Are you experiencing any of the following:

• Exhaustion and overwhelm?
• Dreading work (that pit in your stomach)?
• Mentally or audibly complaining about work?
• Struggling to meet deadlines or manage your workload?

If you said yes to any of these, you’re not alone. And you may be experiencing the first signs of burnout.

Having practiced law for 15 years while raising young kids—and experienced and recovered from burnout —I’m committed to helping attorneys build sustainable careers, in or out of the law, in which they thrive.

What Is Burnout, Really?

The World Health Organization defines burnout as a work-related syndrome caused by chronic workplace stress that hasn’t been successfully managed. This isn’t just about feeling tired. It’s about the cumulative toll on your body, mind, and relationships.

In short bursts, stress can be helpful (known as “eustress”). Think of HIIT workouts and strength training: we push, recover, and grow stronger. The same applies to our work—when there’s sufficient rest and recovery.

Chronic stress, without recovery, leads to “allostatic overload”—a term for the wear and tear on your body and mind when your stress load becomes unsustainable.

Your allostatic load isn’t just about work—it may include:

• Health concerns
• Relationship challenges
• Financial stress
• Systemic inequalities
• Media overload
• Habits like perfectionism, people-pleasing, and self-criticism

Preventing Burnout: A Two-Pronged Approach

Here are two ways to prevent burnout:

1️⃣ Reduce your stressors (external + internal)

2️⃣ Increase your capacity to manage the ones you can’t reduce

➡️ Which stressors—internal or external—can you reduce?

➡️ How can you build resilience to handle what remains?

Reducing External Stressors

To reduce stress at work:

• Delegate or limit tasks that are not important or can be done by others
• Respectfully set boundaries based on your unique needs
• Define what success means to you
• Reduce billable hours (if needed)
• Align more of your work with your strengths and what you find meaningful

If your current job exceeds your capacity, that may be a sign that your life and work may be out of alignment. Our capacities are shaped by many factors: our current level of health, our hormones, our current responsibilities, and our unique nervous system sensitivity, among other things. This is one of the many reasons comparing our capacity to someone else’s capacity is not helpful.

Reducing External Stressors Outside Work

• Home: Consider what might be driving the need to “do it all,” have a “perfect home,” host the “perfect holiday event,” etc. What might “good enough” look like for you? Are there any domestic tasks you can outsource to reclaim some of your time and energy?
• Relationships: Spend time with people who energize you, who you genuinely enjoy. Limit time with people who drain you. Consider how healthy boundaries may allow you to nurture yourself.
• Media: Is your consumption energizing or depleting you? How can you be intentional with media consumption and device use?
• Health: One of my clients just hung the sign “health is wealth” in her home gym to remind her not to sacrifice her health for work. I have a sign that says “movement is medicine” in my home gym to remind me to choose movement that feels good to my body based on how I’m feeling that day. Maybe it’s a HIIT workout or weights. Maybe it’s a walk or yoga. How can you prioritize your health, including movement, sleep, and nutrition?

Tackling Internal Stressors

This is where the deep work happens.

• Do you, like many of us, struggle with thoughts and beliefs rooted in fear?
• Do you try to control outcomes or other people?
• Do you worry about how others perceive you?
• Do you have crippling fear of making a mistake?
• Does critical feedback from a partner or client feel fatal?

Many of us have at least some of these tendencies, but they are changeable.

Mindfulness, body awareness, self-compassion, and journaling help us become aware of our thoughts without judgment.

Meditation and breathwork helps us notice and release internal stress.

Inner work, like the “parts work” I do with coaching clients, can help too.

Just as repeated stress without recovery can lead to burnout, repeated self-care and self-compassion can build resilience.

Rewriting the Narrative

Burnout is not the end of the story. It’s often the invitation to begin again, to a more aligned, balanced, and empowered way of being.

• When we change our relationship to our thoughts, we reclaim agency.
• When we challenge old narratives, we unlock possibility.
• When we listen to our Authentic Self, we return to joy and purpose.
• When we practice meditation, breathwork, prayer, or related practices, we experience more peace.

I’m proof of this. A woman who attended my sound bath this past Saturday told me I had “peaceful energy” and I promise you that no one who knew me in my 30s would have described me as peaceful. Frantic, frazzled, overscheduled, and overwhelmed were more accurate.

Peace and joy are possible.

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If this resonates with you, I invite you to:

Download my free guide: 7 Keys to Succeed Without Burnout

Explore my Career Alignment Map to reconnect with what lights you up

You’re worth so much more than burnout.

In your corner,

Jessie