Redefining Resilience: The Gear you've Been Missing

Can you relate to this?

You work hard. Like a Formula-1 race car driver locked in 5th gear, you grind through your day at full speed, adrenaline pumping, eyes fixed on the finish line—except the finish line keeps moving.

You tell yourself you can’t slow down. There’s too much to do. Too many people counting on you. And so, you push. You push past fatigue. You push through the quiet signals from your body. You push toward that ever-elusive feeling of “finally enough.”

Guided by the “Suffer-O-Meter,” you measure your worth by how drained you feel, how hard you’ve worked, and how much you’ve suffered and sacrificed. You equate exhaustion with success, urgency with importance, speed with value. You believe that slowing down means falling behind.

I know I can. 

For years, I lived like that: locked in 5th gear, measuring my worth by how much I could endure, how much I could handle on my own. Suffering and self-reliance felt like my superpowers. 

I told myself that slowing down wasn’t an option. That rest was indulgent and lazy. That my ability to function under pressure was proof of my strength. That if I could push through, keep going, and never stop, then surely, I was doing something right. Right? And so, I kept my foot on the gas and my engine in 5th.

But here’s the truth: When you’re always in 5th gear, you either burn out or crash.

I did both. Eventually, that pace caught up with me and I began to run on fumes. Burnt-out, I struggled to sleep and feel joy in the things that usually brought me happiness. And then, I crashed when my race car hit the wall and came to a sudden stop. For years, I used cycling and exercise for stress relief. But all that cycling has led to a back injury that prevents me from even crawling into the cockpit.

I ignored the early warning signs: irritability, numbness, disconnection from joy, exhaustion, injury. Why? Because I believed that my suffering was a badge of honour and part of success.

The reasons many of us push so hard vary:

• Our self-worth can be tied to output and performance.

• We've always been the one who holds everything and everyone together.

• Productivity feels safer than stillness.

• We don’t know who we'd be if we stopped doing, achieving.

But the truth is: we’re allowed to shift gears. Not because we give up, but because we’re ready for a different way—one that comes from presence, not pressure. From worthiness, not weariness. From trusting that who we are is already enough. This is the 6th gear.

So, what is the 6th gear? It’s discernment. It’s recognizing that we don’t have to run the race alone.

The 6th gear involves finally listening to the quiet voice of your body, intuition, inner wisdom—what you’ve overridden for years. It’s the gear the tortoise uses and the hare forgets exists. We know the story and the lesson. The tortoise doesn’t win the race because it works harder, she wins because she moves with intention. Because she knows slow is sustainable.

The 6th gear isn’t speed or endurance. It’s presence. It’s trust. It’s finding the wisdom to know when to lean in and when to lean back. It's the strength to let yourself be supported. It’s the courage to let joy, purpose, and alignment take the driver’s seat—rather than fear, urgency, or comparison.

This is the heart of my coaching work. I support overextended souls find that 6th gear. Not by pushing harder, but by cultivating the inner strength to slow down. To align with what’s truly meaningful.To trade urgency for clarity. To move forward—not from fear, but from self-trust and purpose.