Why High Performers Are Quietly Losing Their Minds

And the 5-minute practice that stops the spiral before it's too late.

Photo by morefun_boy on Unsplash

Five minutes of true quiet time stops you from destroying yourself for other people’s needs.

Not “quiet” where you’re still doom-scrolling, half-watching YouTube, or mentally rehearsing tomorrow’s client meeting.

The kind of quiet where it’s just you, your thoughts, with no incoming demands or external distractions.

But in over-functioning hustle mode, those five minutes feel like wasted time.

I wish I’d prioritised just five minutes whilst I was at my busiest at work.

I believed I had to earn my rest and if I wasn’t collapsing into bed at the end of the day, I hadn’t worked hard enough.

My brain was stuffed with other people’s priorities that even when I stopped, it didn’t.

Racing, stressing, connecting disconnected ideas and concepts that led me down mental rabbit holes for 15 minutes without realising it.

Now, with more space in my days having recently left my day job, I’ve realised just how jammed my mind and calendar have been.

Overflowing with noise and distraction I needn’t pay attention to.

It was so extreme that I couldn’t hear what I really needed to.

My inner voice.

You’re delegating your life to everyone else and it’s crushing you

Most of us have an inner voice.

The one we chit-chat with about life, the universe, the cringy moments, and our desires and dreams.

When we’re focused and present, it aligns us with our values and actions.

But recently, I’d squashed mine at the priority of everyone else.

I’d crushed the need to prioritise what really mattered in this stage of my life.

Instead, I ignored it and moved further away from who I am and want to be.

Now, with additional time, I’ve been meeting up with old mates and colleagues over coffee or lunch and actually noticing what I’m thinking and feeling.

Not the filtered, “acceptable” version that kept discomfort at bay, but the unedited commentary highlighting uneasy but important truths:

• You’re not getting any younger, so why are you holding back in your business and career?

• You’ve got all these books in your Kindle and Audible list, why aren’t you making time to read them?

• You want to hang out with your mates more – why are you delegating your free time to work-recovery instead of meeting up?

An important message boomed: you don’t get clarity by working longer or harder.

You need to step away and make space to hear your real inner voice in the chaos.

What cognitive space uncovers and helps avoid auto-pilot

In the past few weeks, I’ve realised how much of my internal dialogue was hijacked by deadlines, deliverables, and other people’s urgency.

I love problem-solving but had narrowed my focus on other people’s problems only.

The costs?

I delayed making hospital appointments.

I deferred finding a carpenter for my broken internal door locks.

I disregarded prepping a refund because it was too much effort.

I’d completely ignored my needs and to-do list over the past few months because I’d prioritised work.

I believed single threading on work would make things easier in the “long run.”

It was a fallacy.

A jedi mind trick I played on myself to find peace when I’d already shifted my behaviour to meet other people’s desires.

But without the daily urgency and a constant stream of demands, calls, and chasers, I’m hearing ideas and questions I’d overlooked for years.

Some are exciting and fun. Others are uncomfortable.

But they are mine.

I wondered why I’d minimised having a conscious presence in my own life.

In fact, these weekly posts were the limited time I spent on how I felt but even this was driven by how I could help people.

Now, I needed to know how to protect this important and necessary cognitive space in the future when things inevitably get busy.

Now, you don’t need to leave your job to find this space.

But you do need to carve out deliberate moments where other people’s voices aren’t competing with or clamouring against yours.

If you can’t hear your own voice, you’re at risk of auto-piloting your life.

You’re not choosing with intention - you’re defaulting instead.

And one day, you’ll wake up and wonder whose life you’re living, because it’ll feel alien to you.

Why tuning into your inner voice matters for resilience

Even when we’re over-functioning high performers, we have a biological limit to our capacity.

Cognitive Load Theory tells us that working memory has a strict limit.

