Your Body Knows Before You Do

I have had moments where my brain has been completely convinced I can keep going and my body has had a very different opinion.

One of the clearest examples was the first time I lead climbed outdoors. I was about three metres from the top of a roughly 40-metre climb and I could see exactly what I needed to do. In my head, the instructions were simple: hand here, move up, hand there, keep going. I was literally talking myself through it. You've got this.

Except I did not have it.

I reached for the next hold and my body simply did not have enough left. My hand went up, the strength did not, and I fell. I was safe, and I climbed back up and finished the route, but what stayed with me was the feeling. My brain had decided I was capable of doing something and, for the first time I could clearly remember, my body had simply disagreed.

That experience was not burnout, but I recognised the feeling. Because burnout can feel like that too. You still want to do the things. You still have ideas. You still care. Your brain is still saying keep going, while your body has started saying no.

High Output Is Not the Same as High Performance

This came up early in my conversation with Ryan Griffin.

Ryan said that earlier in his life, he thought high performance meant high output. Work hard. Produce more. Keep pushing. Get results.

For a while, it worked. But eventually he realised that his output was often a short-term gain bought at the expense of his long-term health. He could perform at a really high level for two or three years and then crash spectacularly.

Now, his definition of high performance is very different.

Can I sustain this? Can I keep doing good work without eventually destroying my ability to do it?

That distinction matters.

Because I think we still praise output far more easily than sustainability. We notice the person answering emails at 10pm, the business growing quickly, the extra project, the person who always says yes.

We do not always notice what that output is costing them.

And often, neither do they.

The Body Keeps Sending Messages

Ryan has learned that his body gives him warning signs. For him, they are incredibly physical.

Psoriasis. A recurring sty in his eye that he has actually named Harry. Feeling like he is constantly fighting off a flu. Poor sleep. Feeling flat. Becoming more irritable.

Those signs now tell him that he is pushing too hard and needs to change something before he reaches the point where everything falls apart.

I found that fascinating because our bodies probably send us far more information than we acknowledge.

Sometimes it is obvious. You cannot sleep. You are constantly sick. Your head hurts. Your stomach is off. You are exhausted.

Sometimes it is less dramatic. You become snappy. Everything feels harder. You stop laughing as much. You start cancelling the things you normally enjoy. You wake up already tired.

None of those things necessarily means one specific thing on its own, but they are information.

And I think a lot of us have become very good at overriding information.

It Is Harder to Stop When You Love What You Do

This was one of the most interesting parts of Ryan's story for me.

He did not describe burnout as doing work he hated. Quite the opposite.

Ryan likes working. He enjoys opening the laptop. He likes moving his business forward, building things and solving problems. Sometimes he actively wants to keep working after the kids are asleep because he is excited by what he is doing.

And that can make the line much harder to see.

Because we tend to imagine burnout as misery. The awful job. The terrible boss. The Sunday dread.

But sometimes burnout comes from doing too much of something you genuinely love.

Ryan described being disappointed that he could not do more.

That is such an important distinction.

The desire can still be there when the capacity is gone.

I understand that one.

There are plenty of nights when I think I will just finish one more thing. One email. One document. One small job.

Except it is almost never one thing.

One email opens another tab. One task reminds you of three others. Suddenly the time that was supposed to be recovery has been filled again.

Your brain says it is fine because you chose to do it.

Your body does not necessarily care whether the workload was voluntary.

Future You Is Still You

Ryan also said something that made me laugh because it is painfully relatable.

When he was younger and playing elite sport, he kept pushing his body past its limits. Injuries happened. He kept going.

At the time, his thinking was essentially:

That is Future Ryan's problem.

And now he is Future Ryan.

And it hurts.

I think we do versions of that constantly.

Future me will sleep. Future me will take the holiday. Future me will exercise. Future me will spend more time with friends. Future me will slow down once this project finishes. Future me will deal with whatever this pace is doing to me.

The problem is that Future You eventually arrives, and they inherit everything Current You kept borrowing from them.

Time. Energy. Health. Attention. Relationships.

You can absolutely push hard sometimes. There are seasons where that makes sense.

But the bill still exists.

Your Environment Matters Too

The conversation was not only about individual capacity.

Ryan also talked about what he tries to create inside Chunky Duck.

Trust. Autonomy. Clear expectations. Space for people to make mistakes.

They even have a Slack channel called "Duck Ups", where people openly share what went wrong, what they learned and what they will do differently next time.

I love that because sustainable performance is not purely a personal responsibility.

It is also shaped by the environments we create.

If people are scared to make mistakes, they hide them.

If they are constantly monitored, they stop thinking for themselves.

If the expectation is that everyone is always available, then recovery becomes something people have to fight for.

Ryan has even chosen not to take certain international clients because the 5am and 8pm calls were affecting his sleep, his family and the quality of work he could deliver.

That is not lowering ambition.

It is defining the conditions under which ambition can actually survive.

My Reflection

I think a lot of us are waiting for our bodies to shout.

The big crash. The illness. The moment when we physically cannot keep going.

But the body usually whispers first.

The question is whether we listen.

And I do not think listening always means stopping everything.

Sometimes it means going to bed instead of opening the laptop again. Sometimes it means saying no to the extra meeting. Sometimes it means exercising. Sometimes it means eating properly. Sometimes it means calling a friend.

Sometimes it means admitting that even though you could technically fit something else into your day, you do not actually have the capacity for it.

High performance cannot only be measured by what you produce.

It has to include what it costs you to produce it.

Otherwise it is not really high performance.

It is high output with a delayed invoice.