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Why We Don't Need To Be Superhuman
Description
What if pushing ourselves harder isn’t actually helping us perform at our best?
In this episode of The Choice Space, Dr Lee David speaks with Dr Susie Muir, palliative care doctor and professional life and leadership coach, about why doing more, multitasking and pushing through exhaustion can undermine our performance – and what can help us work and live more effectively instead.
We look at why rest and recovery aren’t about lowering our standards, but can be essential for sustaining them. Understanding our own capacity, strengths and what gives or drains our energy can help us decide where to put our effort – rather than expecting ourselves to keep doing everything, all of the time.
We also consider what happens to our brains under pressure – why multitasking is really rapid task switching, how too much stress can affect memory, decision making and insight and why this can make it particularly difficult to recognise when we need to step away and recover.
Drawing on thousands of conversations with people approaching the end of life, the discussion widens to what success really means and what matters when we look back on our lives. Connection, everyday moments and making space for what we genuinely value can easily be lost when productivity and busyness take over.
This is a conversation about redefining high performance – not by achieving less, but by finding more sustainable ways to pursue what matters without expecting ourselves to be superhuman.
Key moments
01:08 Why we strive to be superhuman
04:46 Rest, recovery and performance
09:40 Why connection matters
11:44 Lessons from palliative care
17:28 Rethinking high performance
22:52 Strengths, values and priorities
25:40 Boundaries and saying yes
27:05 The problem with multitasking
31:52 How stress affects performance
36:25 Recognising signs of overload
42:45 Permission to be human
About Dr Susie Muir
Dr Susie Muir has been a doctor for 20 years and is dual trained in general practice and palliative care. She is also a professional life and leadership coach, focusing on leading ourselves in order to lead others. Drawing on her experience in healthcare and thousands of conversations with people at the end of their lives, Susie is determined to support people to perform at their best at home, at work and in life.
You can connect with Susie via her website, LinkedIn or Instagram
About the host
Dr Lee David is a GP, CBT therapist and author specialising in mental health and wellbeing. Lee has written many books on CBT, mindfulness and teen wellbeing, and speaks regularly at conferences and in the media. Away from work she enjoys running, hiking, singing in a choir and spending time outdoors with her family. You can find Lee through her website and on Instagram, TikTok (@dr.lee.david), Facebook and LinkedIn. You can find more about her books, wellbeing courses and therapy here: https://linktr.ee/dr.lee.david