When it’s overloaded with urgent inputs, like messages, meetings, last-minute requests, conflict-management, and the daily hustle required to stay alive, there’s scant time and energy left for reflective or values-based thinking.

Our brain takes short-cuts, especially when we’re tired.

It uses heuristics based on minimal context to make the quickest choice, not the most aligned one.

Do these resonate?

• That sharp response to one of your kids when he asks a question about his homework, instead of being the kind and patient parent you wish you had growing up.

• The supportive and non-judgmental friend to a pal who’s struggling with a breakup instead of the brusque “there are plenty of fish out there, don’t worry.”

• Telling your under-confident team member what to do instead of coaching them to find their own solution because you need to finish your board report.

We meet the requirement in the moment but erode what makes us unique and who we want to be.

Metacognitive Awareness is the ability to notice how you’re thinking, not just what you’re thinking.

Without it, you can’t tell whether a decision is really yours or just the easiest option in the moment.

Building this skill helps you understand the quality and patterns of your thoughts, and how you use focus, attention and behaviours achieve your aims.

So, if you’re feeling disappointed in yourself, guilty, or disconnected from life, reflect on whether you’re in auto-pilot mode and ignoring your inner voice.

That’s why quiet time isn’t indulgent, but a strategic skill for better decision-making, values-based action, and sustained resilience.

You’ll give yourself fewer opportunities to beat yourself up for doing or not doing what doesn’t resonate with who you are.

Do This: The ARC Five-Minute Inner Voice Loop

This is a slight twist on the concept of Scheduled Worry Time that psychologist and writer Nick Wignall advocates for anxiety management.

You’re carving out space to allow your inner voice to be expressed without censorship or self-judgment.

“Better out than in” as Shrek says.

Plus, it’ll help you identify which core needs or values you need to pay more attention to and shift accordingly.

Awareness

Diarise it.

1. Put five to ten minutes into your calendar so you actually do this.

2. We’re context-specific creatures, so find a physical location or ritual to build the habit quicker.

3. Spend five minutes writing or voice-noting without editing.

4. Capture the inner voice noise exactly as it is, even with the half sentences, random thoughts, or unfinished ideas.

The goal here isn’t coherence but an unfiltered download.

Reconnection

Connect and reflect.

1. Read back or listen through what you’ve recorded and underline or highlight anything that sparks emotion. Maybe it’s curiosity, annoyance, longing, or excitement.

2. Categorise and compare those underlined or highlighted phrases to your core values (pick three to five).

3. Note where there’s alignment and where there are gaps.

Containment

Prioritise and act.

1. Choose one thought, theme or value from your writing or speaking and note it somewhere safe, like a notebook, an app, a task list.

2. This signals to your brain that it’s been captured, so it doesn’t keep draining your attention and becomes more of a real concept.

3. It’s not about solving everything you write down or voice.

4. It’s about creating space to hear yourself think and noticing the parts that need time and attention.

5. Find ways to act on this note during the week.

This week’s permission slip

You don’t have to make sense to anyone else right now.

This process is about signal hunting, not consensus building.

Your brain is a pattern-matching machine.

Give it space to run what it does best and prioritise more of what matters over time.

Key takeaways

It’s frustrating but clarity doesn’t arrive in the middle of a meeting or at the end of a twelve-hour workday.

Reflection doesn’t happen when you’re in back-to-back calls or checking your online grocery delivery order.

It happens when you lighten your mental load enough to let your inner voice through. And this must be intentional.

Find ways to integrate a quiet “Inner Voice Loop” into your weekly schedule so you reflect on thoughts, emotions and actions that help you build and grow.

Catch yourself sooner to adjust how you’re spending your time rather than let guilt and shame take over and drive you in the wrong direction.

Stop defaulting to other people’s priorities.

Make decisions that feel like they’re actually yours.

Its not wasted time but stops you wasting time on what doesn’t matter.

---

P.S. How do you listen to your inner voice and prioritise wisely before things spin out too far?