05 From Overwhelm to Alignment: A Woman's Guide to Beating Burnout

Burnout Isn’t a Personal Failure—It’s a Leadership Signal | Joyfully Unstoppable Podcast

Are you constantly overfunctioning, emotionally drained, and wondering why your leadership role—something you used to love—now feels so heavy?

In this powerful kickoff episode of the Joyfully Unstoppable burnout series, leadership coach Becky Hamm reframes burnout not as a flaw, but as a flag—your mind, body, and spirit waving a red flag that it’s time to lead differently.

You’ll learn:
🌿 What burnout really looks like for high-achieving women
🌿 The hidden causes no one talks about (hello, people-pleasing + self-abandonment)
🌿 Why pushing through isn’t the answer
🌿 What sustainable leadership can actually feel like
🌿 How to begin moving from frantic to flourishing

✨ Ready to stop running on empty and start leading from alignment? This episode is your invitation to begin again—with more clarity, more capacity, and more joy.

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🏡 Explore Women Lead Well – Learn more about Women Lead Well and everything we offer

Transcript

0:04

Welcome to Joyfully Unstoppable, the podcast for women who were ready to lead boldly, live lightly, and reclaim their joy. Whether you're leading a team, a classroom, a boardroom, or your own big, beautiful life, I'm so glad you found us. Hi, I'm your host, Becky Ham, leadership coach, speaker and founder of Women Lead Well. After years of high level leadership, I discovered that success does not have to come at the cost of your peace, your values, or your wellbeing. Each week, we'll explore what it means to lead with clarity. Confidence and authenticity. Even in a world that tells you to hustle harder, to prove your worth, you carry a lot. Let's help it feel lighter. Today we are diving into something that I know many of us have faced, burnout. If you have ever said, I should be able to handle this or thought, what is wrong with me? I used to love this work. I want you to know you are not alone. I. And friend, you are not the problem. Burnout isn't a sign that you're weak. It's a signal, and it might just be the most important leadership signal you will ever get. So let's take a minute and let's talk about what burnout really is and what it looks like, especially in high functioning, high achieving women. It is not always dramatic or obvious. Sometimes it's subtle. You wake up and you are already tired. You used to care deeply, but now you just feel flat. The things that used to light you up, now, they just seem like items on a never ending to-do list, and even though you're still crushing deadlines and you're showing up for everyone else on the inside, you feel like you're barely holding it together. Burnout is emotional exhaustion. Disconnection from meaning. It is a constant sense of depletion and my friend, it doesn't happen because you're broken. It happens because you've been carrying too much for too long with too little support, too few boundaries, and too little room to breathe. Over on the blog I just posted about this concept called a body budget. It's amazing. It is from a neuroscientist, Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett. Now body budget refers to the brain's continuous effort to predict and regulate your internal systems. Things like your heart rate, your hormones. Blood sugar, immune response and more. In short, your brain is constantly managing the resources your body needs to survive and thrive. And now obviously this is not a conscious process. It's happening behind the scenes all day, every day. And just like a financial budget tracks income and expenses, your body budget tracks energy deposits and withdrawals. So everything you do. Every choice, interaction, and emotion either adds to your energy reserves or drains them. When your body budget is balanced, you feel grounded, alert, and capable. But when it's depleted, when you're in a chronic state of deficit, you feel scattered, reactive, overwhelmed, emotionally numb. This isn't about being weak or sensitive, it's biology. Your nervous system is signaling. We are at a reserve. So burnout is not a personal failure. It is a leadership warning light. Now, here's the part people don't often talk about. Burnout doesn't always come from long hours or high pressure roles. Those contribute, sure, but many women burnout for deeper quieter reasons. You might be burned out because you are constantly people pleasing saying yes when you want to say no. You're code switching to fit the environment or you're over identifying with your role, evaluating your worth with your output. You're leading from pressure and perfection, not purpose and peace. And here's the big one. Many of us. I have learned to lead by self abandonment. We tune out our own needs. We override our instincts. We ignore the tension in our shoulders or the knot in our stomach because there's work to be done and people to serve. We become so alienated from our authentic needs, desires, and values that we can't even tell you what they are anymore. That strategy has a cost. Over time, you lose touch with your own rhythm. Your nervous system stays in overdrive. Your body budget is in the red and your burnout deepens, and you can't just gut through it. And now you might be thinking, well, it's just a season. I just need to get through the next thing. Friend. That was my story too. For years, I told myself I just needed a better planner, a better system, a better strategy. Things would get better when our staffing shortage resolved itself, or once the next big project was behind us. No amount of productivity hacks can fix a pattern of self neglect. We got the staff we needed, but I was so addicted to over-functioning that I just found something new to add to my plate. Hear me when I tell you. You don't need a better planner. You need a better pattern. You might need staff too, but the truth is, burnout doesn't end when you check off the last box on your to-do list. It ends when you start treating yourself like a human being again. When you give yourself permission to rest, to feel, and to lead differently. And now I'm not just talking about resting on the weekend. I mean rest in your body, in your spirit, in your nervous system, because your nervous system is not a machine. We were not designed to run on urgency 24 7. So what does healing even look like? It looks like this. Like moving from over-functioning to energy alignment. I've got a handy mental load reset guide that can help with this. I'll link it in the show notes. It looks like trading self-doubt for self-trust and now that doesn't mean that you will always get it right. Perfect is a myth. Let it go, but it means that you can figure it out. You can adjust if needed and you can still get your job done. And healing looks like letting go of the need to prove showing up from presence and clarity. Your team does not need you to hustle. Your team needs you to be there fully as yourself because authentic and fully resourced beats pretend and strung out every single time. This is the work I've built into frantic to flourishing, a 12 week transformational journey for high achieving women who are ready to reclaim their time. Energy and joy. It's not about doing more. It's about leading from a place that feels like you. Again, in the program, we untangle the patterns that lead to burnout, perfectionism, people pleasing overextension, and we rebuild from the inside out. We create nervous system informed rhythms. We realign your time, values and voice. We help you come home to yourself again. So if you're tired of white knuckling your way through leadership, you're not alone and you don't have to keep doing it that way. Doors open later this summer. Subscribe to my newsletter, the confidence edit for the early bird special. Now, here's what I want you to remember as you move away to go on with your day, burnout isn't what happens when you're not strong enough. It's what happens when strong women keep going long after their wellbeing is depleted. You're allowed to lead differently. You are allowed to rest. You're supposed to rest. You are allowed to be deeply and fully human, even in high impact roles. So here's your takeaway prompt for today, friend. Where in your life are you white knuckling it? And what would it feel like to lead without proving? Or pushing, pretending or performing. Let that question sit with you, maybe journal on it. You might be surprised with what comes up. If this episode spoke to you, I would love for you to share it with a friend who's running on empty. We need more women leading from alignment, not adrenaline. And if you're ready to begin your burnout recovery journey, stay tuned. Frantic to Flourishing is coming later this summer. Just make sure you're on the email list so you don't miss the launch. You can also grab one of our free tools, like the Mental Load Reset I mentioned, or we have a weekly reset routine@womenleadwell.net. I'll link it in the show notes below. They are gentle, powerful ways to begin reclaiming your capacity because remember. Joyful, sustainable and authentic leadership is possible. You deserve it. You deserve to flourish. Until next time, I'm Becky Ham and this is Joyfully Unstoppable. Have a great week. Bye.