What Real Strength Looks Like (Without Burnout, Overtraining, or Doing More)

What does strength actually mean in this season of life?

For many women, strength has quietly become performative. Longer workouts, more discipline, pushing through exhaustion, and constantly wondering, “Am I doing enough?” But real strength isn’t about proving yourself. It’s about supporting yourself.

In this episode, we move beyond the traditional definition of strength training and explore a deeper, more sustainable version of strength through the three pillars of wellness: body, mind, and spirit.

You’ll hear a refreshing perspective on:

• Why longer and harder workouts aren’t always better (especially in your 40s and beyond)
• The hidden pressure of the “should” voice and comparison culture
• How mental strength is built through self-awareness, not self-criticism
• The emotional side of overworking, overtraining, and staying busy
• What it means to stop performing strength and start choosing what’s aligned for your life and energy
  
  This episode is especially for the woman who wants to feel strong and empowered, but is also tired of the constant pressure to do more, be more, and push harder.
  
  True strength isn’t about domination or discipline alone. It’s about self-trust, sustainability, and choosing what genuinely supports your body, your mind, and your life right now.
  
  If you’ve ever felt stuck between wanting to feel strong and feeling completely exhausted by the pressure of “doing enough,” this conversation is for you!

Transcript

0:51

Hello friends, and welcome back to Real, brave and Unstoppable. Thank you for tuning in today and listening for episode number 142. Today I am gonna talk a little bit about strength and not necessarily like what you're thinking in terms of like physical strength and strength training, although that's one thing we will be talking about. So I'm big into strength training and really if you're in your forties, fifties beyond, like it's so important for us in our forties and fifties to focus on this as we age. There are so many benefits to strength training. But one of them is that as we age, we lose bone density. In simple terms, strength training creates impact on our bones, which helps them develop strength. And then we're also strengthening the muscles that which also lose density. Okay. But these muscles support our skeletal structure as well. Strength is something that is very front and center in my life and it's one of my values. And so I think about it a lot. But if we think about strength from the standpoint of working out, it can tend to carry a performative energy with it. You know, that we need to work out a certain amount of time for it to count. Or a long workout is really the only way to get results. I must be getting visible results or I'm not doing it right. We need to push through exhaustion. I need to have more discipline, things like that. A few weeks ago I was talking to someone I met and he shared that he had this killer two hour leg day and. Immediately, I was like, what do people do that anymore? Because I mean, I know that we don't need two hours to have a really effective strength workout. So I was really intrigued by this comment because that's a long time to work out, unless it's an endurance run or a bike ride. A long bike ride or something like that. Like I said, as a personal trainer, I know that we don't need to spend two hours in the gym for it to be effective. And it's also not how I want to spend two hours. I like working out, but I'm a let's get in and get out and be efficient kind of person. But also getting back to the comment you know, also I'm human and for a moment my brain kind of locked into this comparison mode. Well, should I be doing more? Does he know something? I don't know. Am I lazy? Am I doing enough? And, I caught myself though in this moment, and I just reminded myself that this questioning had nothing to do with me. Like my body, my energy, my actual goals, whether that's it's wrong or right, but it had everything to do with this invisible pressure so many of us carry. The pressure to perform strength instead of actually like just being strong. I think we've been taught that strength means harder, longer, more disciplined, more intense, more controlled. But there's a lot more to strength. What if it's not about how much you can push? What if, what if it's about how well you can listen and to make choices that support what you need? So today I wanna talk about strength in a different way. Not just physical strength, but mental strength, emotional strength, even spiritual strength. Real strength is not just about what you do in the gym, it's about how you relate to your body too. How you respond to the shoulds that come up in your mind, and also whether you're living from a place of authenticity or performance. And especially as women, especially in busy seasons of life, and I'm using the word especially a lot, but especially if you've ever felt caught between wanting to feel strong and also feeling completely exhausted by the pressure. Of doing more, being more, pushing harder. And if you've ever wondered, am I doing enough? Should I be working out more? Why does strength sometimes feel like pressure and not like empowerment? Then this episode's for you because today we're gonna redefine strength through the lens of body, mind, and spirit, those three important pillars of wellness, and talking about what it actually looks like to stop performing strength, to start choosing what's true for you. So let's start with physical strength since that's