The Adrenaline Trap

You're fifteen minutes into a discovery call and everything is clicking.

The prospect is leaning in. Your brain is sharp, words are rolling off your tongue, and the familiar happy ears are saying: “this one's going somewhere”.

You hang up. And instead of sitting with the win, you immediately pivot to the next thing. The CRM update. The Slack message you ignored. The forecast number that still isn't where it needs to be. O yeah - the follow-up email.

But those familiar happy ears? They didn't come from the quality of the call.

They came from the stress underneath it.

And right now, that stress feels like an asset. It feels like it drives focus. That drive is the thing that separates you from the people who “coast”.

But here's what twelve years in tech sales and hundreds of hours coaching AEs has taught me: 

stress-as-fuel has a shelf life. 

And most sellers don't realise it's expired until they're already sliding into the symptoms of burnout.

I've lived this pattern. Not once. Twice.

At my first major role, I hit 17 consecutive quarters over quota, earned three President's Club awards, and sold over £9.6m in five years. My mind was quiet. My execution was clean. I had a system for managing myself, even if I didn't call it that at the time.

Then I moved roles. COVID hit. Self-management dropped. The stress I'd been using as fuel turned on me. Burnout within nine months. I quit.

But here's where the penny dropped: 

I rebuilt. New company, back to basics. Self-management back on point.

Global number one seller in year one. Six quarters hit. President's Club again. Mind was quiet again.

Then I moved again, underestimated the environment, and stopped managing my internal operating system. The self-talk became unbearable. Eight months in, I had a severe panic attack.

Same person. Same skills. Same stress. 

Completely different outcomes depending on whether the internal system was managed or not.

That's the key lesson. 

Stress doesn't break you in one go. 

It breaks you when you stop regulating it and start relying on it instead.

So how do you know if you've crossed the line from useful pressure to corrosive stress?

Here are three signs.

Sign 1: You Can't Distinguish Between "Driven" and "Wired"

There's a difference between operating with intent and operating on cortisol.

Driven feels like direction. You know what matters today, you execute against it. You feel calm whilst in motion. Yet you stop when the work is done. 

Wired feels like frantic urgency. You're checking Slack at 9:47 PM not because anything's happening, but because your nervous system won't let you stop scanning. You refresh your inbox during dinner. You have conversations with loved ones whilst playing scenarios of work in your head. You lay in bed running pipeline and deal scenarios instead of sleeping.

The Yerkes-Dodson Law in psychology maps this precisely. 

Performance increases with mental arousal, but only to a point. 

Past the stress peak, every additional unit of pressure makes you slower, less creative, and more error-prone. You stop speaking with calm conviction. You begin to get in your own head.

The giveaway: you feel busy all day but can't point to real progress. You confuse being "online" with being effective.

What works for me: At the end of my workday, I write down three things that actually moved me forward that day. Not tasks I didn’t touch. No outcomes I didn’t get. 

For you: If you struggle to name three wins you had, you're probably wired, not driven.

Sign 2: Your Confidence Resets to Zero Every Quarter

This one's subtle because the sales world normalises it.

New quarter. New number. Slate wiped clean.

And instead of carrying forward the evidence of what you've built so far, your brain treats it like you're starting from scratch. 

The self-talk kicks in: Can I do it again? What if this quarter's different? What if the pipeline doesn't convert?

Your confidence isn't built on a foundation of historical successes. 

It's built on last quarters result alone. 

“You’re only as good as your last quarter” and all that.

That means confidence is conditional.

When you tie your identity to your sales number, every deal becomes existential. 

A slipped close date isn't a pipeline event. It's a personal threat. 

A quiet week isn't a natural rhythm. It's suddenly a sign worth panicking over.

This is what psychologists call performance-based self-worth. 

Your sense of being "enough" depends entirely on what you produce. And in a job where the scoreboard resets every 90 days, that's a recipe for a nervous system that never truly settles.

As one AE I coached described it: 

"I think I've done a really good job on that call and it's now out of my control. But in my head I'm already ten steps ahead - if this doesn't close, I'm not going to hit my target, I've got to stand up in my QBR and explain myself..."

The call went well. The anxiety runs anyway.

Tip: Start tracking daily evidence of who you're being, not just what you're producing. At the end of each day, ask: Did I show up as the person I wanted to be today? One honest answer builds more durable confidence than any closed deal.

Feels like admin, but it quietens the imposter that drives unhealthy amounts of stress.

Sign 3: Recovery Feels Like Guilt

This is the one that confirms the pattern.

You take a Friday off. Properly off. No laptop, no Slack, no "quick check" of the pipeline.

And within an hour, the guilt arrives.

I should be prepping for Monday. Other people are working right now. What if something came in that I missed?

So you pick up the phone. Not because you need to. Because the discomfort of doing nothing feels worse than the exhaustion of doing something.

This isn't discipline or motivation, or “wanting to win”. 

This is your nervous system stuck in survival mode.

A significant body of research shows that work-related digital communication during off-hours is strongly associated with increased work-life conflict, emotional exhaustion, and poorer sleep.

You're not gaining anything by staying connected. You're paying an emotional tax that’s invisible, but compounds every single week.

Gartner's research found that 89% of sellers report feeling burned out from work. And the pattern underneath almost always includes this: the inability to recover without feeling like you're falling behind.

Recovery isn't a reward for good performance. It's a prerequisite for it. A tired brain overthinks. A recovered brain executes with conviction. 

When you skip recovery, you're not being tough. You're borrowing from next week's capacity to pay for this week's anxiety. And that borrower's tax will bankrupt you eventually.

Try this: Choose one evening this week and make it non-negotiable. No work inputs after a set time. No exceptions. Notice the discomfort. That discomfort is the signal that your system needs recalibrating, not evidence that you should keep going.

The Pattern Underneath All Three Signs

If you recognised yourself in one of these, you're probably seeing it in all three.

That's because they're not separate problems. 

They're symptoms of the same root cause: 

an internal operating system running without a feedback loop.

The Sales L.O.O.P.™ Method exists to intentionally re-build that feedback loop. 

1. Listen to what's actually happening inside (not the story your stress is telling you). 
2. Organise around what genuinely matters this week. 
3. Optimise how you manage energy, mindset, and focus so the right actions become easier. 
4. Perform, measure, and repeat.

It's not about removing pressure. Pressure is part of the job. It will always be there.

It's about making sure pressure is at the right level for you. 

So it sharpens you instead of slowly wearing you down.

Read more: [Stop Trying to Grind Your Way to Quota (And Start Tuning the Machine)]

What Changes When the Stress Stops Running the Show

When you stop using stress as your primary fuel source, performance doesn't drop.

It stabilises.

You start having weeks where the work gets done and you still have energy left for your life.

Where a deal slipping doesn't send you into a two-day spiral of overthinking. 

Where you trust your own process enough to stop checking, rechecking, re-rechecking and second-guessing.

You become the AE who operates with calm confidence. Not because the pressure disappeared. Because you learnt to regulate it.

As Jim Rohn said:

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live”.

Your nervous system isn’t separate from your sales performance. 

It is your sales performance.

Stress was never the motivation. It was the warning light. Time to stop ignoring it.

Ready to See Where You Are And What You Can Do About It?

Stop guessing why the stress won't switch off.

Take the free Sales Reset Scorecard to see exactly where your energy, mindset, and focus are undermining your performance. 

You'll get a personalised breakdown of your results and a roadmap to start building calmer, more consistent weeks.

Stress won't regulate itself. 

But it can be managed, systematically.

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