2026 has barely begun, and you’re already exhausted.

I’ve been hearing the same thing on repeat for months now, from different people in different cities doing different work. The words change slightly, but the confession stays the same. They wait until they’re burnt out. Not as some tragic flaw they’re working on. Just as a fact of life, stated the way you’d mention you take your coffee black or prefer working in the morning.

Last year I heard every variation. Being tired of being tired. Completely spent. Cooked through. Running on fumes and fantasy. These weren’t lazy entrepreneurs looking for an excuse. These were high performers who’d operated on empty for so long that depletion felt like the default setting. The crash wasn’t a warning sign anymore. It was just Tuesday.

Half of all founders — 53 percent — experienced burnout in 2024. But here’s the part that should stop you cold: 73 percent of tech founders are experiencing what researchers now call shadow burnout — persistent exhaustion while still hitting their business targets.

Translation: you’re succeeding yourself to death.

Nearly 88 percent of entrepreneurs struggle with at least one mental health issue. The top five? Anxiety, high stress, financial worries, burnout, and impostor syndrome. The most common are anxiety, high stress, financial pressure, burnout, and impostor syndrome. And yet only 28 percent feel guilty when they try to take care of themselves.

Wait. Read that again.

You feel guilty for not running yourself into the ground.

Here’s what I noticed. They all followed the same pattern. Push through. Ignore the signals. Keep going until the body forces a stop. Recover just enough to restart the cycle.

And they all shared the same belief: “Once I get through this, I’ll rest.”

Deep down, you already know the hump never ends.

Marissa Mayer once said something that cuts uncomfortably close: “I have a theory that burnout is about resentment.”

So ask yourself what you’re giving up. Your sleep. Your relationships. Your sanity. Your Tuesday mornings without that knot in your chest.

Not a spa day. Not a vacation. Not self-care in the bubble bath sense.

What helped was learning to recognize depletion before the crash — and giving themselves permission to act on it.

One client, same pattern, same exhaustion, texted me after a few months: “I just said no to a project without explaining myself. That’s the shift.”

That was it.

Not a productivity hack. Just the ability to say “I’m drained” and actually do something about it — without guilt.

As therapist Ronen Dancziger put it: “You are allowed to rest before you’re exhausted. You are allowed to say no without justification. You are allowed to matter, even when you’re not productive.”

Read that last line again.

“No” is not a complete sentence. It’s a complete lifeline.

Author Holly Mosier learned this the hard way: “Until I learned to say no — and mean it — I was always overloaded by stress.”

Every “yes” when you mean “no” is a withdrawal from your energy account. Eventually, you overdraw. The fees are your health, your relationships, and your business.

You’ve tried the yoga retreats. The supplements. The journals. The crash still comes.

Because those are band-aids.

The real shift is learning to notice the drain early — and giving yourself permission to act on it before your body forces the stop.

➔ What if Tuesday didn’t have to mean crispy-fried?

➔ What if “I’m drained” was just information, not failure?

➔ What if saying no to the wrong things meant saying yes to the one thing that matters most — your ability to keep showing up?

The entrepreneurs who last aren’t the ones who push the hardest. They’re the ones who know when to pull back.

Before the body makes the decision for them.

You’re not too nice. You’re too afraid to honor your boundaries. But here’s the truth: the business needs you functional more than it needs you martyred.

So.

What’s one thing you’re going to say no to this week?