E85: How Your Past Is Secretly Causing Burnout with Amy Grimm

Most of us overlook the secret that’s quietly driving our burnout—our nervous system. Amy Grimm, a success and well-being coach with a background as a veterinarian, reveals how understanding and managing your energy levels can stop burnout in its tracks before it spirals out of control. In this eye-opening episode, Amy breaks down how stress isn’t all bad—and how your perception of it shapes everything. You’ll discover how to identify signs of over-giving and depletion long before burnout hits, using simple somatic techniques and awareness practices that anyone can start today. 

She shares the Yerkes-Dodson curve, showing exactly how too much effort sabotages performance—and how to find that optimal "sweet spot" of eustress. Amy also dives into the hidden impact of past experiences on your nervous system and decision-making, revealing how our personal histories color our current stress and energy levels. Facing uncertainty is unavoidable, but Amy offers a powerful mindset shift: decision-making isn’t about choosing the “right” path but about trusting yourself to adapt. If you're tired of feeling stuck in the same job, overwhelmed by systemic pressures, or just want to create a more sustainable career, this episode is your wake-up call. 

Whether you're a busy professional, a leader, or someone seeking meaning beyond burnout, Amy’s insights help you reclaim control—by understanding your energy, managing stress intentionally, and building resilience from within. This isn’t just theory—these practical tools can transform your relationship with work and life before burnout becomes permanent. Tune in if you’re ready to see burnout as a boundary issue, not a life sentence. Your healthier, more energized future starts here.

Connect:

https://burnoutfreeme.kit.com/burnoutfix

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

All right, welcome to the Work Sucks But I Like It podcast. Today we have Amy Grimm. She's a veterinarian turned certified success and well-being coach and the host of the Burnout Free Me podcast. As she indicates, people build amazing careers, but burnout wasn't necessarily part of the plan. Amy, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Thank you so much for having me, Tony.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Now looking forward to this. Amy, define work for us today.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

For me, because I'm thinking about it from a holistic lens, I would define work as anything that you put your energy into. And I know that's kind of a big, vague sort of definition. But I think when it comes to our lives and where we want to invest our time and energy, we need to look at each and every one of those areas or different facets as work. And I don't mean that in the work for money kind of way, but it's more of the where do you want to spend your time and your energy and I guess also your money if you have some things that you enjoy doing? But it's really, you know, what are you putting your energy into and what are you getting out of it in return? And how does that cycle replenish you so that you can keep showing up in these different areas and doing the things that you love?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

I love that definition. So where does your energy and time look today? What does it look like today?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Today is a Monday, and I have learned after years and years of fighting myself that I don't like working on Mondays. So I actually made an exception for this interview because I was very excited to do it. So today I woke up probably around six, and I sat in bed and read for an hour, and then I got up and I had some coffee. We just got back from a long trip, so I did do some email checking and making sure that things are still working. Took the dog for a walk, made some food, got ready for this, and here I am. So yeah, it's been a pretty chill day so far.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

I love that. So you specialize in burnout, Amy, and I want you define burnout today for us, for us listeners. How do you see burnout today?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Yeah, that that's a great question. And I think about it a little bit differently. Um, I'm guessing many of your listeners have probably heard of the definition from the World Health Organization, and they talk about burnout as being purely occupational, so unmanaged levels of stress in a work environment. I'm coming from more of a coaching and trauma-informed background, and I'm bringing that holistic lens to it once again. So when I talk about burnout, I'm talking about a predictable nervous system state that is a response to how much energy you're putting out and how much you are replenishing yourself. So if you are someone who is overgiving or overworking or over anything in any area of your life, you can be depleting yourself on an energetic level and not really realizing it. And then that's how you end up in that cycle of being cynical. And a lot of times it does show up at work because that is a very big energy draw for many of us. But you'll also notice that these feelings they spill out into your everyday life. A lot of times it's not just your career. You know, you start feeling tired at home, and maybe you're a little bit more snappy with your spouse or your children when you don't mean to be, or you suddenly have the time to do something that you want, you know, like a hobby or meeting up with friends, but you just don't have the energy to do it. And those are all very predictable outcomes of this increasing stress level and this decreasing energy level.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

