CONNECT with Sheila Botelho Podcast

The Subtle Pattern That Keeps High Performers Stuck | EP 495

• Sheila Botelho

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🔗 Mentioned on this Episode: Show Notes 👈


You’re not unmotivated—and you’re definitely not broken. If you’ve been shrinking your dream just enough to keep it comfortable, this episode will help you understand why—and what to do about it.


I walk you through how high-achieving women often find themselves stuck in a loop where it looks like momentum, but feels like anxiety. We explore how over-functioning and fear-based decisions become invisible habits, and how to shift into true embodied success through a love-based leadership lens.


If you're ready for real change—the kind that doesn’t require another course, another sprint, or another breakdown—this episode will help you see your next step more clearly. It starts with one powerful shift: choosing love over fear.

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Sheila:

you're not unmotivated and you're not broken. If you keep talking yourself out of the very thing you say you want, it's most likely not mindset. It may be something else entirely. In this episode, I'll show you how I help high-performing clients finally move beyond the hidden patterns of holding themselves back. Without needing to go back and fix every word first. You'll walk away with a practical framework to shift from doing all the things into a clear, aligned action step that expands your impact without burning you out again. If you ever wondered why you keep shrinking your dreams just enough to feel safe, stay with me. Enough to feel safe, stay with me.

Sheila:

Hi, welcome to the Connect with Sheila Botelho podcast. I'm committed to helping you reconnect to your purpose, elevate your wellbeing and build your version of a happy, successful life. You're listening to a solo chat and we're going to be exploring some real behind the scenes situations that go into growing a business without sacrificing yourself in the process. So today, when we talk about choosing love over fear, like when you think about that, what comes up for you? It can maybe sound poetic, maybe even a bit out of reach, but what does that really mean when you're building a business, when you're managing a household, nurturing relationships and when you're chasing your goals. This mini-sode that I did this week really touched on the hidden habits and traits of people who are sabotaging growth in their lives, and so today we're going to go a little deeper, and I wanted to talk about what choosing love over fear actually looks like in practice in your decisions, in your leadership and, most importantly, in how you relate to yourself.

Sheila:

So some of my clients come to me in what looks like high functioning momentum, but underneath they're often in a state of what has been termed functional freeze, and so I identify this often because I've seen it in myself. I've seen it in many other clients too. Like you kind of can see the signs, and on our first call they typically will present a detailed list all the programs they've tried, all the ways things didn't work, the challenges in their business, in their marriage, in their health, in their parenting, everything right. And then they often will say something like I'm just not sure if this will work for me. It's like they've built an escape hatch before the process has even begun, just like those little exit signs, you see, you know when you're about to get onto a Disney ride. It's like if I want to just kind of leave and not go on the ride. We can, and hey, those are great. It's like they need a way out in case this dream gets too big, if it goes too fast or if they're feeling too uncomfortable, and truly well, we know what this is. When we really look at it, it's fear. And again, like I said, I get it because I was there too.

Sheila:

So I, early on in my life, internalized that achievement equaled safety. If I performed well, I got love. I'm fortunate I got love most of the time anyway. But something about performance really took it up a notch and that had me wanting to perform more. I got more love, and that had me wanting to perform more. I got more love. Right, maybe you've had a similar experience.

Sheila:

I found that the people around me whether it's in my home or at school or wherever I was if I helped others, I belonged. So I became excellent at over-functioning, at over-giving and at being the strong one, but underneath it I was getting tired, even at a young age, because I was afraid that if I stopped, if I slowed down, even everything that I worked for would collapse. And I didn't even know I was operating from fear. It was just the water I swam in. So it took years to realize that love wasn't something to earn through performance. It was something to choose, starting with how I treated myself, loving myself right. And when I started doing that, everything changed the way that I showed up in my relationships, the way I would sell, the way I coached people, the way I rested, how I received things from a compliment to someone giving me a gift.

Sheila:

So I love this wonderful therapist by the name of Gabor Mate and he talks about how trauma isn't just what happens to us, it's what happens inside of us in response to disconnection. We call this functional freeze and it's a trauma response. From what he says, it looks like chronic overthinking, analysis, paralysis. So you just like constantly have to look at every detail from every angle and find it really hard to move forward, Over-preparing, but never really launching something new or stepping into the new room or onto the new stage, and then always asking for just one more course or one more sign. This has been termed high-functioning codependency by someone by the name of Terry Cole, and where your worth is tied to how much you do, how much you solve, how much you control.

Sheila:

This is high-functioning codependency and so, truly when we think about it, if we can let that one land. I mean. I know I just put a whole lot of terms out there for you to think about and maybe you're remembering times in your own life where these things have come up for you. But let's think about what does this look like in practice? Yeah, when you choose love over fear. So choosing love is not always soft. Sometimes we think it is. But let's think about parenting for a moment. Sometimes the loving thing is saying no. Sometimes the loving thing is taking things away from our children that are just not healthy for them. That's love, right, and there's other elements there as well.

Sheila:

Sometimes for you, it might be saying no to an opportunity that just doesn't align, even if it's profitable. It could look like delegating the tasks that you can do faster yourself, but when you let someone else do them, they actually give you bandwidth to do bigger things, to do things that are helping you move forward, to step into those new rooms and to cultivate how it feels being in new spaces. It could be taking a full weekend off without guilt. Imagine that when you are a leader, even if you're working in a corporate space, or if you are an entrepreneur running your business. Even if you're working in a corporate space, or if you are an entrepreneur running your business, those things, those projects you're working on, it's very difficult to keep them in a different compartment all the time.

