I stopped writing my newsletter for most of 2026. On purpose.
I had gotten really good at being consistent. Then my business started changing, and I decided I wanted to put my energy somewhere else for a while. A little break turned into a pretty long one.
It was an intentional choice. And if you’re a high achiever, you can probably guess what happened next. Almost every single week, a voice in my head showed up to give me shit about it.
Meet Judge Judy, My Inner Critic
I’ve named her Judge Judy. It makes me laugh, and it makes me listen to her just a little bit less.
Almost every week, when Friday rolled around and I didn’t have anything to send, Judy was loud. And judgmental.
Eventually, a wiser voice would step in. She’d remind me that I made a very intentional choice. That there aren’t actually any rules about how I run my business, except my own rule: I run it in a way that’s aligned with what I want for my career and my life.
The wiser voice shows up faster now
That second voice arrives faster than it ever used to. I’ll always wish Judy didn’t exist, but I’ve been doing this long enough to know that’s wishful thinking.
So I’ll take faster.
Why High Achievers Feel Guilty When They Step Back
Last week, Judge Judes showed up in yoga. Historically, yoga is where I’ve figured out what I want to write about, because it’s the one place my brain finally gets some breathing room. So of course she was right there with me in pigeon, yelling at me for not having written in months.
And then, like a little fairy angel, during savasana, my yoga teacher read Day 351 from Brianna Wiest’s book, The Pivot Year.
You can also rest into who you're meant to be. You can also breathe into your highest potential future self. You can also lay in the sunlight and it will transform you in its own way. You can make the most important task of the day your cup of tea and it will enlighten you in an important sense. You must release the idea that the only meaningful work is done through effort and forward motion. Sometimes, it's finally staying still that brings your entire universe back into the light.
Effort and forward motion built my career. That’s true of most of the high achievers I know. Stepping back feels like slacking. But sometimes, it’s the thing that lets you show up fully.
There’s so much talk about intentional rest right now. Actually doing it is a whole other thing. For high achievers, rest feels like a debt you’ll be paying back later. With interest.
What Happened When One Leader Stayed Home
I watched a leader I coach run into this exact wall recently.
She had a big piece of work due one morning, and her boss suggested she stay home to get it done. The focused time let her get it right the first time. She walked into the office that afternoon calm and available.
Left to herself, she almost never takes that kind of space. She feels guilty about not being available to her team.
But when she took space to give her undivided attention to her work, she got it done faster and more effectively. And then, when she got to the office, she was more present. And her team brought their questions all at once instead of grabbing her on the fly, which meant that her time with each of them was focused rather than constantly interrupted. The whole afternoon worked better.
Thirty minutes of you beats three hours of half of you
It reminded me of advice I got when my kids were little: they’d rather have thirty minutes of your full, undivided attention than three hours of you pulled in every direction.
Stepping back let her show up for her team the way she wants to.
If Everything Is Important, Nothing Is
It’s taken me years to see how much I was multitasking in my business. I treated everything as important, even as I would tell my clients that if everything is important, nothing is.
This year, the thing that mattered most (after my clients) needed more of my undivided attention. That meant there were things that needed to come off my plate. My weekly email was one of the things I chose.
My focused attention gave me the results I was hoping for - and now, I’m writing again here and there. It looks different now, because my business is different now.
We evolve. Our businesses evolve. Our careers evolve. Taking time to determine what needs our attention (and what does not) and where we need to rest in order to work smarter is all part of the process.
If your own Judge Judy has been running the show, my free Inner Critic guide will help you recognize her voice faster and decide how much airtime she actually gets.