No, I love this. So walk us through how you measure this energy, right? Now I know you're a doctor. I'm studying to get my PhD here. So walk us through how you look at energy when you see people from this holistic kind of perspective.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yeah. Yeah. So I like to talk about energy from a biological perspective. And specifically, I'm really talking about your levels of stress. And when I say stress, I'm talking about, you know, your actual levels of like epinephrine and cortisol and those things that you have in your body that you actually need. Stress is not a bad thing. We tend to talk about it like it is, but there's different types of stress. And when we talk about being stressed, stressed out, we're typically referring to distressed, which is the quote-unquote bad stress. Whereas when we talk about you stress, that's really the good stress, which once again I'm putting in air quotes. But those are your normal baseline levels for everyday function, and then also what provides energy for you to do the things that you want to do. You know, whether that be having a chill day or going and working really hard at something that you're very invested in, that all requires energy. And you can think about it like a bell curve, where the beginning of the bell curve, if you put in very minimal energy, you're going to have very minimal performance. As you put in more energy, your performance will improve up to a point. And that's really the key because what many of us like to do is keep pouring in more energy because we think we'll get better and better results. But at some point, that bell curve is going to start going down again to the opposite side of the curve. And that's really where you end up in distress, which is where you know things seem harder than they should be. You're spending more energy and time on things that used to feel easy or good. You feel like maybe you can't recover, you just don't have enough energy for the day, you don't have enough motivation, whatever it is you want to call it, you just feel that like going through the motions, nothing is really bringing you joy or fulfillment. So that's really what I'm talking about as far as energy level goes. It's the literal level of stress in your body. And there's the performance side, the relaxation side, and then there's that other side where so many of us find ourselves spinning when we don't quite know what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Yeah, the graphical representation you're describing is beautiful, right? So the bell curve. And I never remember how to, I should look it up to be honest with you. True transparency here, but it's it's Dodson, the optimal stress. Yes, that's okay, perfect. Yeah, yeah. We're talking the same thing. So I love that. So one of the things you said, Amy, on one of your more recent episodes on your podcast was you know, making decisions in face of uncertainty. So walk us through now. You've painted the picture of energy, you've painted the picture of stress. I love this distress and you stress, right? How do we navigate stress to make these decisions when we face stress, uncertainty, things like that?

SPEAKER_01 7:46

I love it. It's like stress inception, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

So a couple of things, you know, there's two very important pieces. The one is mindset, and the other one is really body, like somatics. And I think that's where for many professionals it can start to sound a little woo-woo, and we tend to back away from that. That's where you're really getting into the energy levels of your body and processing emotions and all of these things that we don't necessarily know how to do, but we know how to think. So we spend a lot of time on the mindset portion. And one very important thing is that the way you think about stress actually impacts how you feel stress. So if you are somebody who looks at maybe your job and you think, wow, my job sucks and it's really stressful, it will feel worse to you than somebody who says, Wow, my job is maybe not everything I pictured it to be, but it's pretty challenging. And some of those things I find invigorating, and those are two different mindsets that are going to give you two different outcomes and how you feel about it. And then the other part comes back to what we were talking about earlier with that bell curve, and that has more to do with your nervous system. So when you're in more of these relaxed states, you're in this kind of ventral state where you are open and connected to your brain. You have full access to your prefrontal cortex, which is where you can do all your thinking and planning and all the things that you want to have access to if you have a high-performance job. And then as you add more stress to that system and you're reaching the top of that bell curve and kind of tipping over, that's when you enter into what most people call fight or flight, that sympathetic activation. So that's really where you start to experience a lot of these negative symptoms. So fight could be, you know, you're becoming very argumentative or you are becoming short-tempered, you're frustrated for some reason you don't really understand. Flight is a lot of avoidance or just trying to get away from the responsibility. And then freezing is kind of when you just don't know what to do, so you don't do anything at all. Very much procrastination and avoidance. Um, so that's kind of what this looks like on the body side. And depending on your upbringing, your prior experiences, pretty much anything that's happened to you in your life from the time that you were in utero until wherever you are on your journey now, those all impact the way that your nervous system and your brain scan for information, perceive things, whether or not they think it's stressful or not stressful. So it's highly independent to the individual. And when we're talking about, you know, body stress, that is going to be very different from person to person based on their entire history. So when I'm working with somebody, it's really important for us to figure out, okay, what does that history look like? What are things that you are bringing into this? How is that impacting your mindset in ways that you might not even know about? And once we have that story, that's when we can actually start focusing on the mindset and doing more of those cognitive things which everybody tends to associate with coaching and making career improvements and changing their life. But if you're somebody who's tried all of that cognitive work and mindset and still feels stuck, usually the key is because you don't know what lens you're looking through yet and you don't know how to get yourself from that stress state back into a more regulated state to then have full access to your brain to make those decisions and more importantly, not feel guilty about them, actually stick to them and really kind of create and plan that life that you're looking for. Um I think I got a little excited there, so I'm not sure if I fully answered. Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

I mean, Amy, that's the best thing about podcasts, just let the mind kind of go all over and just I love it. No, that was beautiful. So one of the things we like to say, Amy on the show is that you know, success is not a matter of good luck, it's good skills. So you've said, you know, I guess walk us through the skill of knowing, recognizing good and bad stress. I'd like how you said it's how you think about it, right? And going through that history like you talked about. I really love all that. What's the skill? How do how can a listener right now recognize good versus bad stress? Like how do they develop that muscle to do that?

