You say "yes", and almost immediately your body knows…argh, I've done it again. This episode is about that moment where you override your exhaustion and capacity in favour of taking something on. There are plenty of reasons why we do this, and my guest today helps to explain what might be going on there. Author and clinical psychologist, Dr Claire Plumbly, helps me to unpack a particular pattern of burnout – not the dramatic, can't-get-out-of-bed version, but the high-functioning one. The kind where you push, recover just enough to be convincing, and then go again… until that starts to feel like your personality rather than a pattern. This conversation is less about frenetic burnout, and more about what beliefs might be burning beneath it. We get into why knowing something isn't sustainable rarely translates into doing anything differently. You'll learn how frenetic burnout quietly reinforces itself through reward and identity, and why the very traits that make someone exceptional at work can make it difficult to step back from it.

Claire Plumbly's website and book

Claire on Instagram

Mandy on Instagram

Jo Rodriguez episode