You Can Achieve Amazing Things Without Overriding Yourself

Yesterday, I ran the Jemez Mountain 15-mile trail race in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

I finished, though my smile belies the brutal finish for me.

Mountain races are humbling. Especially at elevation.

Before the race even started, I overheard some of the faster runners talking strategy. Pace targets. Splits. Nutrition timing. Competitive positioning.

Meanwhile, my strategy was simple:

Walk uphill.
Jog downhill.
See how I feel on the flats.

That’s it.

And honestly? That’s always been my strategy for mountain races.

I’ve learned to trust my body over the years. I know how it responds. I know what happens when I override it. I know what happens when I respect it.

So while other runners took off aggressively at the start, I stayed steady. Slow and consistent uphill. Relaxed downhill. No panic. No urgency. No trying to “keep up.”

I ran my own race.

At one point during the race, I realized I felt surprisingly good.

I was jogging most of the flat sections. I was passing runners on the downhill stretches. Nothing hurt except for a couple heel blisters. No knee pain. No hip pain. No ankle pain.

And most importantly, I wasn’t fighting myself mentally.

I felt present almost the entire race.

Then came the final three miles.

Earlier in the race, I had finished a long downhill section feeling strong and texted Andrew that I thought I’d be done in about 45 minutes so he could meet me at the finish line.

What I underestimated was how fatigued I actually was.

I knew there would be an uphill stretch at the end, but what I didn’t know was that the race finished with a brutal steep slot canyon climb straight up to the finish line.

At that point, I was exhausted.

Hot. Dehydrated. Running low on electrolytes.

And honestly? I was pissed.

There were girls cheering from the top of the canyon trying to encourage me, but instead of helping, it forced me to look up and see how far I still had left to climb.

It pulled me out of the present moment and into awareness of how hard the final stretch was going to be.

In that moment, the only thing that actually helped was lowering my head and putting one foot in front of the other.

Not overthinking it.
Not spiraling.
Not focusing on the entire climb.

Just the next step.

That experience stayed with me because it mirrors what I see so often with women law firm owners.

They’re already carrying a tremendous amount.

Responsibility. Decision-making. Staff issues. Client demands. Emotional labor. Financial pressure.

Then they hit a stretch where they think they’re almost “there.”

Maybe they finally hired the team. Maybe revenue improved. Maybe they’re more successful on paper than ever before.

But suddenly, they feel exhausted anyway.

And instead of staying grounded in themselves, they start looking too far ahead.

How much farther do I have to go?
Why does this still feel hard?
Shouldn’t I be handling this better by now?
Why does everyone else seem ahead of me?

That’s usually the moment people start overriding themselves.

They stop listening to their body.
They stop trusting their instincts.
They abandon their own pace.
They push harder instead of steadier.

But here’s what yesterday reminded me of:

You can achieve amazing things while still trusting yourself instead of overriding yourself.

I finished the race over 30 minutes faster than my goal time.

Not because I forced myself.

Not because I punished myself.

Not because I ignored my body.

I exceeded my expectations because I trusted myself throughout the race.

I honored my pace.
I stayed regulated.
I listened to my body.
I adjusted in real time.
I didn’t make the race mean something about me as a person.

That’s the work I do with women law firm owners every day inside the Identity OS Framework™.

Most high-performing women already know how to push.

What they don’t always know how to do is trust themselves enough to stop overriding themselves.

There’s a difference between expanding your capacity and abandoning yourself in the process.

One creates sustainable growth.

The other eventually creates exhaustion, resentment, and a life that feels heavier than it should.

You do not have to hustle yourself into the ground to build something extraordinary.

Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is trust your own pace and keep taking the next step.

If you’re a woman law firm owner who feels like your firm, your decisions, or your life still runs through pressure, over-responsibility, or constant internal tension, the Leadership Diagnostic is designed to help you identify the deeper pattern driving it.

You can learn more about the Diagnostic and the Identity OS Framework™ here: