Episode 342: The Energy Drains for Women Entrepreneurs No One Warns You About

Why This Kind of Tired Sneaks Up on You

Energy drains for women entrepreneurs rarely look like burnout at first. They look like a Tuesday where you did everything right and still feel emptied out by 3 p.m. You’ve got the business you built, the goals you hit, the life that looks good on paper — and there’s still an ache underneath it that something isn’t quite lining up. This episode is a personal audit, not a strategy session. I walk through the exact questions I ask my own clients when they tell me they should be further along by now, or that something feels harder for them than it looks for everyone else online. Grab a journal, because I want you to actually answer these as you listen. One thing I want to name up front: this isn’t about doing less. It’s about figuring out which of the things filling your day were never yours to do in the first place — and giving yourself full permission to stop pretending they are.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• The exact question to ask when a task drains you — even when you’re good at it
• Why what you avoid because it “feels unnatural” might be your biggest clue
• Where in your life you’re performing instead of just being yourself
• Why someone else’s strength was never meant to be the measuring stick for yours
• How to spot the parts of your business where you already feel clear and grounded
• The story of a doctor who walked away days before the finish line, and why it matters for your business

Listen to the full episode

Watch the Full Episode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYcm-r_Oyh0

The Work That Isn’t Yours to Do

The first question I want you to ask yourself: what part of your work consistently drains you, even when you do it well?

Read that twice, because the second half is the part that matters.

This isn’t about the tasks you’re bad at. It’s about the ones that leave you depleted no matter how good the outcome looks. For me, that used to be writing my own client notes. I loved being in session with my clients, and I loved the work itself, but writing up the notes afterward felt like nails on a chalkboard — even though my clients loved having them. Handing that off scared me at first, because I’ve built a reputation as a high-touch coach who knows her clients inside and out. Eventually I let AI take the notes in every session. I’m more present with my clients now, and they still get everything they need. Nobody lost anything. I just gained back hours of my week.

“You’ve got to be so grounded in what you’re here to do and who you are that as you start to rock the boat, that doesn’t rock you.” — Sarah Walton

That’s the shift I want for you. When you stop forcing yourself through tasks that were never yours to carry, you get that time and attention back for the parts of your business only you can do.

What You Avoid Because It Feels Unnatural

All right, the next question you want to ask is: what do you avoid?

Now, it’s not that you avoid it because you’re lazy… This is more about what do you avoid because it kind of feels unnatural.

I will never dance on Instagram to a trending sound unless I’m actually at a wedding or goofing around with my daughters in the living room. That kind of content will never come from me, and I’ve made peace with it. 

One of my clients found her version of this at a pool this past weekend. She wasn’t performing for anyone — just being herself, chatting with a doctor’s wife by the water. By the end of the conversation, she had a new client and a referral source on the way. Nothing about it came from a content strategy. It came from what’s actually natural to her, and the opportunity showed up anyway.

Where You Feel Like You’re On Stage

This next question is really great: where in your life do you feel like you’re performing instead of being yourself?

For me, it’s small talk at networking events. I’d rather be delivering a keynote to five hundred people than making chitchat one-on-one in a room.

The irony isn’t lost on me — the moment I’m actually on a literal stage is the moment I feel the least like I’m performing.

This can show up in friendships, too. If you come home from dinner with a certain group of people feeling completely wiped out, some part of you was likely on stage all night instead of sitting in the room as yourself. That’s worth paying attention to, because it’s costing you more than an evening.

“You don’t have to force yourself into doing things that don’t feel natural in order for you to be successful.” — Sarah Walton

Stop Measuring Yourself Against Someone Else’s Strengths

This next question is really interesting: what feels easy for someone else that you’ve made mean something about you? 

Clients tell me all the time that being on camera looks effortless for me, so they assume that means they can’t build an online business.

What? Why would the strengths of one person mean anything about your business? If everyone were a heart surgeon, there’d be nobody left to put out the fire next door.

