#friedguides Why Your Burnout Recovery is Stuck (and How to Unstick It)

“You’re going to have to surrender and have patience and be ready and willing to be annoyed.” On today’s episode of FRIED, Sarah Vosen and Cait review some of the common reasons why your burnout recovery may not be working, or not working as fast as you’d like. First off—you may be overdoing it, which is the exact kind of perfectionistic approach that burned you out in the first place. You have to be open to doing things differently and going at a slower pace than you may be used to. If you’re expecting to make progress using the usual self-care tricks on Instagram and TikTok, you’re in for disappointment. Instead, Cait and Sarah will share with you what will actually get you back on track to the other side of burnout.

Burnout recovery is a convalescent period. Your environment—physical, home, work, family, and relationships— can make or break your process. Sarah and Cait will explain how to put yourself first, why treating yourself in the smallest ways makes a world of difference, and why you shouldn’t do this alone. Sarah will share the physiological change that she describes as “miraculous” and that sped up her recovery journey overnight, and reveal the emotional state that has recently been determined to be worse for your health than smoking. 

You have to believe there is another, better life waiting for you once you recover from burnout. Join Cait and Sarah as they help you remove the obstacles that may be blocking your path. 

Quotes

• “The recovery mode is a healing process. There’s a lot of repair that needs to occur to your body, mind, and spirit in the very beginning. You have to basically convalesce. That’s a tough one to go from running on adrenaline to convalescing. So it’s going to feel like shit, and it’s going to be awkward, and you’re not going to like it and you might not be able to do it at first.” (7:14 | Sarah Vosen and Cait Donovan) 
• “It’s too big of a jump. You go from not having yourself in the equation of your life to trying to be Number 1 in your life? It’s too much change at one time. There’s too much guilt involved in that, there’s too much fear of disappointing all those people you’ve been trying to help for all those years. You’re worried they’re all going to turn on you and so there’s all this negative reinforcement in your mind about giving yourself what you need.” (9:58 | Sarah Vosen)
• “Small environmental changes, you might not think they matter that much, but they are critical.” (20:56 | Cait Donovan)
• “We talked about ‘other care.’ Sometimes you have to outsource some of this—and not just coaching and therapy—the physical care of your body has to be outsourced to someone.” (28:31 | Cait Donovan)
• “Loneliness increases your risk of mortality by 40 percent. I could not believe that statistic when I heard it. Loneliness is now considered more detrimental than smoking.” (31:28 | Sarah Vosen) 
• “Recovery requires taking off the blinders or having someone support you who doesn’t have blinders on who says, ‘Oh, no. There’s a world of possibility for you. Let me offer you an exit pathway from this life with blinders on to one that actually works for you.’” (36:02 | Sarah Vosen) 

Links

Burnout isn’t a personal failure or a lack of resilience. It’s a signal that something in the system, expectations, roles, pace, or support, is out of alignment. Conversations like this one help surface the human experience of burnout, while the broader work continues to explore how organizations can respond more intelligently and sustainably.

To explore burnout, leadership, and sustainable performance through a workplace and organizational lens, connect with Cait Donovan: https://bit.ly/bookcait

Learn more about Cait’s speaking work: https://www.caitdonovan.com/speaking

Short on time? Watch this 3-minute reel: https://bit.ly/caitdreel2025

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm