What Burned-Out Women Actually Need (It's Not More Self Help/Coaching)
We don't need optimization—we need restoration.
This is Part 2 of our series on why traditional coaching is failing burned-out. [Read Part 1 here.]
You're bone-deep exhausted. And everywhere you turn, someone's offering you another program to "fix" yourself.
What if you were never broken?
After spending years in the coaching world—both as a client and watching it up close as a strategist and former labor leader—I've learned something radical:
Burned-out women don't need coaching. We need something entirely different.
The Truth You've Been Waiting to Hear
If you're burned out, the problem isn't your mindset. The problem is the system.
You don't need better time management. You need time.
You don't need a mindset shift. You need a full-body exhale.
You don't need to try harder. You need to be held.
What Support Actually Looks Like
What I call support isn't coaching. It's co-strategy:
The difference between someone yelling plays from the sidelines—and someone running beside you, reminding you who you were before the world asked you to be everything to everyone.
Traditional Coaching vs. Co-Strategy
Traditional coaching asks: "What's your 90-day goal?"
Co-strategy asks: "What does your nervous system need right now?"
Traditional coaching says: "Let's identify your limiting beliefs."
Co-strategy says: "Let's notice what your body is telling you about this situation."
Traditional coaching focuses on: "How can you be more efficient?"
Co-strategy explores: "What would it feel like to work at your natural pace?"
Traditional coaching demands: Performance and accountability
Co-strategy offers: Containment and regulation
The Three Things You Actually Need
1. Containment, Not Coaching
A safe place to rest, fall apart, and come back together without having to perform recovery.
2. Witnessing, Not Performance Reviews
The chance to be seen clearly, without correction or improvement plans. Someone who recognizes the systemic forces you're navigating.
3. Realignment, Not Rebranding
Support that helps you come home to your nervous system, your truth, and your pace—not the pace the world demands.
A Different Kind of Partnership
I work with women—many neurodivergent—who understand this intuitively. They don't feel like coaches—they're more like co-strategists, pacing partners. They're not in positions of authority over me. They're partnering in my clarity.
The Irish have a word for this: Anam Cara—a soul friend. Someone who holds space without fixing, who sees who you are becoming and who you've always been.
We need something rooted in:
Co-regulation, not correction
Pacing, not performance
Truth, not tidiness
Finding Your People
Most coaching models lack training in helping people safely transition out of survival mode. What's offered as empowerment often reinforces the demand to conform.
But true leadership doesn't always look polished. Sometimes it looks like being real enough to stop.
The women I work with don't need to be told how to lead. They need help remembering who they were before they burned out trying to do it all alone.
If You're Reading This...
If You're Burned Out:
Give yourself permission to stop trying to fix yourself
Start looking at the system you're inside of
You were never the problem
If You're a Leader:
Ask how technology could free up time instead of tighten control
Examine whether your wellness programs address systems or symptoms
Create space for regulation, not just optimization
If You're in HR:
Audit your tools for bias (New York City now requires this)
Train managers to recognize nervous system overwhelm, not just "performance issues"
Stop asking women to adapt to broken systems
If You're a Coach:
Get trained in trauma-informed approaches
Learn to distinguish between someone who needs strategy vs. someone who needs recovery
Ask: Am I helping this person optimize within a broken system, or remember their inherent worth?
The Revolution You've Been Waiting For
The most dangerous lie burnout tells us: "You just need to try harder."
The most radical truth: You were never the problem.
The women holding this world together are collapsing under the weight of it. The most revolutionary thing we can do is stop asking them to carry it better—and start building something that doesn't require them to break.
You are not broken. You do not need to be fixed.
You need a system that stops treating your exhaustion as evidence of failure.
What's Next?
The revolution isn't learning to carry more. It's learning to put it down.
But individual healing is only part of the answer. We also need systemic change.
Next in this series: How we rebuild work itself - introducing the Re-Deal, a radical reimagining of how technology could restore time instead of stealing it.
Ready to explore what co-strategy looks like? I work with women leaders who are ready to lead from authenticity, not exhaustion.
What would truly supportive leadership development look like for you? What resonated most from this series? Share in the comments—your experience matters.
Share this if you know a woman who needs to hear: You are not the problem.
Connect & Continue:
Follow me on LinkedIn for more on trauma-informed leadership
Coming next: “We Deserve a New Bargain (And We're Running Out of Time)”
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