Winning on My Own Terms: How Burnout Became the Turning Point I Didn’t Know I Needed
- 17 hours ago
- 3 min read
By Dr. Nika White
For a long time, I thought success was supposed to look a certain way—constant momentum, bigger numbers, a calendar with no white space, and a sense of urgency humming beneath everything. I assumed that if I kept producing, kept saying yes, and kept making myself available to everyone, I’d eventually reach the version of success I’d imagined.
But a few years ago, something in me started to break down. I was still showing up, still doing the work, still leading—but I was doing it from depletion. I didn’t have a dramatic collapse or a single defining moment. It was quieter than that. It was waking up with a heaviness I couldn’t shake. It was feeling disconnected from my own joy. It was noticing that the work I once loved suddenly felt like something I had to survive rather than something I got to create.
Burnout has a way of stripping you down to the truth. And the truth was simple: I was building a business, but I wasn’t building a life I wanted to live inside of.
So I started redefining what “winning” meant for me. That shift didn’t happen overnight—it came in small realizations, honest conversations, and moments where I had to choose rest instead of running.
The biggest breakthrough came when I asked myself a question I had never paused long enough to answer: “What if success isn’t about scaling wider, but growing deeper?”
That question reshaped everything.
Instead of pushing for constant expansion, I focused on creating work that felt aligned. That’s how my Communities of Practice were born. They weren’t built from ambition—they were built from clarity. I wanted to design spaces where leaders, especially women and people of color, could learn in community, regulate their emotional landscape, and lead from a place of groundedness rather than pressure.
Building those communities revived me. They reminded me why I started. And more importantly, they helped me reconnect to my purpose: to humanize how we work and live.
Winning began to feel different. It wasn’t about proving anything. It wasn’t about chasing every opportunity. It wasn’t about being everywhere at once. Winning became about alignment, peace, and impact that felt honest.
As I shifted personally, my company shifted with me with a deepened focus on transformational partnerships. We started helping organizations build cultures rooted in belonging, clarity, and emotional regulation. When leaders learn to steady themselves, everything they touch—teams, decisions, relationships—steadies too. That’s the work that energizes me now.
People often ask how to “win their way,” especially women navigating careers, family, identity, and the constant pressure to perform at a high level. My answer is simple, and it always comes from lived experience:
Define success by how you feel, not just by what you achieve.
Your nervous system will tell you the truth long before your title or your metrics will. Emotional regulation is not soft—it’s strategic. It helps you lead with clarity during chaos. It anchors you when everything around you shifts. It teaches you to choose yourself without apology.
My story isn’t about doing less. It’s about doing the right things in the right rhythm. It’s about giving myself permission to craft a version of success that feels whole, sustainable, and deeply personal.
If my journey proves anything, it’s that winning in 2025 and beyond won’t be defined by volume. It will be defined by alignment, community, and the courage to choose a path that honors your well-being as much as your ambition.
That’s the version of winning I’m committed to—and the one I hope more women give themselves permission to embrace.
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