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Yeah, that is so important. The key to all of this is developing awareness. That's really where you have to start. So the awareness that I'm talking about is going to be what nervous system state am I in? And if you're in a stress state, you're not going to feel as good as if you're in more of a regulated state. So if you're looking at something and you feel tension in your chest, maybe you feel a tightness in your body, you have, you know, a headache or just tension going through your neck, your shoulders, maybe your tummy feels a little bit upset. Those are clues that you're in what we call like a hyperactivated state, which is that fight, flight, or freeze. You know, your body is sending out actual hormones and transmitters that are showing up as those sensations. And those sensations are going to lead to things like feelings, so feeling frustrated or feeling really stuck or just demotivated. When you are in more of a regulated state, you might be faced with the same situation, but you're going to feel a calmness and presence in your body and your brain. You're going to be connecting to feelings like confidence, trust, motivation, capability. So it's really not so much about the situation that you're in, but actually taking a step back and saying, okay, what are the sensations in my body right now? And once you become better at that, then looking at, okay, what are the emotions that are coming up? And then the final step is where we come back to that mindset of what are the types of thoughts that I'm having about this? And many times we need to get ourselves to that regulated state to go back and say, okay, what were the thoughts I was having at the time? Because for somebody new, it's very difficult to just catch it in the moment. And that's why awareness is going to be key, because when you notice yourself starting to feel tense, or you notice your tummy is a bit upset, or you notice your neck is tight, that's when you have to stop and say, oh, okay, I'm tipping over the edge. Now, what should I do to help myself? Just bring it down a notch. We're not trying to go to Zen. Like you don't have to do that. You're just gently taking a step back and getting reconnected with yourself and your values and what you actually want.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

So how do we build this awareness? I love how you kind of went to the other extreme, right? When people typically will say, okay, you know, calm yourself, do these things. I think, yeah, meditation, all these whatever Zen, you know, ideals, if you will. I guess how do you build the skill of awareness? Like what is one thing, kind of technical thing that someone could do right now to build awareness?

SPEAKER_01 15:58

I think what really helped me and what has seemed to help most of my clients is really first spending time getting to know your own states. Like, what is my state of fight, flight, or freeze look like? What are the types of emotions that I feel? What are the types of sensations I feel in my body? Are there certain types of thoughts that go to my head? You know, some people immediately jump into fight and want to be argumentative or defensive. Other people immediately jump into freeze and they just want to, you know, avoid or procrastinate. And then doing that for each of your three main states. So the state of burnout, your hyperactivated state, and then what does it actually look like when I feel calm and in control? And I think that's the most surprising part, how many people realize that they are actually spending far more time in a hyperactivated state and they have sort of begun to think that's normal, and they don't realize what it actually felt like when they were more calm or relaxed, or before they had all of these responsibilities. And it's really getting clear on what those look like, because then when you're in a situation, you know, something happened at work or in your personal life, that's when you can actually pause and say, okay, what is it that I'm feeling right now? That's where you're practicing the awareness. But you can't actually practice it until you know what that looks like for you specifically.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

So how did you get into this work then, Amy? Was there sort of uh you got into a situation and you realized you had to increase your awareness? How did you get into all this work surrounding burnout?

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Uh yeah. So my first career was as a veterinarian. And I graduated like a most of the naive new grads out there, thinking that this was just going to be amazing and everything that I ever wanted, and then stepped into the realities of practicing medicine. And I didn't really have, you know, the mental or emotional tools to handle a lot of the stresses that came up, especially when it came to overworking, when it came to boundaries, when it came to being able to manage my own daily levels of stress. And I felt a lot of frustration around that. Like many people, I was looking to myself to say, you know, what am I doing wrong? Like, am I not cut out for this profession? And I kept plugging away without really being able to replenish myself in the way that I needed to show up. And I did this for I think probably around like three or four years, practicing as an associate veterinarian. So that just means you're an employee of the hospital. And then I was given an opportunity to be a medical director. And that allowed me to step up into a position where I had more control over the schedule, the vision for the hospital, helping the staff with their personal development plans, things that I thought I would never be interested in because I went to vet school to work with animals. Let's be real. Didn't want to work with people. But I was suddenly in this position, and a lot of that tension and stress and frustration that I was feeling went away. And I really enjoyed this. And I did this for another four to five years. And then I met my now fiance and moved in with him, which meant that I had to leave that previous job. And in the new town that I'm in, I went back to being an associate veterinarian again. And all that shit came back. And I was like, whoa, like, what is going on here? So I just went through this time of, you know, questioning and wondering, you know, like, why was that so different? I had more responsibility. Why do I feel worse now? What's going on? Um, I went down to part time to see if that would help, which I mean, it kind of did, but you know, wherever you go, you take your brain with you.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