kind of where our minds tend to go first when we think about it. Push harder, more discipline. It only counts if.... we live in a culture that equates longer and harder, with better. So now, I know this isn't true for everyone, but it does instigate comparison in a lot of people. So we'll talk more about this a little later, but working out in strength they carry a lot of shoulds for many people. And I think this is especially true for women... uh, probably men too, but I'm not a man, so I'm gonna speak from the, the lens through the lens of a woman. But we grew up with a message that our bodies. Our projects, there's something to fix, something to shrink, to control. And then fitness, it really became, for a lot of us, less about feeling strong and more about proving we're disciplined enough, committed enough, good enough. We are capable of taking on that project to be better. I think that trend is starting to turn around, but let's face it, it's still out there. Even now, I talk to women who genuinely want to feel healthy and strong, but there is this underlying pressure that might look like:"am I doing enough? Is it, is this workout hard enough? Was it long enough? Does this count? I should be doing more, I should be lifting more, I should be working out longer." All of those things. But here's a reframe for you. Your body does not care about any of that stuff. It's not grading you the way that your thinking brain is. Your body does not give a shit if your workout was impressive. It cares that it was sustainable, supportive, and most importantly helps you feel more energized and less depleted. It cares that it feels good and it supports your overall wellbeing. A 30- or 40- minute workout, or even a 20- minute workout that you enjoy and can repeat consistently, will do infinitely more for your health than a two hour workout that leaves you exhausted, inflamed, resentful, bored, dreading it... all the things. We also have to get honest about the season of life we're in too. The energy we have at 45, 50, 60 is different than our energy at 25. Our recovery, stress load, hormones, responsibilities, nervous system... all of these things are very different. So what we do to support that is supposed to look different too. The fitness industry, while I think it's getting better at this still overall, doesn't tend to get this message across. And a lot of women internalize that as"if I can't keep up, maybe I'm getting weaker." And then they feel bad about themselves, about it. Real physical strength isn't about dominating or controlling your body. It's about partnering with it. Partnering can look like listening when you're tired or adjusting when your energy is low. Choosing movement that supports your life instead of competing with it and exhausting you. If your workouts leave, you constantly exhausted, sore, and mentally drained. That's not strength, that's actually self abandonment disguised as discipline. So when I think back to that conversation about the two hour leg workout, the deeper realization wasn't, wow, that's impressive. It was just something like that even align with what my body needs or the life I'm living. Now I do wanna be clear, there's nothing wrong with doing a two hour leg workout. If that's aligned for you and you enjoy it and it supports you, go for it. Awesome. It's just that we don't all need to live up to, that. Strength isn't about matching someone else's capacity. It's about really being tuned into your own capacity. And here's a question for you to ponder. Thinking about when you work out or move or whatever it is that you wanna call it. Is that supporting your body or is this a performance of who you think you're supposed to be? Are you moving in ways that help you feel stronger, more grounded, more alive? Or are you moving from guilt, pressure comparison, the fear of falling behind? Once you start asking that question, you realize something important. A lot of what we call physical strength is actually driven by mental pressure and internalized shoulds, and that's where the conversation can get even deeper because the real battle is really kind of happening in your mind, not your body. I love taking this conversation to that deeper level, talking about the"should" voice, that this is the voice that says I should be working out more. I should be more disciplined. I should want harder workouts. I should be able to do what I used to do. And here's where we start talking about mental strength. It's tricky because these thoughts don't always feel loud or dramatic. They're just kind of running on autopilot. They're kind of subtle and they also sound responsible, productive, or even like motivation. But a lot of the time they're really this internalized pressure that just makes us feel bad. The shoulds are sneaky and they were really shaped over years by diet culture, fitness culture, productivity culture, and honestly just being a woman in a world that constantly tells you to optimize yourself. To be smaller, better, healthier, more disciplined, more put together. So even when no one is actively judging you to your face, your mind has learned how to almost preemptively judge you. We're keeping it in check. We're making sure that we don't let ourselves go. Those thoughts sound familiar? So this is kind of what happened with the two hour leg workout comment. My mind started to pass some judgment both on myself and on him. So let's let be clear about that. But no one told me that I should be doing that kind of two hour thing. He wasn't judging me. There was no external pressure, but internally, my brain