The Pattern Has A Name

Something is driving your burnout. And it's not what you think.

In this episode, Shaina introduces the five burnout archetypes, five distinct patterns she's identified in high-achieving women experiencing burnout. She shares her own story of building a law practice she was good at, loving parts of it deeply, and quietly bumping against the ceiling of what the role would allow.

The archetypes have names. One of them is yours. And when you find the right one, it won't just feel like information. It'll feel like relief.

Work With Me

If this episode gave you language for something you’ve been noticing in your work or your life and you’re still sorting through what to do with it, you don’t have to figure that out on your own.

I offer Alignment Calls for women who are beginning to see things more clearly but aren’t interested in rushing into decisions or making dramatic changes.

These conversations are a space to think through what’s actually going on, what you’re continuing to choose, and what a more aligned next step could look like for you.

If that’s something you want support with, you can book a call through the link in the show notes.

https://calendly.com/shainajonescoaching/alignment-call 

Website: https://www.shainajonescoaching.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

What if burnout isn't the problem? But the signal that the way you've been succeeding no longer fits. Welcome to the Era of Alignment. I'm Shayna Jones McGrown, and this podcast is for high-achieving women who look successful on paper but feel exhausted, overwhelmed, or quietly disconnected from the lives they've built. If you've tried rest, boundaries, time off, or pushing through, and nothing actually changed, this space is for you. Here, we don't treat burnout as weakness, we treat it as information. Each episode will name what's really happening beneath burnout, why the old models of success stop working for capable women, and what alignment requires when you're no longer willing to override yourself. Because burnout is the signal and alignment is the shift. It's misalignment. And I introduced to you nine root causes, nine specific places where misalignment takes root in high achieving women. If that episode landed for you, well then good. Because today we're gonna go one layer up. Before we find the root cause, we have to identify the pattern. And the pattern has a name. Actually, it has five names. So today I want to introduce you to something that I've developed in my work, something proprietary to my framework, the Exhale Framework. And I call them the five burnout archetypes. And before I say another word about them, I want to tell you a story. So when I was practicing law, I was very good at it. You know, no one questioned that. I showed up and I delivered for my clients, and I genuinely loved doing that. I built a practice that gave me some real joys in various ways, um, from the types of law I practiced to the types of clients that I served. And I particularly loved my work in estate planning, where I got to sit with families and help them to protect what they built and to protect it for the people that they loved. The relief on their faces when the plan was done, the joy in their voices. You know, I still carry that with me. I still feel that, I still hear that, and it still brings me joy. Um, helping those families was something that mattered to me then, and it still matters to me now. But in the midst of that, there was often something that kept happening that I couldn't really put a name to for a long time. So, for example, a woman, a married woman, would sit across from me. And within moments of us starting the consultation and her telling me why she was here, I could see that there was more going on beneath the surface than she was showing me. Now, oftentimes she might be a married woman with children who was looking to protect only her assets and without her husband. Now, let me be clear: that woman was never looking to hide assets from her husband. She wasn't looking to do anything fraudulent or acting in bad faith. But she'd come to me because she knew that she had a responsibility to protect herself and her kids in the event of death or incapacity. And she often wasn't sure or wasn't confident about what her husband would do or what he would have the capacity to do and handle in her absence. So many things come to the surface or really are hiding just beneath the surface when a woman would come to me in that scenario. I could see so many things beneath what she was actually saying. But really, my role as an attorney, as her attorney, only let me address one layer of what I was seeing. You know, in truth, my first real question for her would be why? Why is she in this space? Why is she having to act this way? And it wasn't just with her assets, it was really with her and with her life. Because what's going on beneath the surface that she feels that she has to plan in a way that really shows that there's a lack of trust in the marriage. But that wasn't my lane as an attorney. And so I did what I was supposed to do in my role. I provided her with the advice and counsel that she needed to respect her goals, to respect her as a person, and to accomplish what she came to me to do. And I did what I had to do for her. And my clients, these women who came to me in this position, were always very happy and felt this immediate sense of relief once the planning was done. I found, however, that I kept bumping up against the ceiling of what my role as an attorney would allow me to facilitate for her. Because at the end of the day, I would want to know why a woman would live in a role or live with a person that she doesn't feel that she can trust. What is that doing to her life? And does she want something different? So for years I called that frustration. I called it a limitation of my profession. Actually, I called it a lot of things before I called it what it actually was. And what it really was was that I was in the wrong arena. Now it wasn't that I was that I'd failed or that I wasn't bringing value or doing my job in the way that I should have. I mean, I actually was. I was bringing women a lot of value. And and my men clients too. It wasn't just women that I served. I served women and men and couples and all different types of families. So, you know, I certainly hadn't chosen badly. I'd gone into the legal profession as a helping