Breaking The Burnout Cycle
Are you a service based entrepreneur who currently works 8-10 hours in your business every day and yet you never get to a point where anything feels done?
You end each day frustrated, telling yourself “There just is not enough time in the day”, as you look down at your never ending to-do list that always seems to get longer no matter how productive you are.
And because you have so much to do in your business, every day has started to feel like you are trapped on a never-ending cycle of exhaustion and burnout as you move from task to task, drinking your 5th cup of coffee, working as you eat, never having a moment to just stop and breathe.
You get to the end of every day and just collapse on the couch, mindlessly scrolling through your phone, too exhausted to spend time with your family or even respond to their eagerness to tell you about their day.
And even though you’re dead tired, every night is another sleepless night, tossing and turning, wondering if you did enough as you think about both the tasks you didn’t get to and the family obligations you forgot about leaving you feeling like you just can’t seem to get anything right and that you’re dropping the ball in all areas of life.
But what if you could break the never-ending cycle of burnout for good and have the massive impact you started your business for all while having your time, energy, and health for a business and life that you love?
Because you can!
Dr. Reana over the past 3 years has been helping service based entrepreneurs, like yourself, break free from the entrepreneur burnout cycle by teaching brain-based tools, rooted in neuroscience and neuropsychology, to help you identify, understand, and break free from subconscious habits that are keeping you stuck in the burnout cycle so that you can have the impact and financial freedom you started your business for while still having your time, energy, and health for a life and business that you love.
You’ll be learning the exact tools that have helped her clients double, and sometimes triple, their income all while working less hours and having internal peace to be fully present and enjoy everything from family dinners to work-free vacations.
Join Doctor of Physical Therapy and Master Certified Neurocoach Dr. Reana Mulcahy each week as she brings her knowledge, expertise, and guest experts on to help you break free from the entrepreneur burnout cycle so that you can have a thriving business and personal life that you enjoy and love.
Welcome to the Breaking The Burnout Cycle Podcast
Breaking The Burnout Cycle
Episode 55: Why Your Brain Keeps You Stuck in Patterns That Don't Serve You
Your brain has an incredible superpower - it's constantly working to keep you safe. But sometimes, that protection mechanism backfires, creating thought and behavior patterns that hold you back from the success you know you're capable of achieving.
Think about it: have you ever found yourself repeating the same self-sabotaging behaviors even though you logically know they don't serve you? Maybe you procrastinate on important projects, shy away from visibility opportunities, or unconsciously create drama when things are going too well. These aren't character flaws or "bad habits" - they're sophisticated protection mechanisms.
Every persistent pattern provides some payoff, whether it's keeping you safe, giving you validation, or helping you avoid taking responsibility. Until you identify these hidden benefits, you'll keep recreating the same experiences.
Ready to uncover what's really driving your patterns?
Tune in to today's episode. By the time you finish listening you will have learned:
1) The neuroscience of why certain behavior and thought patterns continue to happen
2) Why continuing to label the patterns as good or bad is perpetuating your issues
3) The questions you can ask yourself to finally break free from the patterns repeating themselves
The breakthrough comes when we shift from judging these patterns to understanding what they're giving us - what psychologists call the "secondary gain."
If you're ready to learn the brain based tools to rewire your mind so that you can break free from patterns that are keeping you from the time, energy, and abundance you want then get on the priority list for our signature program Rewired to Thrive! Doors open soon
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Have you ever had a behavior pattern or a thought pattern that you just can't seem to break free from, no matter how much you logically know that it doesn't serve you? If that's the case, then today's episode's for you, because I'm about to share the neuroscience of why these patterns continue to happen and what you can do about it. So stay tuned. Hi, I'm Dr Riana Mulcahy, and after burning out not just once, but twice, I've uncovered that burnout becomes a never-ending loop unless you uncover the subconscious beliefs at the root of it all. Each week, I'm bringing you brain-based tools and strategies that will help you to identify and rewire subconscious blocks keeping you from the success, happiness and freedom that you really want. This is Breaking the Burnout Cycle Podcast. Hey, everyone, welcome into another episode. I hope that your guys week is off to an amazing start and today's episode is going to be a good one. And it's going to be a good one because, if you have ever been in the situation where you know on a logical level that the things that you continue to think, or that there's like a behavior pattern that continues to happen, is no longer serving you, and yet, for whatever reason, you and yet, for whatever reason, it continues to happen, where you've maybe kicked yourself and you're like God, I know better, I know that this is not serving me, so why does this keep happening? If this is you, then you're in the right place, because I am going to be diving deep into the nerdy neuroscience of why that continues to happen and why, even though you know that you don't want to do it anymore, on a logical level, why it continues to be the default pattern that kicks in when you are feeling triggered. And so we are going to dive through all of the good nerdy science stuff of why our brains do what they do. God bless them. They are amazing and at the same time am I right? They can definitely be one of the biggest inhibitors of us experiencing the level of abundance that we want and achieving the success that we know we're meant for, but that we continue to sabotage ourselves.