We need a spread of strengths, not a single template everyone gets measured against. Whatever platform or format looks easy for somebody else has nothing to do with what’s possible for you.

You get to build this around your own strengths, not theirs.

Catch This Before It Costs You

Now, to flip this around, here’s one more question: where do you feel clear, grounded, and effective without overthinking it?

I don’t have a natural gift for detail work — I’m the person who creates and runs to the next thing, while my team catches every detail I’d otherwise drop. That’s not a flaw in how I run my business. It’s information about who needs to be on my team.

Once you know where you operate with that kind of ease, you also know who you need around you to cover the rest. No one else can hand you that clarity.

“You grant that to yourself. No one else can give that to you but you.” — Sarah Walton

Give Yourself Permission to Do This Your Way

I think about Casey Means often. She was weeks from becoming a doctor. This was her trajectory. This is what she was here to do. And she could not do it the way that it was designed. She couldn’t perform surgeries that weren’t needed so insurance could get billed. She couldn’t keep working on people knowing that their symptoms were going to come back because they weren’t targeting what was actually wrong. So she stopped.

She started working on what she actually wanted to work on instead — still in medicine and health, so the trajectory was right all along. It was the method that wasn’t hers. Now she’s helping people at the level she always meant to.

We weren’t put here to be bored, and we definitely weren’t put here to be exhausted. An orange tree doesn’t panic about growing an orange. It just doesn’t.

“It is your time to stop being exhausted because you’re doing everybody else’s life. You get to do your life now, the one and only life that you are here to do.” — Sarah Walton

If you take one thing from this audit, let it be this: The exhaustion you feel from doing work that was never yours to carry is costing you more than a rough afternoon. 

It’s costing you the ground you could be covering doing the thing you’re actually here to do.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Good Energy by Casey Means — https://amzn.to/4u1AHz2

Related Episodes on Burnout, Boundaries, and Doing Business Your Way

Episode 333: Soul Debt: What Overgiving in Business Is Costing You — and What Comes Next — This is the episode where I introduced this new era of the podcast, and it goes even deeper into what constant overperforming costs you before you ever see it on a bank statement. Listen here

Episode 325: Brand Voice for Women Entrepreneurs: Stop Performing and Start Attracting Your People with Patricia Viscount — Patricia and I talk about what happens when you stop editing yourself out of your own content and let your actual voice do the work. If the “on stage” section of this episode connected with you, start there. Listen here

Episode 317: Breaking Free from Burnout Without Losing Your Edge with Wendy Meadows — Wendy and I get into what burnout actually costs high-achieving women, and how to build sustainable success without giving up your edge to get there. Listen here

My Free Gift to You — Let’s Talk About Your Business

If this audit surfaced a task or two you’ve been forcing yourself through, let’s talk about what your business could look like without it. As my free gift to Girlfriends, I offer a complimentary 30-minute discovery call. We’ll talk about where you are right now and whether working together makes sense.

Connect with Me

• Instagram: @thesarahwalton
• LinkedIn: Sarah Walton
• Free resources for you
• Join the Game On Girlfriend® community — subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube

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Love This Episode?

If you know a woman who’s exhausted from doing everybody else’s version of success, send this her way. This one’s for her.

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About Sarah Walton

Sarah Walton is a wealth consciousness coach, strategic advisor, and the host of the Game On Girlfriend® podcast. Her mission is simple: to put more money in the hands of more women. She helps women entrepreneurs build profitable, sustainable businesses without burnout — working through both the mindset and the strategy sides of growth. Because when women have more financial power, they don’t just keep it — they use it to take care of their families, support their communities, and build something bigger than themselves. Through her programs — including the Abundance Academy and The Art of Receiving — along with her online courses and one-on-one coaching, Sarah works with women who are ready to build profitable businesses and use that financial power to make a real difference in the world around them.