High Achievers · Executives · Leaders
Counseling for High Performers
For people who are succeeding and exhausted perfectionism, burnout, and identity tied to output, from counselors trained in performance psychology.
Who this page is for
Executives, founders, physicians, attorneys, pastors, coaches, military and first responders. People performing under pressure who are good at it. If you’re a competitive athlete, sport and performance counseling is written for you. If you lead a church or ministry, see counseling for pastors and ministry leaders.
Performance psychology was never only about sport
Zac Clinton does sport and performance work at Liberty and in our practice. He’ll tell you the field is wider than the field:
“When I’m thinking of sporting performance psychology, that has to deal with even military type of stuff, who have to operate under pressure. I’m talking about work performance, a lot of coaches that we help train within big businesses, and people that just want to get more out of their performance in the workspace.”
And then the part that puts most people on this page:
“Your belief about your capability to perform under pressure, if you do something that puts that into jeopardy, hey, everybody needs some coaching there. Because we’re all under pressure at some point in life, and we all have to perform. We all do.”
Where’s your perfectionism actually coming from?
Most high performers are perfectionists. Usually that’s fine. It’s how the work gets done to a standard.
“The vast majority of athletes are perfectionistic. Because if you’re not, you’re gonna get behind. You’re not gonna work as hard. A lot of people that work in athletics are perfectionistic in general. They want everything done with excellence.”
The question is what’s driving it, because two very different engines produce identical behavior from the outside.
“I don’t think anybody’s really afraid of failure. But there’s a lot of people that are afraid of being seen as a failure.”
That’s the first engine. Shame. And it means every piece of work becomes a referendum on whether you’re acceptable.
Here’s the second, in Zac’s words:
“My perfectionism, is it rooted in shame, because I’m just afraid of being seen as a failure? Or is it genuinely because I’m pursuing something that God has called me to?”
Both produce long hours. Only one survives a bad quarter.
And for anybody who’s been told ambition is the problem:
“I really want to go and be great, which by the way is biblical. Greatness means acquiring everything that God has set aside for you, not just settling for some things. I want to run to win, as Paul would say. I want to run my race. What does it mean to run, in the Hebrew? It literally means maximum effort to a directed purpose.”
The question isn’t whether you should want it. It’s what you’re running toward, and whether you’re running toward something or away from something.ho’s been told ambition is the problem:
“I fell out of love with it”
People say this about a career the same way athletes say it about a sport, usually right before they leave.
“I’ve heard this statement a lot. I fell out of love with the sport. I believe that talent never goes away. It just goes awry. And I think love does the same. I don’t think you ever fall out of love with something. I think that love can begin to dwindle, and can disengage, and can be de-invested in, because we have our priorities set on the wrong things.”
Getting it back takes two things, and neither is thinking harder.
“The first one is, love is always modeled. Love is not something that is innovated. It’s something that is imitated. So find someone or something that is living that life or shows those virtues that you really desire.”
Find the person in your field who obviously still loves the work, and watch what they actually do. Not what they say about it. Their calendar. What they protect.der.
“Number two is, you practice it. Love has to be, what Paul says, put on. You put on love every day. So you practice the habits that are necessary to fall back in love with something again.”
You rebuild the habits first. The feeling comes to meet you.
“Thoughts are very important to influence things. But it’s the love that drives us to something deeper.”
Burnout usually isn’t about hours
The people we see who are burned out are rarely working more than they were three years ago. What’s changed is that the work has either stopped meaning anything, or it’s become the only place their worth gets settled.
Rest helps. It doesn’t fix that.
What counseling looks like here
Confidential, and available entirely by telehealth, which matters if your schedule or your visibility makes a waiting room complicated.
Two tracks.
First
Performance tools first, because they’re useful immediately: attention training, self-talk, mental rehearsal, learning to hold a thought as a thought instead of a fact.
Then
Then whatever’s underneath, if there’s something underneath.
Both, depending on what you need. Our counselors are licensed, so if what’s going on is anxiety, depression, or something older than the job, they can treat it. A coach can’t.
That’s most of the people on this page. Counseling works better before a crisis than after one.
Yes, anywhere in Virginia.
Yes. Confidentiality is a legal obligation, not a courtesy, with narrow exceptions your counselor will explain in the first session.
The first step
Succeeding and exhausted is worth an hour of someone’s attention.
Confidential counseling for high performers, entirely by telehealth, anywhere in Virginia.