Self-Leadership Is the Real Stress Management Strategy: 10 Tips to Lead Stronger

Happy Monday morning.

Before you open your inbox, answer one question honestly. Did you recharge over the weekend, or was it filled with distractions, Sunday thinking about work and all that you had to do Monday morning?

A year ago, I hit a realization in my own business. I was doing everything myself. Every proposal, every piece of content, every client conversation, every decision, no matter how small. I told myself it was because I cared. The truth was simpler. I did not trust that anything would get done right unless I did it myself. Because I knew what I wanted to build.

That belief could have stopped my growth before it started.

Hiring help forced me to sit with something uncomfortable. I had to let a vendor make a call I did not personally approve. I had to let a coach tell me my plan and vision had a flaw. I was doing too much and not enough of the things I needed to do personally to grow the business as a founder.  I had to let someone else run a piece of the business and trust the outcome, even when it possibly wasn’t done the same way I’d handle it. 

Delegation is not a concept you agree with in theory. It is loosening your grip, letting others do what needs to be done, and empowering them to be creative and learn.

I think about that shift every time I see a leader or high achiever who has not made it yet.

I watched this play out with a leader I knew. Every call had to come through them. Not one could go to voicemail. They sat in meetings checking email, hands on every decision, needing to know exactly where every project stood at every moment of every day. Fast walking. Tense shoulders. A face that gave away the stress before a word was spoken.

Here is what unfortunately created that over time. Several team members stopped trusting their own judgment. People who used to make calls on their own started running every small decision past this leader first, because they had learned that was what was expected of them. Confidence eroded, and good people left. And the leader chalked it up to bad hires, quarter after quarter.

The hires were rarely the problem. In my years of coaching and corporate training, the environment almost always is.

When I dig into this pattern with clients, the root is often the same two things. Fear of blame, where if something goes wrong they believe it will land on them, so they touch everything to control the outcome. These high achievers were used to owning their own performance metrics, so the standards and stakes feel high.  The second is people pleasing, where they want their team to like them, so instead of setting a boundary, they say yes to every call, every ask, every late-night message, and tell themselves that is what a good leader does.

Would your team describe you as trusted, or as someone they have to check with first?

Here is where the cycle gets worse. That same leader goes home exhausted from holding everything together, and calls scrolling their phone or binge-watching a show their “me time”. It feels like rest and relaxation in the moment.  What this does is activate your nervous system. Every swipe, check of text, messages, emails, and news feels like entertainment. What’s actually happening is your brain sees this like a slot machine. Anticipating the next funny video or piece of content creates more and more dopamine and an anticipation loop that has you craving more. It also puts your system in a high-alert state and blocks the natural hormones of melatonin that you need to fall asleep.

Real recovery is true rest and sleep. It is your nervous system fully shutting off, not your attention shifting to a different screen. The phone stays on, the show runs another episode, and it is well past midnight, and you find yourself rewinding the 

They tell themselves they will exercise tomorrow. They tell themselves they earned the drink, the show, the extra hour of scrolling, because today was hard. Movement gets pushed to the bottom of a list that never finishes, because it was never prioritized. Only work meetings get that kind of protection.

Then they wake up already behind, and the whole day runs the same cycle and pattern again. Exhaustion and tiredness after work calls for a major “check-out” but it needs to be combined with calming your mind and body vs. activating it. 

I do not have perfect habits. Nobody I coach does either. What changes this cycle is a few non-negotiables, protected on repeat, until consistency does the rewiring that willpower can’t.

Every guest I have interviewed on Evidence of the Elite who performs at the highest level protects this foundation without being asked about it directly. Jim and Andrew both train early in the morning, and they use that time as thinking time, not just movement. Chantal walks with her husband, no matter what the day looks like. None of them treat it as optional.

For me, it is a hard stop on calls after 7 pm unless something is truly urgent. I’ve been doing that for well over 10 years. I over-communicate that boundary to friends, family, and clients, kindly and consistently. I learned the hard way that answering the phone one time after your own cutoff is enough to make the boundary stop being real, to them and to you.

What is the one boundary you already know you need, and what has stopped you from setting it?

Here are ten things that have helped me and helped the leaders and high achievers I coach interrupt this cycle before it turns into burnout, or the kind of micromanagement that quietly costs you your best people.

1. Set a hard stop for calls and emails, and repeat the boundary until people believe it. You must overcommunicate this to others.

2. Time block your movement and personal life with the same protection you give a client meeting. It goes on the calendar, every single week. If it doesn’t go on the calendar, it doesn’t happen.

3. Build a real wind down routine at night instead of checking out with your phone or a show. If you do, watch your show, turn it off at a specific time each night, grab a cup of tea, sparkling water, etc and get a book, stretch, etc.

4. Adjust your sleep and light exposure deliberately when you travel across time zones, instead of pushing through and calling it normal. This makes an incredible difference. 

5. Add a daily meditation practice. Five minutes counts. Meditation doesn’t mean sitting still. It can be walking in nature,  sitting with no distractions, and paying attention to your thoughts. You can also find some great meditations on Insights Timer, YouTube, Spotify, etc. My clients who start this make massive shifts.

6. Use breath work to regulate your nervous system before your day regulates it for you. Try box breathing. Simple and easy. Link to Box Breathing

7. Write down 3 daily wins. It retrains what your brain looks for by default. You’ll be more confident and more positive.

8. Journal. It builds the kind of self-awareness and confidence that hustling never will. 3-5 minutes. How did the day go, what went well, what could have been better?

9. Move your body every day, not only when your schedule happens to allow it. Walk, dance, run, lift, get on your bike, whatever you love.

10. Let your team run the meeting without you unless they specifically ask for your input, and watch what that trust does for their confidence, and for yours.

Sleep and rest are not the reward you get after everything else is handled. They are what determines whether you can handle everything else at all.

If this hit close to home, I built a FREE sleep eBook specifically for leaders and high achievers who struggle with sleep. Comment “sleep” or DM me and I’ll send it over.

As they say, “put the oxygen mask on yourself before helping others.” When you can lead yourself well, you can influence and lead those around you best.