Sheila:

When you're away, when you're on a break or on a weekend, things come up. You're a creative person. You can't just shut off that part of your brain. Necessarily, some of us get better than others over time. But to do it without guilt, that's the kicker Thinking, oh, if I don't do this now, what's next week going to look like? Right? And when we think about I mentioned sales earlier sales can be a real trigger point for a lot of people. So think about the things that you have, whether it's your products or your services that you're offering. Are they really reflecting your value? What is the loving thing to do there?

Sheila:

Well, truly, love is clarity, love is honesty, love is sustainable, something that you can keep doing over and over, instead of saying, well, I need to over-function, I need to make sure everybody's going to be okay. And so in order for me to do that in certain circumstances, I just need to suck it up and deal with it. And even though I'm exhausted, even though maybe deal with it and even though I'm exhausted, even though maybe I'm giving more than I should be. How is that love? It's not love to you and, frankly, it's not love to the other people because then you're not being honest in a sense, because you're showing people this is what's actually sustainable and then they start believing a lie that they could show up in the same way overgiving, overgiving and feeling amazing when truly you know behind the scenes you're not feeling amazing. So saying no, setting boundaries, it's the most loving thing to do, because then you're also able to show up in much better energy to truly serve the people that you're called to serve.

Sheila:

So I have some questions for you to reflect on, as I'm known to do, because you can listen and listen and listen to what I have to say. It's really when you start applying them to your own life that you find out really how powerful and impactful the changes are that you can make. So what I want you to do is, when you're going through these questions you may be driving right now, you may be in the middle of something else, like while you're listening to this in the background come back to this and when you do, take a deep breath, get still, and I invite you to journal on some of these questions. The first one is where in your life or business are you operating from fear right now? You may need to go a few layers deeper each time. Ask this question more than once. It may not be one you really want to focus on, but you probably know the answer. It probably hits you in the gut right now as soon as I mention that. Is it fear of being judged? Is it the fear of failing? Is it the fear of letting someone down?

Sheila:

My next question for you is what is fear costing you? That's a big one. There's a lot of costs to fear. Is it time? Is it energy, joy, opportunities, right? When you're able to step out into something with power, you at least know what the outcome is, and then you get stronger, and then you can do other things, and then you're that much closer to the type of life that you want to live that otherwise maybe you won't ever find out what it feels like, because you didn't step over that threshold of fear and you can do it in small steps. You don't need to leap in. Sometimes leaping is great, but you need to choose what's right for you.

Sheila:

The next question is what would love choose here instead? What would love choose here instead? Love for yourself, love for your future, love for the version of you that is ready to expand? Think about that. You're still watching this right now, or listening, because I think you probably do want to expand. You want to see what's next. You're not totally satisfied just being where you're at right now. You're maybe very grateful for where you are, and I hope you are. I think there's always something to be grateful for in the present moment, as much as we want to move on from it sometimes. There's always something to learn and something to really bring with us into the new versions of ourself. But if you really want to expand and you're not allowing yourself to step over the fear to do so, you'll never know. So ask that question.

Sheila:

Another question what boundaries would you love to reinforce? This is a great one. You might find this one a little easier to do because it's like okay, these are the ones that you can really ask during a time where you're really busy and really tired, because that's when the honesty comes up right, the filter is gone. So what boundaries would you like to reinforce around your schedule, perhaps around your energy, around this one's great, the stories that you no longer want to tell yourself, right? The ones that you say, when things get tough, start challenging yourself. Around those, put a boundary up. And, lastly, what is one micro action that you can take today to honor that love-based choice? Okay, this. This is often like sitting down with yourself and truly looking in the mirror and saying, okay, this is the thing I need to do. Maybe it's sending the email, maybe it is raising a price, Taking a nap. Let's be honest with ourselves. If you're tired, maybe you need a nap. Right, make the hire, hire the person, get the help, do the thing you've been putting off.

Sheila:

You don't need to go back to fix everything, though. By the way, I know I was referring to some wonderful therapists, and their work is really beautiful, and one of the things that I've learned from them is well, it's nice to have some information about our past, because, you know, we love context. We love to know I'm in my story, where am I in my story and what has happened. You know around me in my life, what has happened in the lives of other people that has impacted me, right? It's kind of nice to have. That it's our context.

Sheila:

However, the beautiful news is you don't have to go back and relive every painful moment to heal. You simply need to choose differently now. While it helps to understand where our patterns began, truly the power lives right now, in the next moment where you say I deserve ease. I choose what honors my well-being. I lead from clarity, not fear, and this is where true embodied success begins. So I hope you go through those questions, you find a quiet space. I love listening to Miracle Tones there's so many different playlists you can find on Spotify or Apple Music or wherever and listen to these beautiful tones that are very healing and they just support you as you're going through things like these deep questions. Or perhaps you just want to have no sound around you other than like the birds chirping in the background, right, some nature sounds or the ocean, depending on where you live.

Sheila:

I invite you to practice embodied success as often as you can and, if you haven't seen it already, we have the embodied success method and meditation as well, where I walk you through some specific things in this meditation that really help you solidify what is true for you now, what you want to be true for you, and moving you through putting it together. What are the steps? So, if this episode moved something in you, I invite you to practice the embodied success meditation this week. It's linked below, it's in the show notes and it's free. You can use it to slow down, to tune in and start leading yourself with and from love. Your next level of growth does not require more hustle. It requires more honesty with yourself. So I really thank you for being here, thank you for taking this time for you, and I hope you have a really beautiful rest of your day. I'll see you on another episode. Big blessings.