You know the signs by now.
You wake up already planning. Your jaw is tight before your first meeting. You’re making million dollar decisions on four hours of sleep and whatever energy you can borrow from caffeine and adrenaline. You tell yourself you’ll slow down after this quarter, after this launch, after you hire that next person. But the relief never comes.
Here’s what most people get wrong: they think this is burnout. They think the answer is a vacation, a sabbatical, or better boundaries. And when those don’t work, they assume they’re the problem.
But what if you’re not burned out at all?
What if your nervous system is stuck in survival mode, and everything you’re experiencing is a biological response, not a personal defect?
In 15 years of clinical work with business owners, I’ve watched brilliant, capable leaders try to think their way out of what is fundamentally a nervous system problem. They implement new systems. They hire coaches. They read the books. And still, they feel like they’re operating from a place of constant threat.
Because they are.
Burnout is what happens when you’ve worked too hard for too long. It’s depletion. Survival mode is different. It’s a state of sympathetic nervous system dominance where your body believes you are under threat and reorganizes everything around keeping you alive. Your prefrontal cortex goes offline. Cortisol floods your system. And suddenly, you’re not leading your business. You’re reacting to it.
This is why you can’t delegate. Why you micromanage. Why you say yes when you mean no. Why you make impulsive hires or panic fire good people. It’s not poor leadership. It’s a dysregulated nervous system running an ancient program designed to save you from predators, not manage a P&L.
The Survival Mode Recognition Framework
When I work with clients, we use what I call the Three Signals of Dysregulation:
Your Body Tells You First. Shallow breathing. Clenched jaw. Chronic tension in your shoulders or gut. These aren’t stress symptoms. They’re data. Your body is signalling that it perceives danger, even when you’re sitting in a conference room.
Your Decisions Reveal the Pattern. When you’re in survival mode, you make decisions quickly, see only two options, and focus on avoiding what you could lose. When you’re calm and regulated, you have more room to think. You can sit with not knowing. You can weigh several choices without feeling stressed. If every decision feels urgent, you’re likely operating from a cortisol driven state.
Your Relationships Reflect Your Regulation. In survival mode, people become obstacles or threats. You’re short with your team. Defensive with feedback. Impatient with the process. When you’re regulated, you can hold complexity. You can stay curious instead of reactive.
The Turning Point
I worked with a business owner who came to me convinced she had an execution problem. She couldn’t finish anything. Started ten projects, completed none. Hired consultants, ignored their advice. She thought she lacked discipline.
In our second session, I asked her to notice her breath while talking about her business. She stopped mid sentence. “I’m holding my breath,” she said. “I’ve been holding my breath for two years.”
That was the moment. Not when she learned a new framework. When she recognized that her body had been trying to protect her, and in doing so, had kept her in a loop she couldn’t think her way out of.
She didn’t need a better strategy. She needed to come out of threat response first. Once her nervous system felt safe enough to downregulate, her clarity returned. So did her ability to execute.
The Question Worth Asking
Notice this week: when you make decisions, where are you feeling them in your body? Is there tightness? Urgency? A sense that you have to decide now or something bad will happen?
And then ask yourself this: when was the last time you led from a regulated state instead of a reactive one?
The answer will tell you everything you need to know.
Jonathan Riley is a Survival Mode Specialist who helps high performing leaders stop surviving and start leading again. With 15 years as a licensed counsellor, he works at the nervous system level to create lasting change that tactics and willpower cannot. Book a Survival Mode Diagnostic at mypracticeleaders.com.au