19 | Rewire Your Brain for Success: Ditch Overthinking & Burnout featuring Dr. Robin Buckley

👉 Are you living in your own head more than your actual life?

👉 Stuck in loops of overthinking, imposter syndrome, or chasing impossible perfection?

👉 What if the path to clarity and calm started with changing one thought at a time?

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Robin Buckley, TEDx speaker, PhD, and executive cognitive behavioral coach, who breaks down how to make your brain your greatest ally—not your biggest obstacle.

With real-life tools backed by neuroscience and heart, Dr. Robin shares how to ditch mental burnout, create powerful mindset shifts, and finally stop “musturbating”. 👀

This one’s for the women who look like they have it all together—but are ready to actually feel that way too.

In This Episode:
✔️ The brain science behind overthinking—and how to shut it down
✔️ Why “should-ing” yourself is killing your confidence (and what to say instead)
✔️ A new approach to boundaries that protects your peace without the guilt
✔️ 180 Thinking: The go-to mental strategy that calms your chaos and rewires your brain

“Your thoughts aren’t facts, but they are fuel. Make sure they’re taking you where you want to go.” — Dr. Robin Buckley

🔗 Connect with Dr. Robin Buckley

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Transcript

Intro:
Feeling stuck in your own head? Struggling with perfectionism, burnout, or that nagging imposter syndrome? In this episode, I'm joined by TEDx speaker and executive cognitive behavioral coach, Dr. Robin Buckley, who shares neuroscience-backed tools to rewire your brain for success. She breaks down practical strategies to shut down overthinking, set boundaries, and stop "musturbating." (It’s not what you think!) So you can lead with clarity, confidence, and calm.

Welcome to The Shannon Fox Show, the podcast where we empower career moms to thrive. I'm your host, Shannon Fox, a career advancement coach dedicated to helping moms like you leverage your strengths to land your dream job, secure that well-deserved raise, or finally get that promotion—all without sacrificing time with your family.

Each week, I'll bring you actionable strategies, inspiring stories, and strength-based tools to help you align your career with your natural gifts and step into your full potential. So if you're ready to stop feeling stuck and start building the career and life you deserve, you're in the right place. Let's get started.

Shannon:
Hello and welcome. I'm so excited to have Dr. Robin Buckley with me today. 

Dr. Robin is a cognitive behavioral coach, international speaker, and author with a PhD in clinical psychology from Hofstra University. She’s been featured in Entrepreneur, Chief Authority Magazine, Nike, and even on the 2023 TED stage.

She shares powerful strategies for mental wellness, women’s empowerment, and high-performance thinking. Through her executive coaching practice, she helps individuals, couples, and organizations eliminate limited thoughts, reduce imposter syndrome, and create strategic plans for success—both professionally and personally.

Today, she’s here to help us understand how to stop overthinking, reduce burnout, and step into our full potential, whether in our careers or relationships. Dr. Robin, welcome! I’m thrilled to have you here.

Dr. Robin:
Thanks, Shannon. I'm excited to be here.

Shannon:
So Dr. Robin, your work is rooted in cognitive behavioral strategies. What does that actually mean, and how does it help people achieve mental clarity and success?

Dr. Robin:
Absolutely. I think the easiest way to understand it is just an easy little tagline, which is: making your brain your ally instead of your adversary.

For most—actually, I’ll say for all—individuals, our brain undermines us, and we don’t even realize it. It affects our behaviors, our choices, our emotions. Until we acknowledge and manage our thoughts, they’ll continue to spin us in directions that may not really align with our goals or optimal functioning.

But that’s the hard part, because society doesn’t tell us to slow down and examine where our emotions or reactions are coming from. We’re just told we have them. And in my line of work, that’s not true. We can absolutely achieve a better place in terms of our thoughts—so that everything else falls into line and actually gets us to the goals we want.

Shannon:
I love that—because yeah, it all comes back to your thoughts.

Dr. Robin:
It really, really does.

Shannon:
So that leads into imposter syndrome. I know many women listening probably have, at some point, felt imposter syndrome, perfectionism, or self-doubt. What are some of your favorite strategies to eliminate those limiting beliefs and thoughts?

