Episode Details

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