21 Burnout Recovery for Women Leaders

From Frantic to Flourishing: A Journey to Sustainable Leadership

If you’ve ever felt like success is costing you your peace, your health, or your joy, you’re not alone. Burnout isn’t a personal failure. It’s a signal. And the good news? You can respond to that signal and begin to flourish.

In this episode of Joyfully Unstoppable, I share why I created Frantic to Flourishing, my personal journey through burnout, and the powerful transformation women experience when they move from frantic to flourishing. We’ll walk through the ACE Model -- Awareness, Capacity, Embodiment -- and how group coaching, community, and a proven curriculum come together to create sustainable change.

This isn’t about hustling harder. It’s about learning to lead boldly, live lightly, and reclaim your joy.

What you’ll hear in this episode:
🌟 Why burnout isn’t a personal weakness; it’s a leadership signal
🌟 My “why” for creating Frantic to Flourishing
🌟 What flourishing looks and feels like for women in leadership
🌟 The ACE Model (Awareness, Capacity, Embodiment) explained in simple, practical terms
🌟 How coaching, community, and curriculum support real transformation

If you’ve been running on empty and wondering if it’s possible to lead with more joy, authenticity, and sustainability, the answer is yes. And this episode will show you how.

#WomenInLeadership #BurnoutRecovery #AuthenticLeadership #SustainableLeadership #ConfidenceForWomen #LeadershipCoaching #WomenEmpoweringWomen #WomenWhoLead #Burnout

Joyfully Unstoppable—helping women reconnect with what matters most.