Dr. Robin:
It starts with understanding how our brains work. Real quick neuroscience—there’s the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. The amygdala is our survival mode—it manages all our emotions. So when we feel afraid, anxious, imposter syndrome, or self-doubt—it’s all coming from our amygdala trying to protect us from something that feels scary or uncertain.

Unfortunately, when the amygdala is running around like a two-year-old on caffeine, it shuts down our prefrontal cortex—which is where our logical, data-driven, realistic, and objective thinking lives. And that’s not what we want our brain to do—we want it to flip.

So the strategies I teach help engage the prefrontal cortex, which—wonderfully—shuts down the amygdala. It allows us to be calm, strategic, rational in our approaches—with other people and with situations. Want me to share a couple strategies?

Shannon:
That would be great, please!

Dr. Robin:
Awesome. So one of the easiest strategies is called 180 Thinking. It sounds simple, but I’ll explain the neuroscience behind why it works.

180 Thinking is allowing your prefrontal cortex to recognize that there are lots of possible outcomes—not just the worst-case scenario.

Here’s an example: My 19-year-old daughter decided last year to travel solo to Amsterdam. Now—all the moms listeningcan feel this already. And even though we’ve traveled with our kids a lot, this was completely solo.

And I didn’t let myself watch the movie Taken, but I knew enough about it that all these what ifs came up: What if she gets kidnapped? What if she gets hurt? What if global communication shuts down and I can’t reach her?

All of those what ifs were coming from my amygdala—because it was an unknown situation. And the amygdala was like, “Stop her!”

But that’s not rational. So 180 Thinking means I paused and asked myself: What’s the best-case scenario? What if she’s totally safe? What if it’s an amazing, life-changing experience for her? What if everything goes smoothly?

Because if the worst-case scenario is possible, then the best-case scenario is also possible.

And surprise—she had an amazing time. Because 90% of the things we worry about don’t actually happen.

The key is not to suppress the thoughts—that doesn’t work. If we try to shove them down, they’ll pop back up when we’re trying to sleep at 2 AM. But 180 Thinking invites the logical part of our brain into the conversation. That’s how we stop the fear and ruminating.

Shannon:
Yes, totally. I love that—it sounds so simple, but it really takes practice. I can see myself needing to do it over and over.

Dr. Robin:
Exactly. It’s like a muscle reflex. We’re learning a new cognitive skill, just like a physical one. Every time we catch a thought creating an unwanted emotion, we flip it 180—not to BS our brain, but to give it options.

Affirmations often don’t work because your brain knows when you're bluffing. Like, “I am the most beautiful woman in the world”—your brain goes, “Really? Have you seen Halle Berry?” So instead of trying to convince yourself, just acknowledge that multiple outcomes are possible.

Shannon:
 And that kind of leads into mental wellness. What is something you’ve seen as a simple action leaders can take to support mental health in the workplace?

Dr. Robin:
Great question. I went to an incredible event in Massachusetts a few years ago with three powerhouse women leading the state’s mental wellness efforts.

I asked each of them separately: “If you could give just one tip for leaders to support mental wellness, what would it be?”

And crazy enough—all three gave the exact same answer. They said, “Be transparent. Be the model of what mental wellness looks like and sounds like.”

So not just doing self-care privately, but actually sharing it with your team. Let people know what you're doing, what you’ve been through—whatever you're comfortable with. It could be personal mental health struggles, family experiences, or even just how you're managing stress.

For example, I often talk about my older daughter, who struggles with bipolar disorder. It’s not always easy to share. And yes, I’m a mental health professional with a PhD—but all my training went out the window when it was my own child.

There were moments she physically and verbally attacked me, moments I lost my patience. We went through years of trying to find the right professionals and medications. When I share that, it humanizes me. I’m not just some expert with the answers—I’m a mom who’s been through it.

And yes—even now, talking about it brings tears to my eyes.

We’re not trained as leaders to be vulnerable, but this is where feminine leadership shines: vulnerability, transparency, authenticity. Not just in the workplace, but in our personal lives. And letting those worlds integrate—because they have to.

Shannon:
I love that. Because as a career mom—you’re not just a mom or a professional. You are both. They need to integrate.