What were you finding in that sort of like analysis of your situation? What was some of the things? I know you can't say names and things like that, but like can you dance around some of the feelings and the thoughts of what was making you frustrated and burning out or lack of boundaries?

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Yeah. And I think this is once again where it becomes very personal and I mean individual, I should say, because for me, I discovered that autonomy was a very big value of mine. And practicing as an associate, I couldn't have that kind of freedom and flexibility in my schedule as I did as a medical director, where I could literally write the schedule myself. So that was a very big contributor for me. Whereas I work with other women who they very much love being an associate because they want to be told when and where to show up. They don't want to think about that aspect. You know, they're there to, you know, perform in their role, whether that be, you know, a vet or lawyer or nurse or whatever. So for them, sometimes there's other things. Maybe it's, you know, communication style or other little things that are really irritating to them. But for me, that was my big discovery was oh, I think I need to work for myself. I don't think this is. Aligned with what I want. And then that kind of set me off on this whole personal development course. And it was really through luck that I stumbled upon coaching and even learned about these types of skills. And it was at that moment where I thought, oh, you know what? If I had had these types of skills as an associate, sure, maybe the schedule thing would have still been a sticking point. But I would have been so much better prepared to handle that frustration and resentment and not let it build up and sort of dig myself further into the hole. So I decided to go back to become a coach and get certified so I could then teach other veterinarians these skills. And it kind of snowballed from there. And the really interesting thing is that all of the things that I was blaming on veterinary medicine and the profession at the time. So things like, you know, feeling exhausted or working through lunch or overscheduling, all of that, I noticed that I brought it with me in my new coaching role. And suddenly I was the one overworking myself. I was the one saying yes when I really wanted to say no. The one who was sitting on the couch at 7 p.m. at night and thinking, oh, you know, I could just get this one extra thing done right now so that I don't have to do it tomorrow. And I was bringing a lot of what I had thought was the problem in VetMed with me to coaching. And that just really threw me for a loop. And it's one of the reasons why I say, you know, like coaches need their own coaches because sometimes you don't even see what you're inside yourself. So that was a very big moment for me where I was like, oh yeah, this is the mindset piece that I'm teaching everybody else about, but somehow forgot to apply to myself in this situation. So yeah, there was a lot of rebuilding with that in, you know, how I practice medicine now and how I practice as a coach now. But I just, if anybody's listening out there who really feels like the job is the problem, I want to tell you that many times it's not. It really is your history that you're bringing to it, the lens that you're looking through, things that are pre-deciding your emotions and your thoughts for you in a way that you don't even know you have control over yet. And you could stay in the same job and have a 100% different experience. And while you're in it, you don't believe it at all until you're on the other side of it. And sometimes, yeah, it is the job. And in that case, you've done the work and you know what you need to do to get yourself to a better place. But surprisingly, the majority of the time, it's not so much the job, it's what you're bringing to it that you're not even aware of.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

I really that's amazing, Amy. I mean, that's such a profound statement. I just I guess what I think of, like, you know, with your concept of autonomy and what you bring, I guess, to the job, which I love so much, is you know, Zig Ziglar had this saying of, you know, people want to be free, they want to do what they want to do. But he says that when you take a train off the tracks, it's free. It doesn't go anywhere. So when we talk about a job being a problem or, you know, with burnout, even running your own business, how can people identify and know what track they're supposed to be on? I mean, the track changes, as you've seen. You've kind of went up, took a track this way, director, then came back down to the same position you were at, and it sucked again. So it's just like, how do people know if they're on the right track?

