You Were a Top Performer Before You Had Kids—Now What?

You were the go-to before the kids. Now you're anxious, stretched, and questioning your worth. What if you haven't lost your edge—just outgrown the game?

You might be thinking: “I used to be top performer.”

It sounds like a confession. A quiet admission that something was lost.

But maybe it’s not.

Let’s look at it clearly: what do we actually mean by “top performer”? And why does it feel like we’ve fallen when we stop being one?

The Reality Shift No One Warns Us About

We’re in our late twenties. No kids. Maybe no partner. Our schedule is our own. We can optimize our sleep, our workouts, our coding sprints, our calendar. We chase every challenge. We win most of them. We’re praised. Promoted. Our name comes up in skip-level meetings.

Then life expands. We get married. We have a child. Then maybe another. Sleep becomes fragmented. Our evenings are no longer our own. Our priorities start competing with each other—brutally and without mercy. We’re still smart, still driven, but we’re no longer optimized for output.

We’re no longer the top performers.

But here’s the catch: we didn’t become less. We became more.

Still, that transition doesn’t come clean. It comes with friction.

We start to second-guess ourselves. Feel guilty for saying no. Worry we’re slipping.

There's an identity crisis embedded in the shift—from being the always-on, always-there high performer to someone who's choosing their battles. It's disorienting. We miss the clarity of old goals, the feedback loops, the wins we could count.

Letting go of that old version of ourselves isn't just about time management—it’s about letting go of who we thought we had to be to stay valuable.