Hadon McKinsey - OUR LIFE IS WHAT WE THINK IT IS

In this timely and powerful podcast episode, released just ahead of the holiday season, I speak with Hadon McKinley, a burnout coach based in Huntsville, Alabama, USA. Hadon shares research on who is most susceptible to burnout, how to recognize the warning signs, pathways to recovery, and the critical role leadership plays in both prevention and healing. She begins by telling her own story as a driven, high-achieving professional who experienced — and eventually recovered from — burnout. For more than a decade, chronic stress and exhaustion deeply affected her nervous system. She explains how the body attempts to protect itself through the fight, flight, and freeze responses, and what it takes to move out of these states. Today, Hadon works with high-capacity women leaders whose burnout often stems from blurred boundaries, overcommitment, and the difficulty of simply saying no. She highlights the responsibility of organizations and leaders to implement proactive strategies that reduce burnout — especially when considering the high cost of losing talented women and men to exhaustion and disengagement. Our conversation also explores the difference between burnout and overthinking, and why women tend to overthink more than men. Hadon shares simple yet powerful tools that break the overthinking cycle and help restore calm, clarity, and nervous-system balance. Below couple of short articles by Hadon McKinley High-Performer Nervous System Tools Cheat Sheet For women who thrive in chaos… and want their body to keep up. The 90-Second Reset Best for: Hormonal spikes, emotional surges, sudden overwhelm Breath pattern: Inhale 4 → Hold 2 → Exhale 8 Why it works: Signals the vagus nerve to stabilize your system without sedating it. Dopamine Switching Best for: Neurodivergent focus dips Prompt: “What is the most interesting part of this next task?” Why it works: Redirects your attention to curiosity, which boosts dopamine and calms cognitive fatigue. Strength Leak Scan Best for: Early hormonal exhaustion that sneaks in Once a day, check: Mind: mental clutter?Body: heaviness/tension?Mood: irritability? If any are yes → pause for 60 sec, breathe, and name one thing that’s working. Why it works: Resets the prefrontal cortex during hormone-driven dips. The High-Performer Reboot Best for: When your brain won’t turn off at night Ask: “What can I put down for the next 2 hours because nothing depends on it right now?” Why it works: Releases the internal pressure valve without forcing relaxation. The Micro-Boundary Cue Best for: People who are everyone’s go-to stabilizer Say: “Give me 2 minutes and I’ll circle back.” Why it works: Creates nervous-system space without disrupting leadership flow. Use these as needed — they’re designed specifically for women who love their work, operate at high capacity, and want their mindset and hormones to stay in sync as life evolves. article by Hadon McKinley Why women overthink more: The psychological & social load Research consistently shows that women experience higher rumination rates than men (Johnson & Whisman, 2013). This is not because women are “more emotional.” It’s because women carry: More invisible laborMore emotional responsibilityMore relational awarenessMore societal expectations to “get it right” Women are also disproportionately penalized for mistakes and rewarded for perfectionism. This leads to what psychologists call error-monitoring hypervigilance, a nervous system pattern where the brain stays on high alert to avoid criticism, conflict, or failure (Peters et al., 2017). Overthinking, then, becomes a strategy: “If I analyze everything, nothing can go wrong.” But physiologically, this strategy backfires. What happens inside the nervous system during overthinking When the stress response activates, the amygdala hijacks attention, narrowing focus around potential threat. At the same time, prefrontal cortex functioning, responsible for logic, emotional regulation, and decision-making, declines (Arnsten, 2015). The result is: Looping thoughtsCatastrophic predictionsDifficulty making decisionsEmotional intensity followed by numbness Women often blame themselves for this experience, believing they lack discipline or emotional strength. But the research is clear: you cannot think your way out of a dysregulated nervous system. Why mindset work often fails Positive thinking, reframing, and logic-based tools are valuable, but only when the nervous system is regulated enough to access them. When the body is in a chronic state of activation, these tools feel impossible, or worse, invalidating. This is why so many women say: “I know better… but I can’t feel better.” The gap is physiological, not psychological. How to break the overthinking loop The fastest way out of overthinking is not through the mind. It is through the body. Nervous system researchers emphasize the importance of bottom-up regulation, interventions ...