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Transcript

0:06

Welcome to Joyfully Unstoppable, the podcast for women who are 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 am so glad you found us. 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 doesn't have to come at the cost of your peace, your values, or your wellbeing. Each week we'll explore what it means to lead joyfully, sustainably, and authentically. Even in a world that tells you to hustle harder, improve your worth, you carry a lot. Let's help it feel lighter. Now, I wanna start today with a question. Have you ever reached the end of a week, maybe even the end of a day and thought. Oh, I'm exhausted and I still don't feel like I did enough. Maybe you're running from one meeting to the next, juggling deadlines, managing your team, keeping your family afloat, trying to stay on top of your own health, somewhere in that middle of it. All right, and I have just recently entered, the fifties and, for those of us in our forties and fifties battling perimenopause and all of the health changes and energy changes right on the outside. You're holding it together. You are successful, but on the inside you're fraying at the edges and maybe you're running on some fumes. And if that sounds familiar, I want you to hear this one. You are not alone. And more importantly, I want you to know that burnout. Is not some personal failure. It's not that you can't handle the success that you've been given or that you can't operate at the level you've been operating at. Burnout is simply a signal. It's a signal that the way you've been operating is no longer sustainable and probably, maybe potentially the way you've been operating isn't actually authentic to who you are. And I'm gonna tell you that that is really good news because if burnout is a signal, if you've been operating in a way that's not sustainable or operating in a way that's not authentic, well, that means that you can change and the way you change makes your leadership actually sustainable. In actually authentic. You can recover from burnout. You can lead in a way that doesn't cost you your peace, your health, or your joy. And I know this right? Like this isn't some hypothetical or academic intellectual knowledge for me. I know it'cause I've lived it, right? I've talked about it before on this podcast and in other places. For years I was the overachiever. And that was how I defined myself. I defined myself as the person who always did more and therefore was more successful. And you know what? I was pretty stink and successful. I believed that if I just worked harder, if I just said yes more often, if I just proved myself over and over again and in the environment where I was working, there was that every couple of years there was a new cycle, a new group of people who were coming into the organization, and so I had to prove myself over and over again. So I thought, and I believe that if I did that. Then eventually I would feel secure. I would feel confident I would be fulfilled. But y'all, I'm here to tell you instead, what I felt was exhausted. I wore the mask of accomplishment, the mask of competence while inside I was so tired physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And I reached a point where all the strategies that had worked for me in the past, the over-functioning, the hustling, the pushing through, the time management hacks, right, the project management hacks, that they weren't working anymore. In fact, they were harming me. And I realized I had this insight that changed my life and that insight. Success is not sustainable if it costs you your wellbeing. And I mean this like to push the insight a little bit for success is not success if it costs you your wellbeing. And so that's why I created my 12 week signature program, frantic to flourishing, because I don't want any other women to have to wait until they're at the breaking point like I was to find another way to be. I wanted to create a path, a structured, supportive journey so that amazing women who wanted to succeed, who have drive and ambition and really meaningful things to contribute to the world that those amazing women could recover from burnout, reconnect with their values and voice, and lead with confidence and joy. I want every woman to experience sustainable success. And so what we're gonna do on the podcast today is I'm just gonna talk to you about frantic, flourishing and, and what burnout recovery. Could be for you and I wanna be super clear, I'm not selling the program. If you wanna sign up, that's great. There'll be a link in the show notes where you can, through 9:00 PM on October 13th. So we've got like a week left before we kick off, but once our first group coaching call goes on October 14th, doors are closed and it's not gonna reopen until a year from now. It'll be next fall when I launch it again. I had thought about launching it in the spring and it, the timing just didn't work out. So if you were suffering from burnout, if you were feeling every day, like you just have to fight through the day to get to the end of it, to fall asleep, exhausted to wake up, exhausted. Well then the next 15 minutes, I'm talking to you sweet friend, and maybe it's a good investment for you at this time. Maybe it's not you grown woman, you make that decision, but I just wanna make sure that I can tell as many people as possible about frantic to flourishing. 