Excellence Exhaustion: Da Vinci, Biles, and You
There’s a kind of tired that doesn’t show up in bloodwork. It doesn’t look like burnout from the outside. You’re still high-functioning. Still producing. Still performing.
But inside? You’re stretched thin. Running on caffeine and grit. And wondering, is this what success is supposed to feel like?
I call it Excellence Exhaustion.
What is Excellence Exhaustion?
Excellence Exhaustion (noun) a condition characterized by the relentless drive to surpass previous achievements, exacerbated by the perpetual demands of modern technology and constant connectivity, leading to diminished productivity and well-being, ultimately resulting in anxiety and decreased motivation
Excellence Exhaustion is a specific kind of fatigue that shows up in the lives of high achievers, those of us who take on more, push harder, and hold ourselves to relentlessly high standards.
It’s not caused by laziness or lack of motivation. Quite the opposite. It comes from years, sometimes decades, of being the reliable one. The overachiever. The closer. The leader. The "go-to." The one who’s known for showing up, delivering results, and making it all look easy. You know who you are my fellow GSD’s.
It’s not caused by toxic workplaces or lack of motivation. It’s caused by us. By the pressure we place on ourselves to do more, be more, and never drop the ball.
It’s not classic burnout. It’s not apathy or disengagement. In fact, you might be thriving by external standards, still delivering, still performing. But internally? There’s a slow drain. Your mind is overloaded. Your energy is frayed. Your joy starts to fade.
This isn’t new. This kind of exhaustion has been around for as long as ambition has. And if we look closely, we can spot it in the lives of some of the most extraordinary humans in history.
Let’s Start with Da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance master of many things, was brilliant beyond measure. He painted, invented, engineered, dissected, designed, and dreamed. He filled notebook after notebook with intricate sketches, ideas, questions, and concepts that were centuries ahead of his time.
But here’s the part that doesn’t get talked about: he left behind more unfinished work than finished. And some of the things he did record were just plain weird.
Among his endless pages, da Vinci jotted:
“Describe the tongue of the woodpecker.”
“Go every Saturday to the hot baths where you will see naked men.”
“Ask the frog why it croaks.”
These weren’t to-do list items in a modern sense. They were glimpses into a mind that never stopped wondering, striving, reaching.
He wasn’t scattered. He was overflowing. And he carried the pressure of his own curiosity, intellect, and ambition, always in pursuit, rarely satisfied.
Da Vinci’s unfinished commissions, half-developed inventions, and obsessive note-taking are not signs of failure. They are signs of Excellence Exhaustion long before we had a term for it.
And Then There’s Simone Biles
Now jump forward a few centuries to Tokyo, 2021. Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast (I would argue athlete of any kind) in history, who stepped back from Olympic competition while at the Olympics.
She didn’t walk away because she lacked talent or strength and she was not burned out. She walked away because her mind and body were out of sync, what gymnasts call “the twisties.” I had them once as an elite gymnast in my teens and opened in mid-air doing a double twist off the balance beam. Thank goodness I was being spotted, but I hit my coach in the face with my elbow and that didn’t end well.
Simone knew pushing through would be dangerous, even life-threatening. In baseball or golf, you may get the yips, but no one dies. The twisties are dangerous.
Simone Biles could have performed. That’s what the world expected. That’s what high achievers do, right? But instead, she made the boldest move a high achiever can make: she didn’t.
That wasn’t quitting. That was clarity. She knew the cost of continuing without recalibrating. She made peace with her limits in a way many of us never dare to.
It’s Not Burnout - But It Feels Like It
That’s what makes Excellence Exhaustion so sneaky.
You’re not disengaged - you’re deeply invested.
You’re not underperforming - you’re often over-performing.
You’re not giving up - you’re just wearing down.
It shows up like this:
Your brain feels like it has 137 tabs open.
Your energy is depleted, but you’re still going.
You love what you do, but it no longer feels good.
You’re overwhelmed, not by incompetence - but by your own capability.
And yet, you keep pushing. Because that’s who you are. You did the work. That’s how you got here!
Your Brain Thinks You’re Being Chased by a Lion
This is where the science comes in, and where things get interesting.
In Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, biologist Robert Sapolsky explains that our stress response was designed for short-term survival threats. When a zebra gets chased by a lion, its body floods with stress hormones to survive. But once the chase ends? The stress fades. The zebra goes back to grazing.
Humans? Not so lucky.
We carry the stress and those hormones with us, from inbox to meeting to deadline to next big goal. We stay on, all the time.
We don’t just experience stress in the moment, we relive it, anticipate it, layer it.
We internalize pressure, deadlines, competition, comparison, and the constant need to be “on.”
And if you’re a high achiever, chances are… you’ve adapted to this. You’ve normalized it. You’ve learned to function in stress mode.
But here’s the thing: that’s not sustainable. Even high performers have a limit. Even excellence has an edge.
Here’s the Shift: This Is Self-Imposed
This kind of pressure? Most of it is self-created.
We’re not victims of Excellence Exhaustion. We’re choosing to be among the best.
We’re choosing to care, to reach higher, to push further. And with that comes stress, not because something’s wrong, but because we’re wired to strive.
That’s the mindset shift.
This isn’t about weakness. It’s about ownership.
When you realize that this exhaustion is a side effect of the standards you’ve chosen to live by, you gain power. You can decide how to manage it, how to protect your energy, how to build in recovery, without compromising your drive.
Acceptance First. Then Rest.
So no, I’m not just telling you to just take a break.
I’m telling you you must accept who you are: someone who chooses excellence, over and over again. Someone who wants to be among the best, and will push yourself to get there. Go You!
And because of that, you must build space for rest. For curiosity. For creative drift.
Not as a sign of failure, but as a strategy for sustainability.
Simone Biles knew it.
Da Vinci showed it.
And maybe now… you’re starting to feel it too.
So take the breath. Close the laptop. Let a few things stay undone.
Not forever. Just for now.
Because your excellence does not ‘disappear’ when you pause.
It becomes more focused. More intentional. More human.
And that’s the kind of excellence that lasts.
LINIKEDIN POST :
There’s a kind of tired that doesn’t show up in bloodwork.
You’re still producing. Still performing. Still getting it done.
But inside? You’re stretched thin. Running on caffeine and grit.
And wondering… is this what success is supposed to feel like?
I call it Excellence Exhaustion.
It’s not burnout. It’s not apathy. It’s the quiet fatigue that hits high achievers, the GSD crowd, who are still crushing it… but losing a little bit of themselves in the process.
And if you think it’s just you? It’s not.
If we look closely, we can spot Excellence Exhaustion throughout history:
in the unfinished works and endless notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci,
and in the powerful pause Simone Biles took on the world’s biggest stage.
They didn’t “give up.” They adjusted. They knew something we forget:
Even brilliance has limits. Even excellence needs rest.
And maybe now… you’re starting to feel it too.
This post isn’t a call to slow down your ambition,
It’s a reminder to build a rhythm that sustains it.
Read the full article here:
#ExcellenceExhaustion #HighAchievers #MentalWellbeing #Leadership #Performance #Resilience #NinaSossamonPogue #Burnout #GSD