Feeding the Fire

High performers love the fire.

The intensity, the output, the feeling of being completely locked in. There is nothing quite like operating at the absolute limit of what you are capable of. Decisions coming fast, results following, the sense that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. It feels unstoppable. For a while, it is.

And then the project ends. And instead of pausing, you put your hand up for the next one. Because that's what you do. Because that's who you are now. Because somewhere along the way the performance became the expectation - yours more than anyone else's.

The problem isn't the fire. The problem is what we feed it.

It starts small. The morning walk with the dogs becomes a quick trip to the backyard and back. Dinners at home become meals in front of a screen. Eight hours of sleep becomes six, then five. The patience you used to bring to hard conversations gets thinner. The small things go first and you barely notice - a proper laugh, a conversation that has nothing to do with work, the ten seconds you used to spend just watching the dogs run.

We tell ourselves these are temporary sacrifices. Just until the project lands. Just until the quarter closes. Just until things settle down.

But things don't settle down. They never do. And every small thing we give up is a little less oxygen in the room.

Fire needs oxygen. Without it, it doesn't burn brighter. It suffocates.

Burnout isn't a dramatic collapse. For most high performers it's quieter than that. It's the slow narrowing of everything that made you good at what you do - the curiosity, the generosity, the energy that other people felt when they were around you. Until one day the fire that felt unstoppable is barely a flicker, and you're running on survival mode wondering how you got there.

I'm still working out how to hold the fire without letting it consume the oxygen. I don't think I'm the only one.

What's the first thing you give up when the pressure goes up?