profession because I did want to tackle these issues of making sure that my clients could use the law to have the best life possible. But it did come to a point where I knew that I needed to make a change because what I had the capacity to see in my clients, what I had the capacity to provide advice on and provide a pathway through, had outgrown my container as an attorney, as someone in the legal profession. I could see much more and address much more than my role really permitted me ethically to address. And that sustained performance of operating inside of that ceiling day after day, year after year was its own kind of exhaustion for me. And so finally the time came when I really did name it. I really said, you know, something's just shifted in me. I'm different. I want something different. And I had to take the time to address what those differences were, what those changes were, and how I was going to decide to move forward. So, you know, that's what the archetypes that I have created in my work allow me to do when I work with my clients. It allows me to put a name to, and for my clients to put a name to the shifts and the challenges that they're facing, and in understanding what the shape of that problem is, what the pathway through could be. In my work, I've identified five distinct patterns of high-achieving women who are experiencing burnout, and they're proprietary to the exhale framework. I call them my five burnout archetypes, and I'm gonna name them for you now. So there's the achiever in the wrong arena. I gave you an example of that in myself. There's women who are what I call the disappearing women. Then there's the carrier, there's women who are the caged succeeder, and finally there's the woman at the wall. Now I'm not gonna walk you through each one of these today in detail, and here's why. You know, a description can provide recognition, but it doesn't necessarily provide deep understanding. And understanding is what you need. You know, I've sat with women who have heard me talk about the cage succeeder, and they've gone completely quiet. And it's not because I've told them something new, but it's because I've named something that they've been carrying that they haven't had language for for years. And it's in that moment, that recognition, that stillness, and in the conversation and the context that happens around their specific life that starts to provide the breakthrough. So, what I'll tell you is this most women have a primary archetype and traces of another. Some women may have moved through different archetypes at different stages in their life. So the archetype isn't a box, it's certainly not a verdict, but it is a starting point for understanding the burnout and the particular pathways that are needed to move through it. And when a woman finds the right one or ones or traces of ones, she knows. Because it won't feel just like information, it feels like relief. Here's what I want you to understand about staying in an unnamed pattern. That pattern doesn't stay still, the misalignment actually compounds. The longer you operate inside a pattern you haven't named, the further you get from yourself, the more the exhaustion deepens, the more the performance becomes expensive. And the distance between who you are and the life you're living gets wider. I see this in women who come to me after years of trying everything else, whether that's rest, therapy. Now, let me say something about therapy. There's absolutely a place for therapy, and coaching is not therapy, they are different things. And both therapists and coaches who are worth their salt are necessary in these roles. Okay. But getting back to it, you know, those women have tried rest, they've tried therapy, new roles, new titles, new strategies. And the thing that was actually driving the burnout, that pattern, and the root causes beneath the pattern were never identified. So nothing they tried to address the burnout could actually hold with moving them through it and providing real relief. You cannot address what you haven't named. And you cannot name it accurately without looking at your specific life, your history, your patterns, your decisions with someone who knows what they're looking for. And that's not something that I can just do in a podcast. It would be giving short shrift to you and to what we do together. What I can tell you is that these five archetypes do exist. I've seen them, I've helped women work through them. And I can tell you that one of them may be yours. I can also tell you that finding it changes everything about how you approach the work of getting free. What I can't do from here in this podcast format is tell you which one is yours. I can't tell you what's specifically driving what's under it. I can't tell you what the specific root causes underneath are. I can't tell you what your particular path forward needs to be. That requires a conversation. And that's what an alignment call is. An alignment call is a real focused time where we look at what's actually happening in your life, identify patterns that are driving your burnout, and start to get specific about what a path forward looks like for you. It's 45 minutes of conversation and clarity. Because clarity is what changes things. We're not just talking about more information or another framework to hear, think that's nice, and file away. We're talking about actionable application to your specific life in this specific moment. That's what I offer. So here's what I want to leave you with today. Somewhere in those five names, the achiever in the wrong arena, the disappearing woman, the carrier, the cage succeeder, or the woman at the wall, one of them is already sitting with you. You may not know which one yet. You may think you know and actually be surprised at what it really is. But she will at some point make herself known. Usually in the quietest moments when you're trying to figure it out. You may not know which one yet. You may also think you know and then be surprised when it turns out to be something different. But it will become clear to you. But what I do want to encourage you to do is to take action to find out which one. Don't just file this conversation that we're having through this podcast away. Do something with it. The way to book an alignment call is in the show notes. It's where we take what you just heard and make it specific to you. I'm Shayna Jones McCrone, and this is the era of alignment.