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If 2025 felt like it came for your edges, your sleep cycle, and your last nerve, you’re not alone. Between nonstop political noise and the usual stack of personal and professional responsibilities, many women found themselves quietly smoldering on the inside. I know I did.
Last year handed me my first—and last— bout of burnout. Now that I’ve learned the warning signs and the cost to my health, I’m not trying to relive that season ever again.
That’s why when the opportunity came to sit down with Lynn Blades— founder of the executive coaching firm Legacy Leadership and author of The Quiet Burn: The Ambitious Woman’s Guide to Recognizing and Preventing Burnout— via Zoom, I said yes with the swiftness.
What struck me first about Blades is her blend of clarity, compassion, and wonderful wisdom. Best of all? She doesn’t sugarcoat the symptoms of burnout—she names them. “It’s getting eight hours of sleep and still waking up exhausted. The brain fog. The disengagement. The feeling of being overwhelmed. The back pain that shows up out of nowhere,” she notes during our candid conversation.
Unfortunately, many of us ignore the signs when our bodies are trying to tell us something (guilty!). When I asked her to explain the difference between stress and burnout, she kept it simple: “Stress is manageable. Burnout diminishes your ability to cope.”
And then there’s social media—the burnout machine that lives in your pocket. Blades breaks it down like a friend who refuses to let you lie to yourself. “It’s an addiction dressed up as inspiration. You’re constantly comparing yourself, chasing validation or an unattainable lifestyle, trying to be seen, be heard, be ‘on’ all the time. Of course, it drains you—you’re putting yourself in that situation,” she cautions.
Calling Out The ‘Superwoman’ Myths
We also talked about our adult daughters and how much we want them to unlearn what we were taught: that pushing through pain is noble. For Black women especially, that lesson runs deep. “We’re conditioned to prioritize everyone else’s needs,” Blades says. “But that whole ‘Superwoman’ myth? She’s a cartoon. She doesn’t exist. Drop the cape, girl. Drop the cape.”
Another culprit? That dangerous little mantra: If you want something done right, do it yourself. Blades calls it “one more nail in the coffin.”
Her antidote: delegation—not as a sign of weakness, but as an act of self-preservation.
“Empower someone who might even do it better,” she says. “And stop saying yes when your spirit is shouting no.”
The author is equally blunt about guilt, people-pleasing, and those “natural energy vampires” who always seem to need you specifically. “I’m not doing guilt,” she tells me with the calm confidence of someone who has paid her dues. “Wanting to be liked is human—but needing to be liked will drain your soul.”
Bye-Bye, Burnout
As a longtime expat in London, she’s seen cultural burnout up close. “People here—especially women—hold everything in. And when they finally open up, it’s Pandora’s box, baby. They don’t ask for what they need,” she points out.
Our conversation was lively, honest, and at times hilarious—especially after I told her about an Instagram post flipping the beloved Chaka Khan/Whitney Houston anthem I’m Every Woman into: “I am not every woman, it is not all in me. Anything you want done, baby, call TaskRabbit.”
Humor is a survival tool for stress and burnout, at least in the early stages. But Blades is clear: when burnout goes too far, nothing is funny.
Before we wrapped, I asked her the first thing a woman should do if she suspects she’s burned out. Her instruction? “Open your mouth and tell somebody.”
As someone who started therapy to recover from my own burnout, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