SPEAKER_01 25:45

I think that kind of comes back to something you mentioned earlier about making decisions in uncertainty, because the truth is you don't know. You are always one decision away from finding out if you do know. But it's really, you know, people want to spend so much time trying to decide if they're making the right choice about something. And if that's you, you're overthinking and you are in the freeze response, and you do not have full access to that cognitive portion of your brain that's even gonna help you make the best decision. And you have to let go of whether or not there is a right decision. You know, that kind of black and white thinking, that's also from a stress state. It's more of a gray, a continuum. So the only way you're ever gonna know if you're on the quote-unquote right track is simply by making a decision to do something, experiencing it, and then giving yourself permission to change your mind. And it really is that simple. It's not always as easy to enact, but it really is that simple to just make a decision, see what you get with new information, what your experience is, and then make another decision and then keep going.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

I mean, it is that simple, right? It's like the whole saying of, you know, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, right? Now I know that you, you know, recently did a 200-mile race, right, on a bike. I guess people, you know, when they sign up for things, they're so excited to cross the finish line, like I'm sure you were, right? To cross that 200 mile mark, right? And on your bike. Why do people like psych themselves out to just even starting, to even just signing up, to even just taking that first step? Why do people why are they afraid to make a decision, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of times it comes down to fear of failure, which I think most of us understand on a logical level. You know, you're scared that you might not be able to do it. And then the step further than that that I really encourage people to think about is if you didn't finish, say you you did fail, what are you actually going to make that mean about yourself? That's where those thoughts come in. You know, are you going to make it mean, I tried really hard and, you know, this was just a very big challenge and I couldn't complete it, but man, I'm excited to go into it more prepared next time? Or are you going to make it mean that I suck? I never should have tried this. How embarrassing. What is my mother going to think? You know, what are my friends going to say? Because when you are giving so much of your power away to other people or these negative opinions of yourself that, spoiler alert, you're the only one who's in charge of your own opinions of yourself. You know, that's when you're going to stall and you're going to not follow through. You're going to rather walk away because it just feels too overwhelming. And it's really important in those cases to work on building self-trust, because self-trust is knowing that you can handle any emotion that comes your way. So even if the outcome is not what you expect or not what you want, you know that you can handle the disappointment or the regret or the embarrassment or whatever it is that you think will be too much for you to handle. That's not true. You've got this. Like you can handle those emotions.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

No, so you've pretty much nailed two of your three mindset shifts. So I want to tie into your last one here. So know one thing that changes your life. And I want to ask you this question. So this is the work sucks, but I like it podcast. What is it, what sucks about your work currently, and what are you doing to make it not suck?

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Love it. Oh man, I think the biggest thing that sucks for me in the coaching space is that the conversation is still so different. There's such a big gap between the conversation and the reality of where we are. You know, I'm working with amazing professionals who want to create life work alignment and they want to have sustainable, fulfilling careers and amazing relationships and personal lives and accomplishments and things like that. And we have done a very good job in talking more about, you know, mental health, workplace well-being, psychological safety, all of those things. And yet sometimes the systems in which we're existing seem almost directly opposed to that. And it's like you're fighting this uphill battle, and there's so many people who are still experiencing overscheduling, overcommitment, expectations of, you know, 40, 60, 80-hour work weeks, coming in early, working through lunch, not taking their vacation, feeling guilty if they need to take a sick day, wanting to set boundaries or create a specific kind of life, but then wondering if those decisions that they make will be held against them when it comes time for a promotion or asking for a raise or negotiating any other kind of benefit. And I think that's the part that sucks most because as a coach, I know the solution requires personal responsibility and systemic responsibility. So I kind of exist in this place where, you know, I work with people on the individual level because you cannot just wait for the system to change. Then you're going to be waiting forever. And you have to be the change that you want to see in the world. You know, you have to be the one who's going to start quietly dismantling things from the inside out. And yeah, it can be uncomfortable and slow and frustrating. But that's what I'm doing about it. You know, I'm doing this myself. I love coming onto shows like this where people actually care about these topics. I speak at conferences, I write tons of articles on my Substack. I have a podcast. I don't intend to shut up about this. So I want to advocate loudly. And I also help people work within those systems to kind of create what they can for themselves and in some cases make really big changes and, you know, really create the kind of life that they want to live. And sometimes that can be done inside the system with some changes, and other times it requires tearing it down, and other times it requires leaving. But whatever it is, I'm there cheering you on and helping you get to where you want to go.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

I love that. Well, Amy, it's uh been an honor and pleasure to have you on the show. Listeners want to get out of their sucky parts of burnout and their jobs or whatever. And, you know, where's a good place for them to land to learn more about your work?

SPEAKER_01 33:06

If you want to connect and are really interested in the things that I'm talking about, Substack is really the place to come find me. I love writing there, connecting there with people. And then you can also find me on my website, which is Burnout Free Me. You can send me a message. We can chat on Zoom. I just love meeting people and connecting and sharing experience. So yeah, those are the two best places to find me.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Awesome. Amy, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Yeah, thank you so much, Tony. This was really fantastic. It was a great conversation.

unknown 33:38

And there's a win for the blows across the plains, and it's things.