Feel Like You’re Falling Behind In Your Life and Career?
How to Find Your Stride and Start Thriving as a Highly Sensitive Woman (HSP) in a World That Isn't Designed for You.
Do you ever feel like you're constantly falling behind in life and work — like no matter how hard you try, you just can't seem to keep up — or catch up?
For many highly sensitive women (HSPs), the constant pressure to fit in, keep up and be like everyone else can be overwhelming, exhausting, and even paralysing.
You may feel anxious, exhausted, and weighed down by self-doubt. And you may even try to hide your sensitivity to fit in — but doing so leaves you feeling depleted, disconnected, and burned out.
Deep down, you wonder if something is wrong with you.
Why can't you seem to keep up like everyone else? Why do you feel like you're behind in life? And why does building a career or finding meaningful work seem forever out of reach?
If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. Many of us have felt the same way, struggling to keep up in a world that seems to move too fast, is too loud, and is obsessed with hustle-culture, comparison and instant gratification.
And most importantly, it's not your fault! The world we live in isn't designed for sensitive creatures like us, and that's okay. It's not a reflection of your worth or abilities.
Your sensitivity is not a weakness. Nor is it a flaw that's holding you back.
✨It's a gift! ✨
And once you learn how to embrace and work with it instead of against it, it can become your greatest strength. Your secret sauce. Your Patronus. You can stop comparing yourself to others, start trusting your intuition more to create the life, career and relationships you've been longing for. This shift in perspective can be truly life-changing.
Imagine living without guilt or shame or feeling like you have to hide behind a mask.
Imagine having the clarity, determination and resilience to swing for the fences and make your wildest dreams your reality.
In this post, I'll share three life-changing strategies to help you tap into your strengths as an HSP so you can jump off the hamster wheel of coping and surviving and start thriving.
Ready? Let's dive in.
Reinvent Your Core Beliefs.
If you're a highly sensitive woman, chances are you were a highly sensitive little girl and grew up hearing things like "you're too emotional…", "you're overreacting…", "stop crying, you need thicker skin…", "just toughen up…", and "jeez, just get over it already!..."
Whether it was your parents (ouch! 💔), siblings, teachers, and even friends who thoughtlessly hurled those daggers at you, they likely believed they had your best interests at heart.
You know, 'gentle, loving, character-building encouragement'…
But when you're a small child, your brain is still developing and not yet capable of complex interpretation. Your thinking is quite literal, and you're understanding of the world is filtered through your feelings. All that character-building encouragement lands more like painful emotional attacks. And for those born highly sensitive, it pierces even more deeply, more profoundly.
I remember how my throat would tighten and my chest would hurt when I was teased for being "a big crybaby!" (i.e. too sensitive). My entire body would tremble — not with anger, but with a sadness so deep my body ached, struggling to contain it. At five years old, I experienced the intensity of my sadness as physical pain.
Because HSPs process information and stimuli more deeply, it's not uncommon for intense emotions to manifest as physical sensations.
And after years of those hurtful messages on repeat, it's easy to start believing that your sensitivity is an inconvenience and a problem, not just for others, but for you, too.
The painful words and emotions don't just disappear once you reach adulthood.
(Oh! If only we could outgrow all the shitty things said to us in childhood!…)
They go underground, embedding themselves into your subconscious mind and sinking deep into the crevices of your already super-sensitive nervous system.
They shape painful core beliefs — that your sensitivity is a personal flaw, something that makes you weak, something to hide and be ashamed of. That you're not strong enough, capable enough, or 'good enough'. That you’ll never measure up. That you're difficult and even unlikable. 😔
Left unchecked, these core beliefs can keep you stuck in cycles of low self-worth, self-doubt, imposter syndrome, people-pleasing, and perfectionism — self-protective coping mechanisms your subconscious mind developed to shield you from more emotional and psychological pain.
But they also prevent you from fully showing up in your life, at work, and in your relationships by keeping you tucked safely in your comfort zone, avoiding healthy risks, and stymying your growth.
Here are a few examples of the core beliefs that lurk beneath the surface of our self-protective coping behaviours.
Imposter syndrome: “If I keep myself separate and alone, no one will see how vulnerable I really feel and they can’t hurt me.”
People pleasing: “If I work really hard to make you happy, you’ll like me, right?. And I’ll be safe because you won’t hurt me.”
Perfectionism: “If I do it right, make no mistakes, impress you, I’m bulletproof! You can’t criticise or hurt me. If I'm good (aka, perfect), I’ll be worthy of love and acceptance.
Self-doubt: “I’m too much for some. Not enough others. I’ll twist myself into a pretzel trying to figure out who and what I’m supposed to be — but I’ve lost track of who I am in the process.