Speaker 1:I'm about to dive into that, but before I even do that, I first wanted to just personally extend an invitation to each and every one of you If this is something that you are interested in where you are a high achiever you've got big, epic, audacious goals, and yet you continue to find yourself hitting this like upper level limit, where you're spinning your wheels, you're doing all the right things and yet you aren't getting the results you want, then the Rewired to Thrive program is for you. It's the exact program where I walk each and every student through the brain-based tools to essentially uncover what are the mental blocks, the sabotaging, limiting beliefs that are continuing to get in the way of you performing at the level that you know you need to perform so that you can hit success faster without putting in more hours. And so the doors to that is opening up soon, and I have a priority wait list because I cap the class at six people so that it can be intimate. We can get into the nitty gritty of all the good science and neuroscience nerdy stuff together. Then you can go to wwwriyannamalkahicom or the links down below.
Speaker 1:So, without further ado, let's talk about this concept of why there is no good or bad pattern. The reason I bring this to the podcast is because the other day I was actually with a student in our current cohort of the Rewired to Thrive program and she was talking all about her pattern and she kept referring to the pattern as the bad pattern, as the bad habit that she knows she needs to be better at that she knows she needs to fix or that she needs to get rid of. And I wanted to ask you guys as well, of how many of you guys are also telling yourselves the same thing or, without even realizing it, telling whoever you're talking with about a current issue that you're having that you're telling them essentially about a bad habit or something that is an area that you need to grow in or get better at, and what do you typically label it? As Well, chances are that you use the label bad or good, and I wanted to talk about this because, right, what does good and bad even mean? How do we even know what is good versus bad? And I get it. I'm not talking about you know, like literal evil things, but I'm talking about these perceptions of you know. For example, I got a good grade, like. What does that even mean? Or, when we say a food is good, what does that even mean?
Speaker 1:And this is something that I challenge each and every student in the program to do is to really look at their perception of how they perceive certain words, that especially the words that are words that are creating meaning around, whether it's an item around, whether it's an item, a situation, or even just the past. What meaning is that word? Caring for them? Because if we were to look at the word good versus bad, right, like, think about when you raise children, right, oh, you're a good girl or a bad girl. What does that even mean? And that all comes down to a cultural and I lost my train of thought. But it comes down to the lens at which we have on to perceive and interpret things as good or bad.
Speaker 1:And so when we talk about patterns that are no longer serving us as bad, the reason why this becomes a slippery slope is because what I have seen time and time again is that as people continue to say, oh my God, I kept doing this thing that I know is bad and I don't know why it keeps happening, it might seem innocent and it might seem minute, like it doesn't really matter, but just think about as you continue to repeat time and time and time again to yourself I keep doing the thing that I know is bad. Well, guess what starts happening. What tends to start happens. Sorry, I can't even talk today, but what tends to happen in each and every student that I've worked with is that the shift happens when you repeat that so many times, to the point that the story starts to morph into a shame story, into a story about something being wrong with you, because just think about how we were raised as children. Well, we were raised, you know continue doing the good things, don't do the bad things. If you do the bad things, then insert whatever negative consequence there was.
Speaker 1:And so what I tend to see happens is that this very seemingly innocent phrase and innocent discussion of an observation of you continuing to do a pattern starts to then morph into a shame cycle, and this is dangerous because, you know, I'm going to do a whole episode on the differences of our emotions and the importance of knowing them, but for now, for today's episode, when we talk about shame, it is very different from guilt. Okay, when you talk about guilt, guilt is the emotion of you know, you're focusing on the behavior that you did. That was, you know, quote unquote bad or wrong, and so you feel bad because you feel guilty. So guilty is focused more on the behavior itself. Like, I feel this way because I did something wrong. However, where that changes is when we go into the concept of shame.
Speaker 1:Shame is the emotion of something's wrong with me, it is elicited by thoughts that are very different from guilt, because, as we mentioned, guilt is more about I did something wrong, versus shame is the story of something is wrong with me. And if we go even further, it's the story of something's wrong with me and therefore I deserve lack of love, or I deserve every bad thing, or I deserve bad karma or whatever it is, or I'm not worthy, and it becomes this whole cascade of stories that inhibit your ability to heal from whatever it is you need to heal and inhibit you from also learning a lesson and growing. And so, when we talk about shame, shame becomes a very dangerous emotion, because shame is an emotion that thrives on isolation. Just think about any time where you began to feel shameful. What did you typically resort to?
Speaker 1:Well, if you're anything like myself and the clients that I have served, then what shame typically tends to do is it will start to essentially cause you to go into these coping mechanisms, these coping behaviors such as binge scrolling or binge eating or sometimes even avoidance, and the reason for that being that shame thrives on isolation. It thrives on you just dealing with it on your own and not necessarily bringing it to light, because there's some embarrassment there as well. And so you know, when we label these patterns as good or bad, then we tend to perpetuate stories like that that then morph into the shame stories, and that's the number one reason why I talk to my clients about there are no good or bad patterns, because there really are no good or bad patterns Like we talked about. It's so subjective, right, and so that's a great sign that if the definition of good and bad does not 100% of the time, mean the same thing to 100% of the people, then that's a belief, and so that's actually a great place for you to start digging into. Of where am I deeming things as good or bad? What am I labeling these things? What am I making these things mean, either about myself or making them mean in general? What meaning am I giving to these situations? And so that's for starters.
