How to Escape Burnout and Boredom and Start Growing Again

• November 12, 2025

By Micah Salas

The dreaded “Producer Plateau.” Every producer hits it eventually. I hit mine around $1 million.

You’re not a rookie hustling for scraps anymore. But you’re also not at the top, sipping matcha in your $2 million corner office. You’re somewhere in the middle. Floating between $250,000 and $1 million in annual revenue. Maybe up one year, down the next. Always within spitting distance of the same number. It’s not failure. It’s more like stagnation.

And here’s the thing that’s weird about hitting the plateau: It doesn’t feel like you’re hitting a wall. It feels more like going through the motions. You start asking questions: Do I even like this job? What am I doing all this for? Is it too late to start my own boring business?

You’re not alone. I’ve been there. And I’ve talked with tons of other producers who’ve felt the same way. Burned out. Bored out of their minds. Still hungry, but not sure how to break through.

If you feel this way, here are five ways to change it:

1) Make it about more than you. To me, most plateaus aren’t technical. They’re emotional. Your “why” got fuzzy. You hit your income goal. Bought the house. Upgraded the car. Now what? The answer? Make it about something bigger than yourself, like your family or your vocation. When your work becomes a vehicle for something beyond just you, you start showing up different.

2) Leverage peer pressure and gamification. There’s nothing like a friendly competition to wake you up. One producer I know has a $5 weekly bet with a buddy: Whoever sets more meetings wins. That’s it. It’s not about the money, it’s about the scoreboard.

Gamifying prospecting brings back that competitive itch many of us had from sports. Leaderboards. Gongs. Championship belts. Cultivating an environment around you that creates fun competition. And yes, it might feel cheesy. But “cheesy” beats “burned out.”

3) Think bigger and build the system to support it. Most producers hit the plateau because their systems are built for where they were, not

where they want to go. Want to grow from $500,000 to $1 million? You’ll need systems for proactive renewals, not last‑minute chaos. Systems for pipeline building, not just scrambling during slow months. Systems for delegating service tasks so you can stay in sales mode. Remember, systems scale, willpower doesn’t.

4) Protect your energy or burnout will eat you alive. Here’s the hard truth: Saying yes to everything is the fastest way to hate this job. You need boundaries. Fire the clients who suck the soul out of you. Set expectations. Say no to revenue that isn’t worth the mental tax. Burnout doesn’t happen because you’re weak. It happens because you’re too generous with your time and too afraid to disappoint people.

5) Find a life outside of work. Get a hobby. Seriously. A colleague’s wife is a full‑time doctor, business owner and mother of five. She was drowning in obligations, so she started running to give herself an outlet. Now she’s chasing a Boston Marathon qualifier and feels more energized at work than ever, not less. For a lot of people, finding a physical or creative outlet outside of work creates margin inside it.

The plateau isn’t the end, it’s just another obstacle to overcome. Break through it and you’ll look back and realize it wasn’t an obstacle after all. It was just the edge of your comfort zone.

Micah Salas is senior vice president at Christensen Group Insurance in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.