2025 has been such a painful year for so many women and I just want as many women as possible to have the support they so richly deserve. So. Here is the bottom line about frantic flourishing, that the program isn't about fixing you. Why? Because you don't need fixing. It's about giving you the tools, the space, and the support to flourish in your leadership roles and in your life. So let's take a second and let's talk about what flourishing actually means. I was very intentional when I named this program Flourishing. Looks like waking up with energy instead of dread. Flourishing means leading your team with clarity, with calm, energetically. I mean, I'm, I am the energizer bunny, but I can be calm and energetic at the same time, right? And this is different from spinning in a cycle of self-doubt or constant reactivity. Flourishing means having the confidence to say yes to the opportunities that align with your values and the courage. To say no to the ones that don't. Flourishing means moving from proving yourself every stinking day to trusting yourself. From people pleasing to leading authentically from hustle and exhaustion to rhythms that actually sustain your energy and your joy. And again, because we're talking about leadership rhythms that sustain your energy and enable your team to sustain theirs. When you are flourishing, you are not just surviving the week. You're not just grinding out another day. You're showing up fully as the leader that you are called to be without betraying yourself in the process. I have watched women make the shift. I myself have made the shift and it is so powerful. Women go from frantic. Always chasing, always tired, always. Um, feeling like they need to catch up to flourishing, confident, grounded, aligned, joyful. And I want you to know that it isn't a pipe dream. It is absolutely possible. So how do we get there? What does that journey look like? I built frantic to flourishing around a model I call ace, awareness, capacity, and embodiment. It's simple, but it's powerful. Awareness is the first step. Before we can change anything, we have to see it clearly, and that means noticing the patterns that keep you stuck. Maybe that's perfectionism, overcommitting, tying your worth to your output, right? Approval seeking awareness is about identifying your burnout signals. The quiet or loud ways that your body and mind are telling you something needs to shift, and it's about doing that with compassion and curiosity, not judgment. So for the first month of frantic flourishing, we really are building our awareness of where we are, where we might be over functioning, where we're people pleasing, what, what stories our inner critic are telling us to keep us stuck in this cycle of over functioning and people pleasing and approval seeking, we get really clear on what feeds us, what gives us energy, so our energy engines. As well as our energy drains, our energy leaks, or this time of year, it's October, our energy vampires what sucking energy out of us, and we spend time in that first month getting really clear on our unique values, what matters most to me. And so there is inside the program, I'm always very clear there is a hard no should rule. I don't care what you should want. I don't care what you should value, what should matter most to you. It don't matter what actually does matter most to you. And once we've built that awareness or that clarity of ourself and who we are and what drives us and motivates us and hinders us. Then in the second month, we move to capacity. Burnout at its core is a capacity issue. We're carrying more than our systems and our body, our mind, our nervous system can sustain. So this part of the program is about rebuilding your capacity, not just to do more, but to do what matters most. So we focus on nervous system regulation. I get real clear about finding the nervous system regulation techniques that work best for you and who you are as an individual. We get real clear on how you respond when your nervous system becomes dysregulated, right? That's that fight flight, fawn, and freeze. We talk about boundaries, how to set them, why to set them. We talk and how to maintain them, how to hold them once you've set them. We talk about energy management, we talk about delegation and how delegation really truly is a leadership tool that makes you a better leader and builds necessary skills in your team. And we do all of that to help you navigate complexity without running yourself into the ground. So we are growing your capacity to experience. Joy to experience ease, to experience sustainable success, so that as you make these changes, as you set the boundaries, as you delegate tasks, as you start to say no to those energy vampires, you feel safe doing it so you don't self-sabotage. Because how often does that happen? You know you need to change. You start to make changes. The changes are uncomfortable and so magically something comes up that causes you, provokes you to revert back to those old broken patterns. No ma'am, we're not doing that anymore. We're gonna do it different. And that's what we do in the capacity section. And now finally, this last month is embodiment. This is where the transformation really becomes lasting. Here's where we're talking about the identity change. It's not just knowing what to do, it's living it out, right? It's that you go from the mind knowledge, and so awareness is about. Changing the brain, right? What we know about ourselves. Getting clear. The capacity building is about the body, right? Regulating your nervous system and and expanding the ability for your body, your mind, and your body together to experience. Ease and rest and feel like it's safe. Feel like your world's not gonna fall apart if you set a boundary or say no to something now. Embodiment is the identity. That's where we're pulling it all together, and where you become the woman who leads sustainably, leads authentically. Not because you're trying to do it, not because you're learning how, but because you have become that woman, the woman who does the thing. And you're still thinking, right? Your mind is still involved, your body's still involved, but it is a deeper shift, and that's where we go in month three, that you really are the leader. You have always wanted to be confident, joyful, and aligned. And we get there by figuring out the rhythms and systems that uniquely support your success. And making the changes you need to make to incorporate those rhythms and systems into your actual life. And then we practice together in community. It's the beauty of frantic flourishing is you're not doing this alone. We've got weekly group coaching, and then we have a community group where you can bounce ideas off of other women who are going through the same transformation you are. Get their encouragement and their support. Get their accountability right? Hold yourself accountable to these lovely women. And we get to all do it together until it becomes your natural way of being It's part of that identity shift. And so let me take a second at this point and let's talk through those different pillars of support that it isn't just you purchasing this program that you're gonna forget to log