Burnout isn’t something that suddenly appears out of nowhere.
For many women in leadership, it builds quietly, alongside responsibility, care, and a deep sense of commitment to doing things well.
It shows up as constant tension.
A mind that won’t switch off.
A feeling of being stretched too thin, too often.
And while productivity tools and stress techniques can help at the edges, they rarely touch the heart of what’s going on.
What’s really driving the exhaustion
When I sit with women who are on the brink of burnout, the story is rarely about laziness, weakness, or not coping well enough.
It’s about the internal pressure they’re carrying.
Unspoken rules about what a “good leader” looks like.
A sense of responsibility that’s hard to put down.
The belief that if they stop holding everything together, something will fall apart.
I’ve lived this myself - juggling work, family, community roles - feeling busy and purposeful, yet constantly on edge. What shifted things wasn’t another system. It was starting to notice the stories I was living by, and how much they were costing me.
That awareness doesn’t fix everything overnight.
But it changes the direction you’re heading in.
Burnout isn’t just about workload
One of the biggest misunderstandings about burnout is that it’s simply the result of doing too much.
Often, it’s the result of how you’re doing it.
When you’re continually overriding your own limits - emotionally, physically, mentally - stress becomes the background noise of your life. Even rest doesn’t fully restore you, because the internal pressure never really switches off.
This is why self-care, as it’s usually talked about, often falls flat.
Self-care that actually supports leadership
For women in leadership, self-care is often framed as indulgent or optional - something you fit in once everything else is done.
In reality, it’s part of how you stay well enough to lead at all.
Not as a checklist.
Not as another thing to do “properly”.
But as a way of responding to what your system actually needs.
When self-care is personal, practical, and woven into real life, it stops feeling like an add-on and starts acting as a stabiliser.
Small things matter more than you think
One of the simplest shifts I’ve seen make a real difference is helping people identify what genuinely lifts them rather than what they think should.
I often talk about ‘Mini Lifters’ and ‘Big Lifters.’
Big lifters are the things that take a few minutes but change your state: stepping outside, music, quiet, water on your face.
Big Lifters take more time, but replenish you more deeply. For me, it’s the sea. Enough so that my husband jokes I should come with a label that says “just add water”.
These aren’t luxuries.
They’re ways of keeping yourself resourced enough to stay present.
A different way of approaching burnout
If leadership is starting to feel heavy, flat, or relentless, it may be worth pausing - not to push harder, but to look underneath.
At the stories you’re living by.
At what you’re repeatedly pushing past.
At what’s no longer sustainable, even if it once was.
Burnout doesn’t mean you’re failing.
It usually means something needs to change.
You don’t have to work this out on your own.
Support can help you slow down enough to notice what’s actually happening - and find a way forward that doesn’t cost you your health.