Burnout recovery does not start with fixing yourself. It starts with understanding job fit, burnout at work, and whether there is a true values match between who you are and what your work and life demand.

Cait Donovan returns with a #straightfromcait episode that marks a turning point in how she thinks about burnout and in the writing of her next book. After years of explaining burnout as a complex web shaped by childhood, culture, health, personality, and work, she hits a wall. Information alone does not change behavior. What people need is a clearer way to see why burnout keeps showing up and what actually drives it beneath the surface.

That insight leads to a powerful reframe. Burnout at work is often the result of poor job fit and ongoing misalignment, not personal weakness or bad leadership. Cait unpacks how mismatches around autonomy, expectations, and success quietly drain energy over time. More freedom does not always help. Promotion does not always equal growth. What happens when your role conflicts with your values or asks for something you cannot sustain? And how often do we accept those mismatches without ever questioning them?

This episode also sets the direction for what comes next on the podcast. Cait shares how future conversations will focus on creating better alignment through values match, mattering, hope, and leadership at work. The invitation is simple and challenging. What would change if fit mattered as much as performance? And how much burnout could be prevented if mismatch was addressed before it turned into exhaustion?

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Burnout as a Mismatch Problem

02:29 Job Fit, Autonomy, and Burnout at Work

04:47 Values Match and Redefining Success

05:43 How Better Alignment Reduces Burnout

Links

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You don’t have to carry burnout alone. The right support can help you breathe again—start here: https://caitdonovan.com/coaching

Burnout is less a breaking point than a slow unravelling of identity and the seven messy phases high achievers cycle through on the way back to themselves.

We’re revisiting a conversation with Dr. Mandy Lehto that still holds relevance for anyone who has pushed past their limits and felt the ground shift beneath them. Mandy and Cait talk through burnout as a gradual process shaped by denial, urgency, over-efforting, and grief, rather than a single moment of collapse. Mandy’s “seven-ish” buckets offer language for patterns many high achievers recognize but rarely name. When the strategies that once drove success stop working, how do you begin to make sense of what comes next?

Burnout is framed here as an identity reckoning rather than a problem to fix or outwork. It often surfaces when performance quietly replaces self-trust and effort becomes the main source of worth. What happens when pushing harder no longer brings clarity or relief? What does it ask of you when the body stops cooperating with the plan?

The episode invites a different relationship with healing. One that allows uncertainty, grief, and slowness to exist without turning them into another project. Wholeness does not arrive as polish or resolution. It shows up through honesty, embodiment, and the growing ability to stop performing for approval. For anyone navigating the space between who they were trained to be and who they are becoming, this episode offers perspective, language, and permission to stay with the process.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 The Seven Phases of Burnout Recovery for High Achievers

01:35 Denial and the Push-Harder Pattern That Starts the Slide

06:38 Triage Mode and Why Your Worth Can Feel Tied to Productivity

15:19 Reluctant Surrender and the Grief of Losing Your Old Identity

19:10 The Humbling and What Acceptance Actually Looks Like

30:31 Achievement Addiction, Dopamine, and the Crash After Big Wins

39:02 Chutes and Ladders and Practicing Self-Acceptance in Real Life

42:28 Wholeness Equals Whole Mess and Reclaiming Your Energy

47:14 When Support Helps Most and Why Recovery Becomes an Inside Job

If today’s episode sparked ideas for your team, Cait is available for keynotes, workshops, and leadership sessions. Learn more here: https://caitdonovan.as.me/inquire

Connect with Mandy Lehto:

Visit Mandy's Website

Follow Mandy on Instagram

Connect with Mandy on LinkedIn

Connect with Cait:

Initial Call with Cait

You don’t have to carry burnout alone. The right support can help you breathe again—start here: https://caitdonovan.com/coaching

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

What if you could step into a room filled with the people who hold the keys to the big stages, the book deals, and the most powerful platforms for your voice? The Gateway Gathering Pitch Fest is a visibility accelerator for thought-leaders. Whether you’re ready to pitch or just want to discover what’s possible, join us January 13 – 15. Visit: https://bit.ly/friedgateway

Why do millennials seem more exhausted than everyone else, and what does that say about the world they came of age in? Cait Donovan and Tess Brigham challenge the idea that burnout is caused by laziness, entitlement, or bad time management and instead look at the conditions that shaped an entire generation’s relationship to work, money, and ambition.

Millennials were taught to chase fulfillment through work while absorbing the expectation of constant availability, rising debt, and shrinking financial stability. That combination created a version of success that looked good on paper but often felt unsustainable in real life. Burnout, in this light, reads less like a personal breakdown and more like a rational response to a system that never powered down.

The conversation also reframes generational tension as misunderstanding rather than failure. Gen Z’s boundaries and openness around mental health are not rejections of effort. They are adaptations shaped by watching what relentless grind actually costs. What looks like resistance may be awareness.

This episode asks a quieter but harder question: what happens when the path you committed to no longer fits who you are or the life you want? Burnout becomes an invitation to reassess rather than a reason for shame. Less judgment, more curiosity, and the courage to question stories about success that were never designed to hold up under the weight they now carry.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Why Burnout Is a Generational Issue, Not a Personal Failure

01:15 Tess Brigham on Her Quarter-Life Crisis and Early Burnout

09:25 Why Millennials Experience Burnout Differently Than Other Generations

19:26 Student Debt, Financial Pressure, and the Burnout Equation

30:11 Mental Health, Boundaries, and What Gen Z Is Doing Differently

39:03 When Burnout Signals It’s Time to Reassess Your Path

Connect with Tess Brigham:

Visit Tess' Website

Follow Tess on Instagram

Connect with Tess on LinkedIn

Connect with Cait:

Initial Call with Cait

Burnout Recovery works better with support. UNFRIED is our small group (6 people max!) coaching program to help guide you through your recovery. Find out more here: http://bit.ly/unfried

If this episode resonated and you’re not sure where to go next, the FRIED Episode Finder can guide you to the next right listen: https://bit.ly/friedfinder

What if you could step into a room filled with the people who hold the keys to the big stages, the book deals, and the most powerful platforms for your voice? The Gateway Gathering Pitch Fest is a visibility accelerator for thought-leaders. Whether you’re ready to pitch or just want to discover what’s possible, join us January 13 – 15. Visit: https://bit.ly/friedgateway

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm