The Mental Training Gap: Why High-Achieving Women Are Optimizing Everything Except Their Minds

You track your macros and have a morning routine. You know your cortisol is high and your sleep could be better. You’ve tried all the things; supplements, cold plunges, red light therapy. And yet, despite attempts to optimize nearly every aspect of your physical health, something still feels off. Each day you are left feeling drained, worn out, and trying to keep up.   

For many high-achieving women, the missing piece isn’t another trend or new protocol. It’s the one area many don’t address within the mental health, performance, and wellness communities…

How to train your mind.

You Are the Carrier of the Mental Load

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that high-achieving women experience. It’s not just physical tiredness – it’s the weight of holding everything together.  Often referred to as “the mental load”; women are tasked with remembering all the appointments, anticipating everyone’s needs, managing the calendar, tracking details day to day, and doing it all while performing at a high level professionally. Oh and don’t forget to practice good ‘self care’ in your “free time”.

Not surprisingly, a recent study published in Socius found that even high-earning women and breadwinners get little relief from the cognitive labor of managing home and family life. Therefore, making the mental load a structural issue, not a personal failing.

Women disproportionately carry this invisible cognitive and emotional burden.  We have been conditioned to believe the answer is to push harder, work out more, eat cleaner, get more organized… Find the next optimization and we will be able to “balance” it all. Ah yes, balance – the more we chase it, the further away it feels.

Often the assumption is that if the body is performing well, the mind will follow. But stress doesn’t live in your nutrition or workout plan. It lives in your nervous system, your thought patterns, your relationship with performance and worth.

No amount of physical optimization rewires that – only deliberate mental training can.

The Perfectionism Trap

In my clinical work with high achievers and athletes, one pattern appears again and again: perfectionism is framed as a strength. Research confirms this pattern is widespread: female high achievers are 20–30% more likely than men to score in the highest ranges of perfectionism.

Women often tell me they’re “just wired that way” and that their high standards are what got them where they are. And there is truth in that – drive and discipline matter. It can often serve you well.

But perfectionism is also a thief. It steals your ability to be present because you’re always scanning for what could go wrong. It fuels anxiety and fear of failure. It keeps you on a treadmill of achievement where nothing is ever quite enough. And it whispers that the answer is to try harder, do more, be more.

The work isn’t to lower your standards. It’s to separate your worth from your output, to learn to respond differently to the conditioning and automatic thoughts that occur when the mental load gets heavy. That is a mental skill, not a mindset hack. It requires practice, self-awareness, and the willingness to examine the beliefs driving the behavior.

Working through perfectionism in therapy is common in my work as an anxiety specialist. And I know this work, because I’ve lived it too.

What Mental Training Actually Looks Like

Elite athletes have known this for decades – physical training only takes you so far.  The mental game – focus, resilience, emotional regulation, presence under pressure –  is what separates good from great.  But it isn’t given enough attention for non-elites and it is trainable. 

Sport psychology research backs this up: studies on athletes show that mindfulness-based mental training leads to measurable improvements in emotion regulation and self-rated athletic performance – benefits that translate directly to high-performing women in everyday life. Doing the ‘mental reps’ is just as vital to women’s longevity and well-being as eating healthy and getting enough sleep.

For high-achieving women, mental training means building three foundational capacities:

Presence – The ability to be in this moment rather than spinning in the past or future. Stress often lives in the gap between where you are and where you think you should be. Presence closes that gap.

Groundedness – A felt sense of stability even when circumstances are uncertain or demanding. This isn’t about staying calm – it’s about having an internal anchor so the wild ride of life  doesn’t take you out.

Self-awareness – The ability to notice your thoughts, reactions, and emotions  without being ruled by them. This is what makes it possible to choose your response rather than react from old programming – the conditioning that keeps us trying harder, pushing further, reaching for balance.

These skills don’t come from a supplement or a trendy new gimmick. They come from intentional practice.  The support of a therapist or mental performance coach can help you identify what’s actually influencing your patterns and assist in rewire the perfectionism. I often say you will not stop life from having challenges, but you can change HOW you experience them.

Showing Up at Your Best Starts with Showing Up for Yourself

Here is what I see most in my practice: high-achieving women are incredibly devoted to showing up for everyone else – their families, their clients, their teams, their communities – and they run themselves into the ground doing it. They’ve never been taught that their inner world deserves the same rigorous attention they give to everything else.

The invitation is not to do less or lower the bar. It’s to bring the same intentionality, planning, and training that you apply to your body, to your mind. To get curious about your stress responses instead of just managing symptoms. If your mind just won’t slow down, learning mental skills that allow you to experience the full weight of your life – the mental load, the pressure, the expectations. And can help you move through it with more presence, clarity, and ease.

The people who matter most to you don’t just need your performance. They need your presence and you to be healthy – mind and body.

And that starts with training your mind.

Curious what this could do for you?

If this sounds familiar to you, so let’s connect on a free consultation. Building mental skills supports both your performance and your overall well-being. Let’s close the mental gap together.

Q & A

How is mental training part of therapy?

In therapy, mental training isn’t a add-on, it’s woven into the work itself. Using an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) framework, we build the psychological flexibility that allows you to notice your thoughts and feelings without being controlled by them. Rather than fighting the inner critic or trying to think more positively, ACT-based mental training teaches you to observe those patterns with curiosity, accept what’s outside your control, and take action aligned with your values – even when the discomfort is still present. For high-achieving women, this means learning to recognize when perfectionism or the mental load is driving the bus, and developing the skills to choose a different response. That is mental training, and it happens right inside the therapy room.

Can mental training actually help with burnout, or do I just need to rest?

Rest is necessary, but it’s rarely sufficient on its own. Burnout in high-achieving women is often driven by deeply ingrained thought patterns – perfectionism, the need to prove worth through output, and an inability to mentally “switch off”. Those things don’t just disappear after a vacation. Mental training addresses the root of the exhaustion by rewiring how your nervous system responds to stress and pressure. Rest recharges the body; mental training changes how you respond to what drains you.

How do I know if I need mental training or if I’m just stressed?

If stress feels like a season, you’re probably just stressed. If it feels like a permanent setting – if you’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop, struggling to be present even during good moments, or finding that no amount of self-care actually makes you feel better – that’s a signal your nervous system and thought patterns need deliberate attention. Therapy and the mental training within it is most effective when you start before you’re running on empty.

Stephanie Thomas, MS, LPC, CMHC is a licensed professional counselor and mental performance specialist helping high achievers and athletes navigate anxiety, perfectionism, and burnout. Through her practice, Living in Alignment LLC, she helps clients build the mental skills needed to perform at their best and live with greater presence and purpose.

Learn more at www.livinginalignmentllc.com or follow along on Instagram @calmthementalnoise