into and watch the videos. No. Four pillars of support. The first is group coaching. We have weekly group coaching sessions where we dive deep into the work together. And I wanna be super clear about this. Anyone who has coached with me one-on-one, you know this, but for everybody, coaching is not about me giving you answers. That's not my job as a coach. That is a disservice to you. Coaching is about asking powerful questions and creating space for you to discover the answers that you have that are best suited for you. Nobody knows you better than you, Who am I to tell you how to live your life? But in these group coaching calls, we all come together. Share our challenges, our concerns, share our wins, And through the conversation and the questions that we ask, it prompts the reflection to help you take your next step. Support. Number two, community. You'll be surrounded by women who get it, women who are also high achieving, also incredibly accomplished. Also, navigating leadership in formal and informal ways. And who are all committed to doing it in a healthier, more authentic way. There is something deeply healing about realizing that you are not the only one, That you, you can journey together with a small cohort of amazing women. And we do that in a private Facebook group, support number three. Is in fact the curriculum. I mean, I spent a good chunk of time over this summer designing a very structured curriculum that combines reflection, exercises, practical tools, step-by-step guides. It bridges that gap between insight and action. So you're not just inspired, you're actually changing the way that you lead and. By extension, the way you live and because it's burnout recovery. Look, these are not like hour long. They're not 30 minutes long. I'm talking short. 10, 15. I think one or two might be 20 minutes, but they are bite-sized videos to give you what you need so you can start taking action today. And when you add all of the videos and all of the action exercises up, you're talking about an hour, maybe an hour and a half worth of work to do for the curriculum side a week. And then the coaching call is an hour. And then however much time you wanna spend in the community group. All of this has been created with the busy woman in mind. All of it has been created to support your actually completing the program in a way that sets you up to break up with burnout. And then support. Number four is integration. We build in time to pause and reflect and celebrate progress. We lock in our wins. Because real transformation doesn't happen in a rush. It happens in those small, consistent choices you make to honor yourself. That's the beauty of compound interest when it comes to our investments or our savings account, and that's the beauty of compound interest when it comes to personal change. And so, for those of you who might be thinking and looking at the calendar, three months, that's gonna take us to the holidays. Well, we are gonna take a pause for the week of Thanksgiving and we're taking a pause the last two weeks of the year. Everything about this program is constructed to make your life easier. to help you break up with burnout and make meaningful change towards sustainable success. We are not gonna barrel through the holidays. That ain't fun. That's not fun. I mean, if it's fun for you, then yay, do it. But that's not fun for a lot of us. It's certainly not fun for me. And so that integration, that giving is time to really lock in. The winds, savor the progress that we're making. We do not have to rush. All of this together is how women move from frantic to flourishing. It is not a productivity hack. This is not 12 weeks of time management. We're gonna talk about your time and what suits you, right? The rhythms and systems that support you best. but this is not just time blocking. Yay. Good luck. You will see the transformation through a deep shift in how you see yourself, how you identify as a leader, and you're gonna see this transformation throughout all facets of your life. And so I want you to know this. If you are listening today and you feel stretched thin, if you feel exhausted, if you feel like maybe on the edge of burnout. Maybe you have driven right over the edge. There is hope. You do not have to keep living this way. I know it feels like the only option is to push through. I know it can feel like you can't stop because everyone depends on you. But here's the truth. You do not have to wait until you are at the end of your rope to change. You absolutely can choose flourishing now, and you can break up with burnout by New Year's. And look, maybe your first step is not joining this program. Again, nobody knows you better than you know you. You know what works best for you. Maybe your first step is something small. Maybe it's saying no to a commitment that doesn't align. Maybe it's taking a real rest without guilt, taking an actual day to rest your body and your mind. Maybe it's simply admitting to yourself, I'm burned out and I deserve better. That's an important acknowledgement. Again, we capture our wins. If you're at the point where you can say that that is a win, it means you're ready to change. And so wherever you are, I want you to know this. You are capable of more than surviving. You were made to flourish. Now if you're curious about frantic to flourishing, I'll drop a link in the show notes. You can learn more, see if it's the right next step for you. You can even book a call with me if you wanna talk through, the program in greater detail. I can answer any questions you've got, but whether you step into this journey with me or not. My hope is that you take today as permission to believe that burnout recovery is possible, that flourishing is possible for you and sweet friend. I'm gonna go a step further and I'm gonna say that flourishing is intended for you. You are created to flourish and you can. Now 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 don't forget to like and subscribe. You can also grab one of our free resources like the Mental Load Reset or the Values Clarification exercise@womenleadwell.net and LinkedIn, the show notes below. Remember. Joyful, sustainable and authentic leadership is possible, and you deserve to enjoy every minute of it. Until next time, I'm Becky Ham, and this is joyfully unstoppable.