When we think about burnout, we often imagine long hours, endless tasks, and too much responsibility. Yet the roots of burnout often go deeper than our work. Many of us carry patterns from childhood that quietly shape how we respond to stress, expectations, and relationships. Childhood trauma can train our nervous system to live in constant alert. What once helped us survive early experiences can later exhaust us in adult life.
If we grew up in a home where love or safety felt uncertain, our body learned to stay ready for anything. That constant alertness can feel like motivation or drive in adulthood. We might become high achievers who push through fatigue, seek approval, or take on more than we should. Over time, this relentless inner pressure wears us down. Our body interprets every challenge as a threat, flooding us with stress hormones that never fully settle. Eventually, our energy collapses, and we call it burnout.
Entrepreneurs feel this problem more strongly. Starting and running a business takes emotional strength, concentration, and the ability to bounce back. When we have past trauma we haven’t dealt with, our body and mind see every problem or slowdown as a threat. We work too much to try to feel secure or valuable, but this just makes us more tired. What seems like ambition might really be fear pretending to be motivation
Healing begins with awareness. We cannot change what we do not notice. When we recognize that our stress reactions are old defences, not personal failings, we can start to respond differently. Coaching, journaling, and mindfulness can help us connect with our body again and learn to rest without feeling guilty. These things don’t mean we’re weak – they mean we’re healing.
One thing we can do right now is stop for a minute and pay attention to how we’re breathing. If our breathing feels quick or shallow, we can slow it down. When we breathe slowly and steadily, it signals to our body that everything is okay right now. If we do this regularly, our body learns to relax instead of staying tense. We feel less burned out when we stop replaying old problems in our head.
About the Author
Jonathan Riley is a Leadership Coach whose work combines psychology, business insight, and systems thinking to shape effective and sustainable leadership. Author of The Boundaries Bible, The Antidote to Burnout, and A Leader’s Way, he helps leaders master performance, balance, and purpose through his advisory work and Mastermind Groups. Learn more at mypracticeleaders.com.au