Show Notes
Note: This is a re-release of one of our most-listened to episodes — originally recorded Autumn 2025. We've given it a new edit because it's more relevant than ever. If you know you need to do something about how you're feeling — but you keep telling yourself "not yet" — this is for you. We are very good at spotting danger in other people. Sepsis, red flags, a patient or client deteriorating. We act fast. With ourselves, we don't. We wait until it becomes catastrophic — a patient or client complaint, an error because our brain isn't working properly, our health going — before we give ourselves permission to act. This episode is about why doing nothing feels safer, why it isn't, and how to make the next step small enough you can actually take it. Not handing in your notice. One doable thing. Download the free Burnout Self-Assessment Toolkit — work through it as you listen: https://youarenotafrog.com/toolkit/ We cover: • Why we spot burnout and overwhelm in everyone else but not in ourselves • The three psychological traps that keep high achievers stuck: status quo bias, loss aversion, and sunk cost — including the thought "I've given 10 or 20 years to this, I can't stop now" • Why our ingrained programming tells us the misery we know is safer than the uncertainty we don't — and how that will affect your next decision, and the one after that • Why waiting has a cost too — your health, your relationships, your character — and why that cost keeps going up and can be devastating • How to decide your line before burnout decides it for you — your "kill criteria" — so you don't wait for catastrophe • How to make the next step small enough you can actually take it: one conversation you've been avoiding, one boundary, one phone call to a trusted person — shame shrinks when you speak it This episode is for you if you are a high achiever in a leadership role who has to have the conversation nobody else will, has to make the call someone disagrees with, or lies awake replaying a decision you had to make — and you can feel the heat building, but you keep telling yourself to keep going. Hosted by Rachel Morris | You Are Not a Frog - for high achievers who want to care deeply and carry less. Get weekly tools and episode notes by email: https://youarenotafrog.com/welcome More resources: https://youarenotafrog.com/ Burnout Self-Assessment Toolkit: https://youarenotafrog.com/toolkit/ #burnout #burnoutrecovery #highachievers Mentioned in this episode: 🟦 [FREE WEBINAR] How to Beat Burnout and Escape Burnout on Repeat
More from You Are Not A Frog
Have you ever lain awake replaying a conversation with a tricky colleague, wondering if you were the one completely out of order? If you're a high achiever in a leadership role, you know the dilemma - you don't want to be the bad guy, so you avoid the awkward chat, pick up everyone else's slack, and say yes when you mean no. Then it leaks out at the worst possible moment. In this fun episode I play Am I the A**hole? with Leanne and Al Elliott from Truth, Lies and Work. I read out workplace dilemmas and they give their verdicts - the nurse who keeps leaving early, the WhatsApp Work group from hell, the dreaded "can I have a quick word?", Gary the people-pleasing team leader, and yes, someone watching rather dodgy videos on a train. You'll come away with the exact words to use when you need to raise something, why "no, and..." beats a plain no, and why your job as a leader is not to be nice, it's to be clear. You'll also meet a new species we name in the episode: the accidental arsehole - where our ingrained programming tells us we have to please everyone all the time to feel good enough, so we duck the conversation and it will affect your next decision, and the one after that. Fair warning: fruity language in this one, so maybe not for the school run. And all scenarios are made up and stitched together from training stories - none is about anyone specific. Even if you've definitely got a Greta. We cover: Am I the a**hole? How the game exposes why caring leaders duck hard chats The colleague who leaves early: the exact curious words to open a difficult conversation without judgment The WhatsApp group row: why it's on you to set your boundary Gary the people-pleaser: Drama Triangle, rescuing, and the MoSCoW way to hand work back before leave "Heard, held or helped?", "no, and..." and "I can't now, but I can at..." - phrases that make saying no doable The accidental arsehole: how avoidance, not harshness, creates most workplace conflict
Have you ever felt ashamed or frustrated that you didn't know the answer? Not to a clinical question, but about your own life - what's next, what's wrong, why you feel the way you do? If you're the one everyone relies on, not knowing can feel like failing at the one thing you're supposed to be good at. This is a replay from 2024 I'm bringing back while I’m writing my book ‘How to Say No When Someone Might Die’. One of the things I keep coming back to in the book is how much of the load we carry isn't about the work at all. It's our ingrained programming that tells us we have to have the answer to feel good enough. And when we don't, it will affect your next decision, and the one after that. In this episode we revisit what to do when the furniture is shifting, and why wait and see can be a strategy. We cover: Why high achievers feel shame when they don't know what's next Shifting furniture - what to do when life is reconfiguring and you can't see where things will land Your left brain interpreter - and why it makes up catastrophic stories to feel safe Zone of Power - what is actually yours to carry, and what isn't Why wait and see is a valid, proactive strategy, not avoidance The next best action when you feel discombobulated
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You tell yourself that never letting anyone down is how you protect the people you love. But our ingrained programming tells us we have to please everyone all the time to feel good enough - and the people you love are the people who suffer most when you're stuck in the Responsibility Trap. They get the tired, thin version of you. If you lie awake worried you've upset someone, or feel guilty for saying no to something small like a dinner you can't make until November, this 20-minute Quick Dip will show you why that guilt isn't telling the truth, and what changes when you let the load go back to whose it actually was. We cover: The November dinner — and why answering honestly can feel like a failing Why for us a request arrives as an obligation with our name on it What over 600 professionals told us about lying awake worried they've upset someone The identity underneath it: I'm not the sort of person who lets people down What that identity costs at home and at work The village cricket team — guilt for saying no to a sport I don't even like The question that proves you already let people down every day — and the world kept turning If I'm not the woman who never lets anyone down, then who am I? And who says? What happens at home and at work when you stop carrying it all — including the reception team who stopped asking her first Two futures — and phrases to reach for when the guilt fires
Do you lie awake replaying a decision you had to make? That work anxiety loop where you can't stop thinking about work even when you are home? Maybe you've told yourself burnout is just the occupational hazard of this job. You've tried to put things in place — to leave on time, to say no more often — and you just can't seem to hold them. What if you are solving the wrong problem? It's not a work stress problem, but an identity one. Our ingrained programming tells us we have to tie who we are to how we perform to feel good enough, so when work dips, we dip. That pattern will affect your next decision, and the one after that. In this conversation we put clean language on what keeps you fused to work, and what real burnout recovery has to start with instead. I spoke to Nick Petrie, author of Burn Bright, about why the usual advice has not touched it for you, and what may help you carry it differently. We cover: Why burnout can feel like an occupational hazard — and why you may be solving the wrong problem What happens when you fuse your identity with work — you don't have a job, you are the job What he calls the Karman Line — the deliberate slow down between work and home that stops you crash landing Uncontrolled re-entry — why you walk through your own front door still in work mode Rumination vs reflection — why a patient or client complaint stays with you when you are emotionally fused to it Perform mode vs grow mode — why staying too long in perform mode leaves you exhausted. And bored. How to get more comfortable disappointing people you care about — and why that matters for recovery