Speaker 1:Now, the only reason that patterns are practiced is because what neuroscience has shown us is that, as you know, the number one job of each and every one of your brains is to protect you. It's the only job that the brain is meant to do. And so what happens? Well, what happens is we experience something, and this can either be in your childhood, in your teen years, in your adult years, but regardless of the timeframe, you experience something and maybe your brain said that was bad or that was wrong or that was painful, and in an attempt to protect you from ever experiencing something like that and the negative emotion that was associated with that experience, it essentially coded some, you know, experiences like that as a warning. And then, of course, right now it's like okay, you are a business owner and you're trying to do the things of growing and putting yourself out there, putting yourself at risk, at risk of, you know, facing rejection, facing criticism, facing refunds, facing whatever it is on your journey to your goals.
Speaker 1:And what the brain is essentially going to do is that, every single time that you get a situation that reminds the brain of the memory of the negative emotion that you felt, the memory of what happens, the thing that you experienced that preceded that emotion, well, guess what? Your brain just starts to immediately go into fight, flight or freeze response and it essentially is now trying to protect you. It is actively seeing something as a threat, and so this is just the way that it gets you to essentially stop. It gets you to, you know, essentially stop by filling in the gaps and telling you the story that this is meant to mean. And so how are you supposed to get what you want, let alone work less, if your brain is continuing to do this? Where it's keeping you busy, it's, you know, maybe causing you to procrastinate and avoid things. It's potentially even causing you to show up and yet sabotage yourself by, you know, shying away from asking someone to help them.
Speaker 1:Whatever it is for you, whatever that pattern is you, that is not necessarily a bad pattern. It's just that it is a pattern that has been practiced by your brain and by you subconsciously to be able to protect yourself. And so this is the thing, right, like the client that I was talking about, she had this pattern of just always expecting things to be hard and anytime things felt easy. Well, guess what would happen? She would immediately start panicking, like something's wrong, like when is the other shoe going to drop, and she started to look for the problems so that it felt more comfortable. And I share that, because, while that might not seem like a, you know, a pattern, that is necessarily, like we said, good or bad. What is the reason why it's practiced? Well, like I was talking about the number one job of your brain is to keep you safe, and so the question that I have each of my clients ask, when they continue to have these patterns show up time and time again, is that I have them ask themselves what is the pattern giving me? What is the gain or the payoff that I am getting from this pattern? And so, oftentimes, you will find that the pattern is either keeping you safe and and or it's keeping you from losing what we, as humans, all crave, which is love and acceptance. And so you know, in this case, what is the pattern of constantly looking for the problems. Right, you might be sitting here thinking like, uh, I don't know what the payoff for that is, but if we were to dig into this, the payoff for this is that the devil that we know is a lot safer and a lot more comfortable and familiar than the devil. We don't know that.
Speaker 1:I myself have also struggled with where this pattern of believing you know, of the struggle. Okay, it's not necessarily a thought pattern, but it was a pattern of every time abundant months would come up. It was like then the next month was full of struggle and it was a slow month, or tech broke or there was issues with, you know, clients wanting refunds or whatever it is, and I learned to expect that. And if I dug deeper, all of my success came from a story that I persevered, I struggled and I came out the other end. And so the payoff for me while it struggle gave me validation from my parents, from my spouse, from my friends, almost like a woe is me type of thing. But not only did it give me validation, but it also helped me to shift the blame and the responsibility of me needing to look at.
Speaker 1:You know, where is it that I'm hanging on to this belief that business is always hard or that success never comes easy?
Speaker 1:Where is it that I am refusing to look at?
Speaker 1:Because this is familiar to me?
Speaker 1:And so that is the second area that I would love for you guys to challenge yourselves on is asking yourself what is the secondary gain of the pattern?
Speaker 1:And when you're able to not only look at first off, what patterns am I causing?
Speaker 1:Or, excuse me, am I calling bad? But what patterns is giving me a payoff? Then that's where you're going to start seeing what needs to change in order for you to experience anything differently. You to experience anything differently because the way you look at things is the reality that you will continue to see. So if you're continuing to practice a pattern of struggle leading to a payoff, then it's always going to happen.
Speaker 1:And so if this is something that you are struggling with, if this is something that you would love to learn more about, about uncovering, first off, what your pattern is and what secondary gain it's giving you, then I also have a free discovery call where you can essentially work with me for a free 45 minutes and we will uncover what your mental block is around, why you continue to spin your wheels and not see the level of abundance that you know you are meant for. So that's all that I have for you guys today, and again, the doors to the Rewired to Thrive program are about to open, and so if you are interested in getting on the priority list to be the first to know when the doors open, so that you can grab one of the six seats, then the link is down below it's wwwriannamolkekecom. And other than that, I hope you have an amazing rest of your week and I will see you guys on another episode. Bye for now.