Breaking The Burnout Cycle
Are you a female entrepreneur who is currently spinning your wheels, doing all the right things, yet continuing to find yourself hitting an invisible wall that is keeping you from the success, fulfillment, freedom, & happiness you want?
You’ve read the books. Taken the courses. Implemented the strategies. You know the “how to”...but somehow they either don’t work for you when you apply them OR you can’t get yourself to stay consistent with them to get them to work for you.
And because of that there is a part of you that wonders deep down
“Why is this working for everyone else but me?”
“Maybe I’m doing something wrong? What am I missing?”
“Am I not doing enough?”
…or worse - “Is something wrong with me?”
And because you’ve only learned one way to achieve success, you now find yourself believing that the only way to achieve your goals is to work even harder. To push and push and push, like nothing else matters, not your health, not your family, not your life.
Here’s the truth: You’re not broken. You’re just burnt out from doing success the way you were taught — the hustle-harder, push-through, ignore-your-needs kind of way.
Breaking the Burnout Cycle is the podcast that finally speaks to you. Hosted by Dr. Reana Mulcahy, subconscious reprogramming coach and former hustle-addict turned aligned success mentor, this show is your permission slip to stop over-functioning, start honoring your truth, and finally create the next level of success from a place of alignment, not exhaustion.
Dr. Reana over the past 4 years has been high achievers, like yourself, break free from the 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 from the success, fulfillment, and freedom you crave.
Each week, we dive into subconscious mindset work, nervous system healing, and the invisible beliefs that keep high achievers stuck in survival mode — even when they look “successful” on the outside. You'll hear solo episodes, client breakthroughs, and expert conversations designed to help you rewire your beliefs, reclaim your energy, and rise into the results, relationships, and reality you know you’re meant for.
It’s time to stop chasing success that costs you your peace. It’s time to break the burnout cycle — for good.
Subscribe now and let’s rewrite the rules of success, together.
Breaking The Burnout Cycle
Episode 58: How to Conquer Overwhelm in Five Minutes or Less
Ever felt paralyzed by your to-do list or daunted by the massive gap between your current reality and your ambitious goals?
That overwhelming sensation isn't just uncomfortable—it's your brain's protective mechanism kicking into high gear, convinced you lack what it takes to succeed.
As a two-time burnout survivor, I've discovered that overwhelm operates on a fascinating psychological loop. Your brain perceives a threat (too many tasks, too little time, too big a goal), triggers a stress response, and then creates a compelling narrative: "If I can't handle this, I'm failing. If I'm failing, I'll be rejected." This primal fear of tribal rejection is what transforms healthy challenge into debilitating overwhelm that leads to procrastination and self-sabotage.
The breakthrough comes when we question our underlying beliefs about what success requires. Most of us operate under assumed "truths" that aren't true at all. Try this powerful five-minute exercise: list everything you believe you must do to be successful, then challenge each item by asking, "Is this 100% true? Are there successful people who don't do this?" By dismantling these false requirements, overwhelm begins to dissolve immediately as your perception shifts from "impossible" to "possible." This simple practice makes the invisible visible, freeing you to move forward with clarity instead of fear.
Ready to break free from overwhelm for good? Try this exercise today and share your insights with me on Instagram @Dr.Reanamulcahy . Your path to meaningful productivity without burnout starts with understanding how your brain creates—and can overcome—overwhelm.
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Chances are, we've all experienced overwhelm at some point, whether it's overwhelm from looking at all of the things that you have to get done on your to-do list in the short period of time that you have, or whether it's overwhelm of how big and lofty your goal is and looking at the gap of how am I going to get from where I am to where I'm trying to go. If this is you, then today's episode's for you, because I'm talking all about what causes overwhelm and what you can do to get out of it in five minutes or less. 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. One of the biggest things that I coach many high performers and high achievers through is overwhelm, and typically it's either because of two reasons. So two reasons, the first one being either they have so much on the to-do list that it always feels just like a never-ending to-do list, to the point where it's like you look at the to-do list and you don't even know where to start, because it's so overwhelming in terms of how am I going to get all of this done in the amount of time that I have? Where am I going to fit this in my schedule? Or I see overwhelm happen a lot of times. For the second reason, which is, you know, there's typically, as a high achiever or a go-getter, you have big and lofty goals. You've got epic, audacious goals and, as a result of that, oftentimes there means there's a bigger gap, meaning you are dreaming beyond what is realistic, you're dreaming beyond what people have told you is possible for you, and so, as a result, right, it's like how am I going to get from my current circumstances and overcome those? How am I going to get from point A to point B in the timeframe that I want it at? And so I wanted to bring this to the podcast because you know it's not, it's not a bad thing if you experience overwhelm Oftentimes, if you're experiencing overwhelm, especially when it comes to okay, you know, setting goals and looking at what are all the things that I need to get done in order to get from you know where I am to where I'm trying to go, then I think that overwhelm, you know there can be a healthy level of overwhelm where your goals essentially should scare you.
Speaker 1:And if they don't scare you, then typically that means that we're playing it safe right, that that it's predictable, that we are not pushing ourselves to expand beyond the comfort zones. And so I think that you know, when we think about overwhelm, I think it often is casted in a negative light, where it's just like you feel overwhelmed and then that's a negative emotion. And that's where I call the tipping point of overwhelm, where overwhelm becomes the driver of these self-sabotaging behaviors such as you know. The overwhelm creates procrastination or it creates start-stop cycles typically, and that's where it becomes a problem. And so, when it comes to overwhelm, typically how I coach my students is to first understand what causes overwhelm in the first place.