Many of us are unaware that we carry these core beliefs about ourselves. We spend most, if not all, of our energy and time managing the chaos and damage they create in our daily lives.
To heal our wounded core beliefs, we have to interrupt them at their root and replace them with healthier, more supportive ones.
The first step is to embrace and respect your sensitivity. To do that, you'll have to let go of some of the self-protective beliefs and behaviours that have helped you cope but kept you in survival mode for most of your life.
Inside Break Free, a coaching and hypnotherapy framework I designed specifically for highly sensitive women (HSPs) who feel stuck or like they're falling behind in life, I help you get to the root of your most destructive beliefs and uproot them.
We focus on:-
Challenging your "not enough" story — or stories — and using a powerful blend of hypnotherapy and coaching to rewrite them, replacing them with new, empowering truths, you can build the life and work you want.
Reframing sensitivity as a strength. We dig deep into how your empathy, intuition, and creativity are talents and skills that make you uniquely awesome and invaluable. Most HSPs tend to overlook these qualities because they're innate and effortless, but what the world desperately needs right now!
Balancing your nervous system. This is a foundational part of Break Free. A calm and balanced nervous system is essential for your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing. I teach self-hypnosis, body scanning, breathwork and visualisation techniques to help you calm, nurture and sustain a healthy nervous system. It's so much easier to focus on creating the life you want when you have powerful and practical tools to help you manage overwhelm and anxiety when they sneak up on you.
✨You are already enough, exactly as you are. ✨
Uprooting old, unhelpful stories and beliefs that are getting in your way or keeping you stuck, and embracing your sensitivity, is not about becoming someone else. It's about becoming fully you.
2. Reclaim Success on Your Terms.
Many highly sensitive women believe that having a fulfilling career, healthy relationships, and the freedom they yearn for are out of reach because they struggle to cope with the demands and pressures of modern work environments.
This belief can feel overwhelming and disempowering — keeping you stuck in a cycle of self-doubt, hopelessness and frustration.
Not only is this untrue — it's an exhausting way to live for HSPs. 😮💨
Here's what Emma, an HSP in her late thirties, shared with me:-
"I've given up on finding a job that works for me. Where I feel like I belong. I've had five jobs in two years, and every time I have to find something new because it's too noisy, or bright or frenetic, the work is too stressful, there's too much pressure, or my co-workers are horrible to me… I feel more and more like I'm failing, like a failure, like I just can't cope. It feels like time is slipping away, and I'm getting further away from building a successful career and finding the purpose and stability I want. Being highly sensitive sucks! I don't know what to do anymore."
If you've ever felt like Emma did, the setbacks you've faced don't mean you're oversensitive. You haven't missed anything, and you're not doing anything wrong.
These experiences are part of your story. And they're invaluable clues to finding the right path and purpose for you.
Following your curiosity and discovering that a particular field or profession is not the right fit for you is not a waste of time or energy. Nothing is wasted when you're engaged, learning and growing.
Clarity is found in action, not overthinking. Taking action toward your goals — even if they change — is more useful than getting it 'right'.
Seeing your past experiences — whether it's unfinished degrees, job changes, or career missteps as your unique path of growth and evolution will help you recognise how resilient you are, and the unique set of skills and knowledge you've gathered along the way.
Think about how you can rewrite the meaning you've given these experiences?
For HSPs, who are driven by a need for purpose more than prestige or wealth, it's helpful to consider how you're defining success.
Are the expectations you set for yourself yours, or were they set for you by someone else?
Fulfilling your need for purpose while prioritising self-care — having sufficient rest, a balanced nervous system, a gentler pace of life, deep connections, and the space and energy to nourish your mind and soul with the beauty and creativity it craves — is possible.
Here's how I guide my clients through this process:
Reclaiming success by unpacking 'failure'. We dig into how you've been defining "failure". What you perceive as failure or a mistake is often evidence of your strength and resilience.
Anchoring into values. Instead of chasing approval, I help you define your core values and use them as your compass. We focus on choices that align with your deepest values — like creativity, integrity, or connection. The question becomes: "Does this align with who I am?" not "Am I good enough for them?"
Tapping into your creative subconscious. Using hypnotherapy, we explore your deeper desires and help clarify what you truly want. Whether that's a career change, starting a business, or something entirely different, your subconscious mind holds the answers. From there, we can create an action plan specific to your needs and goals.
Meeting your future self. I teach a "future self" practice that helps you connect with the version of yourself who has already created a soul-aligned career and life, and is thriving. This practice can be life-changing because it makes what may feel impossible at the moment familiar and achievable. (I've come to think of my future self as a mentor — whose intuition and guidance I trust over anyone else's.)
