order to sleep

  • Cycling between sprints and burnout

  • Difficulty saying no, or stopping at “good enough”

  • Disassociating with screens, food, or substances to come down

  • Relationships strained by absence even when present (preoccupation)

  • The unspoken fear that conditional results equal conditional worthiness

These are not character flaws. They’re learned strategies that once protected you, now deserving an update.


The Movement Toward Integration is a Three-Part Journey

1. Build Understanding of Your Strategies

  • What high standards helped prevent and why they now backfire

  • How identity fused with performance fuels shame and urgency

  • The nervous system cost of sustained pressure and anticipation

  • How perfectionism, people-pleasing, and control move against fear

2. Develop Practical Tools that Work with You

Together, we’ll design:

  • Values-based prioritization and selective choice to reduce overload

  • Boundary scripts, delegation protocols, and repair language

  • Load management and recovery blocking to prevent build-up

  • Brief regulation drills to shift state at any time

  • Redirects that separate self-worth from the performative self

3. Heal Wounds that Fuel Overdrive

We patiently unburden:

  • Old templates of conditional lovability driving rejection sensitivity

  • Internal criticisms that conflates our safe connections with outcomes

  • Acknowledging and releasing what relentless striving has cost

  • The fear that letting it all fall apart equates to holding no standard


Life on the Other Side

Imagine:

  • Relationships that aren’t tied to the last outcome

  • The permission to rest without guilt and to create without self-punishment

  • Relationships strengthened by honesty and genuine presence

  • Health and energy reserved for what truly matters

  • Excellence that is sustainable


Why this Approach Works

Our method is trauma-informed and non-pathologizing. We integrate:

  • Polyvagal-informed self-regulation to stabilize when pressure to perform visits

  • Internal Family Systems to befriend Critical Parts so they can relax

  • Attachment work to untangle conditional worth and build secure relating

Care that works because it is both experiential and practical. We pair insight with weekly actions that compound.


Service Options and Next Step

We offer individual therapy via secure video for California residents and in-person sessions in Redlands.

We can explore weekly therapy or a focused intensive depending on fit.

Book your consultation to discuss goals, format, and next steps.

Prefer email to schedule or ask questions? A short message with a few good times works as well


Further reading

  • Perfectionism vs healthy striving

  • Burnout recovery and recovery pacing

  • Boundaries for leaders and providers

  • Identity beyond achievement: rebuilding a stable self

  • Joy as discipline: replenishment that lasts