Speaker 1:And so, when we talk about the emotion of overwhelm, well, typically why this negative emotion or this negative physical reaction is happening is because of a perception of the mind. And when I say a perception of the mind, it means that your mind is looking at the situation itself. So, whether it was situation one where you have a never ending to dodo list, or situation two, where there are so many steps to get from point a to point b towards your goals, regardless of the situation. It's your brain is looking at that and it's essentially looking at your current circumstances, the current data that it has, and it's essentially like oh my gosh I, there's no way that we have the tools or capacity or resources to get all of this done in order to succeed. And so the brain starts to see it as we cannot handle this, that is like the exact story that your brain will start to enroll you in and it will start to give you in and it will start to give you all the reasons why we don't have the time, we don't have the energy, we don't have the resources, we don't have, you know, yada, yada, yada and, as a result, the brain then sets off a fight, flight or freeze response, which is the overwhelm in which you feel. And so, regardless of whether it was, you know, the first situation or the second situation that causes this cascade of events, the underlying cause of it is the same it's the perception that you do not have the resources or what it takes to get that done, to get what you need to get done in order to succeed. And so if we dig even deeper, then you know, typically people just stop there, right? They're just like, oh, I'm overwhelmed because I don't have these things.
Speaker 1:But if you dig deeper, there's actually an underlying story behind that, because, look, the brain has one job, and one job alone, and that job is essentially to keep you safe from failure, from rejection, from embarrassment, from all of these negative consequences. The brain doesn't want us to go into that, and if you will hear me talk about this time and time again, but we are tribal beings by nature, meaning we want to be a part of the tribe. We, at a very primitive level, we want to be accepted, we want to be loved, we want to be safe in the tribe. Because if you're, you know, if you're not, then you have to go and fend for yourself. And your brain has basically just adopted that primitive nature into modern society.
Speaker 1:And so if you think about, you know all of the things that you need to get done, or all of the steps that you need to take in order to achieve your goals, then typically what happens is the same thing we talked about your brain doesn't feel safe, and so that whole cascade event happens and the underlying story that goes even deeper than I don't have the resources or the time, the energy, the capacity to get this done. Then what typically happens is that your brain essentially fills in the gap and finishes and closes that loop for you and says, therefore, if I don't get this done, if I can't get all of this done, then I'm failing, then I'm behind, then I'm not doing enough and, as a result, I'm going to be kicked out of the tribe. And so that is a legit threat to your brain on a subconscious level, without you even knowing that. That's how the brain is closing the gap, how it's finishing the story for you. And so what happens? Well, then it's like, well, what's the point? And then it goes into procrastination, and then it goes into overthinking or all of those start stop cycles, the ways that we sabotage ourselves, only because the brain saw it as what's the point? Trying to go after this, then we're essentially potentially going to fail because we don't have what it takes to get it done in the first place. And so, as a result, this is your brain's way of avoiding a negative emotional consequence. It's a way of your brain to essentially, you know, remove the pressure, and that's what causes overwhelm. So you know you might be asking yourself well then, how do I break free from that?
Speaker 1:And typically what I tell people is that we first have to understand what is the brain's perception, or what is your perception that you hold as truth of what it takes in order to be successful. And the reason that this often goes so overlooked is because you know it's seen as truth, it's seen as the way life is, the way that you achieve success. But if you really asked yourself where am I getting all of these perceptions from, you might start finding that there are some things in there where it's like oh yeah, who told me that I have to go and post on social media every day just to be successful? Who told me that I have to go and volunteer and, you know, put all this stuff on my resume when I don't have the time, energy or capacity for it just to be successful? No-transcript.
Speaker 1:The reason I say that is because, like we talked about right, the brain is essentially comparing what you believe you need to do in order to be successful with the amount of resources that you have or don't have, and resources are being time, energy, money. And then it's saying well, we have to get all this done, if we don't, we're failure. And so we have to start there. We have to understand where. What is that perception? Where is that coming from? Okay, and so the question you have to ask yourself first is what are all the things that I believe I need to do in order to be successful? Write those and then go down the list one by one and ask yourself is that true? Is that 100% true? Are there people who are not doing that, who are still successful?
Speaker 1:Because if there are, it's essentially showing you it's a perception, or, in other words, it's a belief. And I love, just you know, the Oxford definition of what a belief is. It is essentially, it's just the acceptance that a statement or that something is true. It's the acceptance of it, meaning that it's not a fact. It's not like gravity, where it happens 100% of the time, you know, obviously not including space, but you know what I'm saying is on Earth, gravity happens 100% of the time and that is a fact.
Speaker 1:A belief is just the acceptance that something is true, and so once you start to realize that, then you start to understand what are the expectations I'm holding myself to, and this is where overwhelm stems from. And so that is the exercise is I want you to just ask yourself what is it that I believe I need to do in order to be successful I need to do in order to be successful. Write all those out and then, line by line, ask yourself is that 100%? True, 100% of the time. And I guarantee, if you do this exercise and you play full out, you will be able to notice the overwhelm begins to decrease because you are now making the invisible visible. And so I want you to try that, and if you do try that, let me know by shooting me a message on Instagram at Dr Riana Mulcahy, and I'd love to hear what came up for you. So shoot me a message. If you try this and other than that, I will see you guys on next week's episode. Until then, bye for now.