Identifying your purpose becomes much easier when you allow your sensitivity to help you define what success looks and feels like to you. Your values then become the finely calibrated compass that keeps you on course when life or distractions inevitably try to push you off course.
✨Everything you want — and need! — is available to you. ✨
But you may have to let go of your ideas about what success is supposed to look like, and allow yourself to reimagine what it can be.
Doing so is as liberating as it is cathartic for sensitive creatures.
3: Practice Self-Compassion to Build Meaningful Connection.
One of the hardest parts of being an HSP is feeling like you don't fit in.
You may have struggled to connect at work or even within your family. That loneliness can be painful, and it often stems from being repeatedly told, and eventually buying into the belief that your sensitivity makes you "too different."
Well, the fact is, you feel different because you are different.
Your brain literally functions differently from non-HSPs. With higher neural activity in areas related to processing information and emotions, you are hardwired for more elaborate and detailed processing of internal and external stimuli, experiencing and expressing your feelings more intensely, and noticing details others would typically miss.
Add to that a nervous system that is hyperaware and highly responsive, and you are also more resilient, adaptable and intuitive than non-HSPs. Skills that make you uniquely equipped for leadership roles and careers that call for creativity and empathy — precisely what the world needs more of! And the same skills we learn to suppress, avoid, and even reject because they've brought us all the wrong kinds of attention.
It's no coincidence that many highly sensitive women struggle with low self-worth and low self-esteem when they've been shamed, ridiculed, made to feel like a burden, or like they're "too much."
That's why the third strategy is all about building a self-care practice grounded in radical self-compassion and self-acceptance.
The relationship you have with yourself is the template for every other relationship in your life. And you can't build trust and authentic connection with others if you're secretly disparaging and undervaluing yourself.
Inside Break Free, we:
Practice self-compassion and self-acceptance as part of deep self-care. Instead of trying to "fix" yourself, you'll build and grow self-trust — the true foundation of resilience and confidence.
Stop seeking approval from others and focus instead on healing your relationship with yourself. When your relationship with yourself is healthy, you'll align with and attract healthier relationships, work opportunities, and environments with more ease.
Celebrate your strengths, talents, and how far you've come — not as an exercise in narcissism, but as a reminder of how resilient and adaptable you already are. This becomes the springboard for creating a life that truly lights you up without the stress and burnout.
✨I believe highly sensitive women aren't meant to fit in or blend in. ✨
You're built to stand apart — head, heart and sensitive soul above the crowd in the best possible ways.
You Might Be Wondering…
"But what if I've been this way my whole life? Can I really change?"
Yes, you can. Your sensitivity isn't the problem — it's how you've been taught to see it.
Once you start believing that you're enough precisely as you are and start practising self-compassion, everything shifts. With the right support, tools, and guidance, you can rewrite unhelpful beliefs and finally feel at home in your own skin.
What matters is the choice you make today about who you want to be, and the life you want to create for yourself with the extraordinary gifts your sensitivity — your quiet power! — affords you.
Summing it all Up
You are a highly sensitive woman, and your sensitivity is not a weakness; it is your greatest strength and secret weapon. By:
Rewriting your "not enough" narrative and reinventing your core beliefs,
Claiming success on your own terms, and
Practising radical self-compassion and self-acceptance,
You can break free from survival mode and create a life and career that feel aligned, meaningful, and fulfilling.
Imagine the relief of no longer having to mask your sensitivity, the confidence that comes from deep self-trust, and the joy of pursuing work and relationships that truly resonate with you.
✨That life is possible!✨
Stop surviving. Start thriving!
I hope this post has given you deeper insight into how the core beliefs that you’re not enough, you don’t fit in, and your beautiful sensitivity is holding you back from the life and career you really want are at the root of why you may be feeling stuck or like you’re falling behind.
It’s not your fault!
If you're exhausted from trying to keep up, toughing it out, forcing yourself into jobs that don't work for you, I get it. I’ve been there. You’ve been doing your best with the tools you have.
But it’s time for a different approach.
When we work together 1:1 inside Break Free, I’ll help you:
Embrace your sensitivity as the powerful asset it truly is.
Identify and rewrite the false beliefs that are keeping you stuck.
Calm, balance and nurture your nervous system.
Build self-trust and resilience with practical tools you can use every day.
Create clarity and a plan for the meaningful, values-driven life and career you dream about.
You don’t have to figure this out on your own. I’ve got you!
🌿 Let’s close the gap between where you are… and where you actually want to be.
👉 Let’s talk — click here to book your no-obligation discovery call.