started. You know, started measuring that's a lot more than I do. Am I doing enough? Even though I knew the answer was yes, I'm doing, I'm doing enough, I'm doing me, I'm doing what works for me. Two hours for you. Cool. Awesome. No judgment. But internally, my brain started doing that measuring thing, but that's the comparison trap. It's where we constantly scan things. We scan other people's bodies, routines, habits, capacities, and then we use them as a measuring stick for our own self worth or effort. The problem is we're comparing our body, our energy, our life, our season, to someone whose context we don't fully understand. We're comparing what we see on the outside of someone else to what we know. We have all the information about ourselves, our internal experience, our external experience. We're comparing all of that to just the small little bit we see in other people. You know, their schedule, stress, load, body, priorities, hormones, all the things are different. So it's not apples to apples, but that's your mind at work. It does not automatically account for nuance. What I think real mental strength is, is having the ability to notice an unhelpful thought. Without obeying it or hooking into it, or, you know, it dictating our behavior. It's noticing that,"oh, there's that I should be doing more story" instead of immediately restructuring things around it. So for many women, especially women who have been high achieving, athletic or body conscious at different points in their lives, strength becomes tied to identity. So when your energy changes, your body changes, or your life gets fuller and busier, the mind interprets that as decline or failure or falling off. When in reality it might just be evolution, So we need to question our"shoulds". Questioning our"shoulds" can feel uncomfortable because those rules have probably been guiding decisions for years and rules, internal rules help us feel in control. They help us feel productive, disciplined. But when we let that narrative run without self-awareness, that all turns into just a lot of self pressure. That's not fun. So here's something worth asking yourself: Where in your life are you operating from?"Should" instead of self-trust that this is real and true for me. And this can be in workouts, uh, just routines, all of the things in life. If you're honest, how much of that is actually aligned with what your body and your life need right now? I always say awareness is half the battle. So when you start noticing your internalized"should" voice and those comparison patterns, something really powerful happens. You create space. You create space to choose a different way of relating to yourself. You create this space to move from pressure to being intentional. So this space that we've created here then is actually a form of strength. It's grounded, self-aware strength. And I wanna say one more thing about mental strength is that sometimes when we pause to create that space we notice what our mind is telling us. And it's not always easy to not listen to that narrative in our brain because our brain's purpose here is to protect us. So it's trying to find all the possible problems, and to be honest, a lot of the problems it finds are not actually real problems. It's trying to be proactive and sometimes it just is a little too proactive. With the wrong things. So mental strength here is being able to say,"oh, I noticed that this is where my brain is going. And it's telling me that in, in order to, to not let's just say for example, in order to not turn into a big blob of goo, I need to work out for two hours at a time." It can be scary to say,"oh, that's bs. Like, I'm not doing that." Because your brain's still gonna have that little voice that says,"yeah, but if you don't, then you know that guy that you're dating, he's not gonna like you anymore." Or, you're not gonna fit into those pants anymore." Or, you are getting older and you're not gonna look as hot." It's sometimes hard not to buy into that voice. So that's where mental strength comes in. It's saying,"oh, okay, I noticed that's what my brain's doing there. That's not true for me. I'm gonna choose the other way." It can sometimes be harder. But once we start noticing that should voice and those comparison patterns, there's another layer that often reveals itself, and that's the emotional layer. Sometimes what looks like discipline on the outside is actually emotional coping on the inside. So we're gonna take a look at that now. The layer of emotional strength. In the wellness space, we don't talk about this a lot, I don't think. At least with strength and working out. A lot of people that I talk to want more discipline when it comes to this kind of stuff, and we see this a lot with food or social media or devices, coping mechanisms when we feel bad. So what we do talk about when it comes to movement is workouts and routines and discipline and motivation. But not as much about why we're doing what we're doing from an emotional standpoint. So we do wanna ask ourselves if we're moving or working out or whatever because it supports us, or are we trying to escape something like escaping difficult emotions or trying to avoid the feeling of imperfection or not enough. So it's worth looking at how we use productivity and fitness to cope with things. This is not about shaming hard exercise or, or any exercise at all. I'm one that loves to move my body and sweat. It helps me feel connected to my body. And of course, moving our bodies is incredibly supportive and important. It can regulate your nervous system, boost your mood, and help you feel more grounded in your body too. So what are some ways that we use stuff like fitness and exercise or strength as a way to avoid our emotions? Sometimes we overwork out because we feel out of control. Have you ever had that moment where you're like, okay, I feel so gross and I'm just gonna jump back into this and I'm gonna just, I'm gonna hit it hard. So, yeah, we feel bad. So if only I do more, I'll feel better. Sometimes it's staying busy because slowing down feels uncomfortable. And sometimes we push harder, not because our body needs it, but because sitting with stress or sadness or uncertainty feels harder than just doing one more thing: staying busy. And again, this can apply to over training, overeating, pretty much any"over" thing that you can think of. And this is especially common for women who are used to being capable, responsible, high functioning, we are people who keep going. We identify with staying productive, showing up even when we're tired or emotionally drained. And even when your body's quietly asking for something different from the outside, that can look like strength, but internally it can feel like depletion. And I know some people, if it looks like strength from the outside, they're like, okay, well now that's validation, right? But what is the use of validation if you feel shitty on the inside? So let's reframe this. Real emotional strength is not about pushing past your feelings, it's about staying present with yourself without immediately trying to fix or numb or override what you're experiencing. That might mean noticing I'm actually really exhausted today. Or I'm overwhelmed, or I'm mentally drained. And allowing that awareness to inform your choices instead of shaming yourself into more output. Another thing I wanna touch on is that for a lot of women, especially those who have struggled with body image or all or nothing habits in the past, rest can actually feel emotionally unsafe. Slowing down can trigger thoughts like, I'm being lazy, I'm falling off track. I'm letting myself go. I should be doing more. So instead of listening to the body, we override it to protect this sense of identity. Not because we're weak, but because we're used to equating productivity or doing more, being more with worth. So what does movement or strength as support look like then? Emotional strength doesn't mean that you stop moving. It means your movement becomes supportive instead of escapist. So you go for a walk today to clear your mind, not punish your body. Maybe your heart rate getting up... it just helps you feel alive. It's not punishment. You lift weights because it makes you feel grounded and it makes you feel strong, empowered. You choose rest when you're depleted, not because you've given up, but because you're actually paying attention to what you need. And when we're constantly performing strength, we don't leave space to actually feel what's going on inside. So we just keep doing and we keep pushing. We keep staying busy enough that we don't have to sit with discomfort, uncertainty, or emotional. But numbing yourself with productivity and"doing" is not the same thing as being strong, so it might be worth gently asking yourself. Am I moving today because it supports me or because I don't wanna feel what's underneath the surface? Am I pushing because my body needs movement or because my mind is uncomfortable with stillness? That level of honesty requires a different kind of strength, a quieter, more self-aware strength. When you begin to stay present with yourself emotionally without immediately numbing, overriding, performing, or trying to fix your emotions, something really powerful happens. You start rebuilding trust with yourself. And when you start rebuilding that trust with yourself emotionally, something deeper begins to shift, not just how you feel, but how you make decisions. This is where we step into a different layer of strength: spiritual strength. Now, when I say spiritual strength, I don't mean anything religious, abstract, or overly"woo:. I mean your ability to trust your inner authority, your inner knowing. It's the quiet knowing that you don't need constant external validation to decide what's right for your body and your life. So it's the shift from asking what should I be doing to asking what's actually aligned for me right now? For so long, strength has been defined externally. Programs, plans, metrics, how long you worked out, how hard you pushed, how consistent you were... and those things aren't bad, but they become disconnecting when they override your own internal cues. Or your purpose for doing those things, for caring about those things. Because you can follow the perfect routine and still feel exhausted, disconnected and out of alignment. Spiritual strength is when you stop performing strength for approval, even subtle internal approval, and start choosing what's really true for you.... not what looks impressive or disciplined or what someone else with a different life and body is doing. But what actually supports the woman you are right now. There's another piece of spiritual strength that I want to touch on as well, is meaning when strength loses, meaning it can turn into the sense of obligation. You start working out because you should. Eating a certain way because you should. Following routines because you're afraid of what happens if you don't. And over time, something that was supposed to make you feel strong and good, it starts to feel really heavy. But when strength is meaningful, it feels different. Movement becomes a way to feel alive in your body, to take care of yourself. Rest becomes an act of respect, not failure. Strength training becomes about longevity and vitality, not punishment or control. It shifts from how do I force my body to comply, to how do I support my body so I can live fully? Meaning becomes especially important in seasons of life where your energy, priorities and identity are evolving too. And this is just because the routines that once felt really empowering can start to feel rigid or draining if they're no longer aligned with your current life. And I mean obviously as we go through our lives, we change a lot as humans. Spiritual strength is really having the courage to acknowledge that and without interpreting it as weakness. It's not about how hard you can push yourself, it's the space of honesty about what's authentic for me? What's true for me? Regardless of what everyone else is doing, what do I know that I need? What do I know is truth for me. In our bodies and our minds, and in just daily choices, even when those choices don't look so impressive to everyone else. So when I think back to that two hour leg workout comment, now the question isn't, is that good or bad? The question is, would that be meaningful for my body, my energy, my life right now? Or would it just be me performing someone else's version of strength? Doing it in an effort to avoid feeling not as disciplined or not as ambitious or motivated? So here are a few questions that might be helpful to sit with and reflect on. First, does my current definition of strength feel supportive or performative? And you might ask yourself a pre-question of what is my current definition of strength? How do I wanna think about strength for myself? And. Another question is, am I following routines out of alignment? Is it something that's good for me or that feels good? Or is it out of fear of losing progress? Am I moving towards something that I want and that is good for me? Or am I running away from something I'm afraid of? Another question to consider is, does the way I'm caring for my body actually feel meaningful and supportive To me? We wanna support ourselves. When we connect with our inner authority or our inner knowing, and we allow strength to be meaningful instead of performative, everything changes. We stop chasing standards. We stop overriding our body. We start living from a place of grounded, authentic strength, the kind that supports all three pillars- our body, our mind, and our spirit. Instead of exhausting all three of them. So when we zoom out and we look at all of this together, strength starts to look really different than what we've been taught. It's more honest. Physical strength becomes less about pushing our bodies to prove something, and it really becomes more about supporting our body so the our body can support our life. Mental strength becomes less about discipline and willpower, and more about noticing the internalized shoulds without automatically listening to them. Emotional strength becomes the ability to stay present with yourself instead of numbing through constant doing or pushing or productivity. And then, spiritual strength becomes trusting your inner knowing and allowing our definition of strength to actually feel meaningful in this season of life. We get to decide what we wanna believe about it, and that's with anything. So when we look at it through that lens, we start to realize how much of modern strength is actually performance. Performing discipline, productivity, toughness, things like that. Even when internally you're tired, overwhelmed, or feel disconnected from what we actually need, performance asks, how does this look? And real strength asks, how does this support me? Such an important thing to remember. Maybe the deeper invitation in all of this is to stop training or striving for the version of yourself you think you're supposed to be, and start supporting the person you actually are. The person with a real life, real responsibilities, real energy levels in a body that deserves partnership, not punishment. So as you move through this week, I wanna leave you with a few more questions to reflect on: First of all, where am I performing strength instead of living it? Where am I operating from, should instead of self-trust? And what would change if I chose what truly supports my body, mind, and spirit instead of what simply looks disciplined on the outside? Remember, real strength is not about how much you can push, how long you can endure or how disciplined you appear. It's really the ability to stay connected to yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually... especially in a world that constantly encourages disconnection and performance. Strength is not about proving anything. It is about living in alignment with who you are and what you genuinely need, creating a life you love and that you feel most alive and yourself in. So friends, I hope this episode was helpful and it gives you some things to think about. If you want some help creating health and fitness goals that support what feels real and true for you, please check out my intro program, the Wellness Wake Up. We do an audit of your current lifestyle, including the things you struggle with, and we create real doable action steps to get you feeling like you again... from a place of alignment. So check it out at the link in the show notes. As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please take a few minutes to leave a rating and a review for me. It just helps other people find the show and it means a lot to me. So thank you for being here. I will see you next time.