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 61: The #1 Reason Why Your To Do List Rules Your Life
Are you caught in a never-ending cycle of setting ambitious goals, feeling like you're not making progress fast enough, and ultimately burning out? You're not alone. As high achievers, we've been programmed to define "wins" in ways that actually fuel our exhaustion and feelings of inadequacy.
In this revealing episode, Dr. Reana Mulcahy pulls back the curtain on one of the most insidious causes of burnout among high performers. Through a candid coaching session, she exposes the dangerous "worthiness loop" that traps us in the belief that we're only as valuable as our latest major accomplishment. When our projects require a longer timeline—whether that's mindset transformation, weight loss, or career development—we struggle to feel satisfied with our progress because we've been conditioned to only celebrate the finish line.
This addiction to accomplishment isn't just uncomfortable—it's unsustainable. Dr. Mulcahy explains why so many of us become slaves to our to-do lists, sometimes even writing down tasks we've already completed just for the satisfaction of crossing them off. This behavior reveals our deeper need for validation and the false belief that productivity equals worth. But what if a win didn't have to mean a completed project or external recognition? What if showing up, taking one small step, and becoming the person you want to be counted just as much?
Drawing from her experience of burning out twice and helping countless clients break free from this cycle, Dr. Mulcahy offers a powerful reframe that can transform your relationship with achievement. Discover how the most successful people in the world approach their goals from the inside out, and how you can apply the same principles to experience sustainable success without sacrificing your wellbeing along the way. Listen now and learn to celebrate the journey, not just the destination!
Ready to learn how to break free from your to-do list? Book a call to chat
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On today's episode, I am covering how the way that we define wins as high achievers is actually one of the biggest causes of burnout and what you can do to reframe that. So that's all coming up on today's episode. 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. 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. If you are a high achiever, then chances are that when you don't have you know the big goals met yet that you can sometimes struggle with finding yourself wondering if you're doing enough or if you really have anything worth celebrating, especially when it comes to defining it as a win. In fact, this is one of the biggest areas that most of my clients who come into the Rewired to Thrive program struggle with, and if this is something that you struggle with as well, then today's episode is exactly for you, because I'm actually going to be giving you a look behind the curtains where, on one of the hot seats that I had with one of our students, we uncovered essentially why our perception of wins can be one of the biggest hindrances to our growth and actually can be the very thing that is perpetuating the burnout cycle. And so, without further ado, let's dive into that hot seat burnout cycle. And so, without further ado, let's dive into that hot seat. It's this I'm not worthy because I have no wins, so I'm failing, and by wins I mean that I'm doing something major, but because everything seems like every day, everyday, normal, everyday stuff. I get up in the morning, I try to accomplish, and many times during the day I don't feel like I've accomplished or done enough. Therefore, I'm not worthy. And so this is the loop for you, and we have to break the loop. And until you break the loop, this will continue time and time again, where you will set big goals, whether that's losing 10 pounds, losing 50 pounds, starting a project in the house and you're going to find yourself in start-stop cycles Because the wins don't feel big enough, because the winds have to be this, this big, magical thing, where it's like I finished every single thing and therefore I'm worthy and I'm enough and I did enough. But what happens when the project requires a longer game, like mindset for example? It's not overnight, because it's decades of practice that we are unwiring and rewiring, and so it's this whole thing of well, it's not fast enough. So it was weight loss right, it's well, I lost one pound, but I I didn't lose nine. So we're looking at the gap and the things that are not happening and therefore, why not a finished check it off the list? Give me a excuse, my french, but a shitty dopamine hit where it feels good to check things off the list.
Speaker 1:There's a reason why people live and die by to-do lists because it's an addiction and it's a symptom. It's a symptom of something deeper, of a lack of worthiness that people feel, which is why they feel so attached to the to-do list. I mean, I know so many people that I've coached through who will find worthiness in the busyness. They will essentially put things that they've already done on their to-do list just so they can cross off. And it's because it gives them a sense of I did enough, a sense of I've accomplished and therefore I'm worthy in this moment. But as long as that continues to happen, then we will a always be a slave to the to do list, be always be a slave to the to-do list. B always be a slave to productivity of I'm only worthy if I'm accomplishing. And. C we're always gonna burn out or never feel fulfilled enough to experience life the way that we actually want to. And that's the challenge, and this is why I push each and every client time and time again no, what's a tiny win and I use the word tiny very subjectively, because a win is a win, is a win, and it's only a win if you choose to see it as a win. And so it's like, for example, what if a win didn't mean an accomplishment?
Speaker 1:For years and years and years, we've been indoctrinated in the belief that a win is only a win if it leads to praise or an accolade or something. Think about school. We learned you get a good grade, you get praise, that's a win. You pass your test, you get your doctorate you get praise, that's a win. You pass your test, you get your doctorate, whatever it is, that's a win. And so it's this addiction that we have to. I'm only successful, I'm only worthy, if I am finishing the damn thing and getting the praise for it.
Speaker 1:So what happens when we enter the long game? Well, we don't get the immediate feedback, because it's something that we're building towards. And then we start to seek it and we start to feel like, oh, I'm not doing enough, I'm not enough, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we go back in our cycles and it's we need to learn as a society to celebrate even the fact that we show up, that we take one step forward in the direction that we are setting out to go towards, that we are becoming the person that we want to be, that we need to be to achieve the life and the vision that we want. And when we can start to change the way we look at wins, the way we look at accomplishing, then that's where the magic happens.
Speaker 1:If you study, any successful person happens. If you study any successful person, their mindset is all the same. Their mindset's all the same. If we look at like some of the greatest athletes that the US, or even the world, has ever known, the one thing they have in common is that they aren't measuring their worthiness on the number of rings that they get or the number of wins that they get under their belt. Sure, those are things they're working towards, but if you look at what they're celebrating and why they keep coming back each and every time, it's because they are looking more at who am I becoming to get to that next level? And they're looking at it as it's not an accomplishment. It's the internal drive. Their vision is achieved from the internal, out, inside out, and so this is the challenge with the homework is how can you acknowledge that you did one thing, two things, three things, however many things, to become the person that you know you were always meant to be?