Dr. Robin:
Yes. And I’ll add one more thing—and it always makes people laugh.

If you want to reduce imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and stress, you need to stop musturbating.

(Yes—you heard that right. Musturbating. Not the other word.)

Musturbating is my term for using language that spikes stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline and makes us feel out of control.

The culprits? Words like:
– “Should”
– “Have to”
– “Need to”
– “Must”

These words have been ingrained in us since childhood: “You have to do your homework,” “You should pick up your toys,” etc.

They create internal pressure and reduce our feeling of functional control. Instead, swap them out for words like:
– “Want to”
– “Will”
– “Get to”

So instead of saying “I should go to the gym,” say “I want to go to the gym because I want to be healthy,” or “I will go because I want to feel strong.”

I had a client say, “I should go to the gym”—and you could see the misery. But when she reframed it as “I want to go to be a role model for my kids,” everything shifted.

It’s a small language shift—but it rewires your brain toward empowerment instead of guilt or shame.

Shannon:
So then how—what advice would you give to women for setting healthy boundaries in work, life, and relationships? Because I know we all need them, but what’s a practical mindset around that?

Dr. Robin:
One of the most important things—especially for women—is to stop believing the lie society told us: that we can “have it all.”

Here’s the truth:
We can have it all… but not all at the same time.

And that doesn’t mean you have to put off kids or career—but it does mean understanding this key principle:

You only get 100% of your energy, time, and focus each day.

Not 110. Not 120. Just 100.

So if someone tells me, “I give 100% to work every day”—I actually worry about that. Because that means nothing is left for yourself, your kids, your partner, your health, your friends—anything else that matters.

Think of it like a pie chart. Some days, 30% might go to your kids. Some days, work only gets 20%. Some days, self-care might get 10%. It shifts depending on your priorities and what’s happening that day.

But it should always total to 100%. Not more.

And when you understand that math, boundaries make sense. You’re not being selfish—you’re being strategic.

That also means creating space. Turn off notifications. Put your phone in another room. If you don’t want your kids on phones at dinner, then you can’t be either.

Boundaries aren’t about being rigid. They’re about protecting your priorities—whatever they are in that season.

Shannon:
So good. And what about the women who have a hard time asking for support—especially at home or work?

Dr. Robin:
100%.

Let me ask this: Is it actually realistic to believe you can do everything alone—to the best of your ability—all the time?

That’s perfectionism. That’s martyrdom. And it’s not sustainable.

I always go back to the airline metaphor: You’ve got to put your oxygen mask on first. It’s not selfish—it’s self-care.

And it’s not even about putting yourself first all the time. It’s about recognizing:

I’m a priority, too.

It’s not “me or them”—it’s “me and them.”

If you’re running on fumes, how can you give your best to anyone else?

We’ve also lost the idea of the village—the idea that support is normal. There are cultures around the world that thrive because they lean on each other. But in industrialized societies, we’ve somehow been taught that asking for help is weak.

Women are amazing at creating community—when we allow ourselves to. We’re natural givers. But guess what?

It’s okay to receive, too.

If you're always giving and never receiving—that’s actually selfish in its own way. Because it robs someone else of the gift of helping you.

Shannon:
Well, Dr. Robin, as we start to close out this conversation, what's the best place for our listeners to connect with you?

Dr. Robin:
Absolutely. You can find me on Instagram and LinkedIn. You can also reach me through my website—drrobinbuckley.com. And in 2025, my newest book is coming out: “Marriage Incorporated: A Business Framework for Creating the Relationship You Want.”

Shannon:
Awesome! I’ll be sure to link all of that in the show notes. And before we wrap up, I always love to leave my listeners with an action step they can take today. So—what’s one final mindset shift you’d share?

Dr. Robin:
Yes—look at your calendar.
If you don’t see any time blocked out for you—add it.

It could be five minutes. It could be three hours. But pick something—reading, walking, sitting outside, staring at your garden—whatever fills you up.

Everyone and everything else that matters is already on your calendar.
So should you be.

Shannon:
I love that. That’s such a powerful reminder. Thank you so much for being here today.

Dr. Robin:
Shannon, this has been so fun. Thank you.