What if the pressure you’re living under comes from rules you never realized you could question?
As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in Roseville, CA, I help founders, entrepreneurs, and high-achieving professionals address burnout through therapy or coaching, looking at both the demands they face and the patterns that keep them pushing beyond their limits.
My approach combines genuine understanding with direct, thoughtful questions that challenge assumptions about responsibility, control, and achievement, helping people recognize choices they may not have realized they had.
Being the person everyone relies on has a cost.
You built a career or business around something you care about deeply. You’re good at handling pressure, solving problems, and following through. People trust you because you deliver.
But somewhere along the way, being dependable may have turned into being available for everything. The responsibilities keep accumulating, and the satisfaction you once felt is harder to find.
Running a business, leading a team, or building a demanding career comes with real pressure. Deadlines don’t disappear because you’re tired. People still need answers.
But you may also find yourself saying yes when you’re already stretched thin, taking on things others could handle, or putting up with situations that grate on you every day because you can’t quite bring yourself to address them.
You know something needs to change, but knowing hasn’t made changing any easier. Some of the habits that helped you succeed have turned against you.
Understanding why those habits are so hard to change is a good place to start.
Burnout therapy or coaching offers a focused opportunity to examine the pressures you’re facing and the patterns that keep you overextended. We can look at the demands you cannot change alongside the expectations and decisions you may be able to reconsider.
The goal is greater freedom to set limits, speak up, delegate, and make room for your health, relationships, and life outside your responsibilities.
You’ve probably already considered working fewer hours, taking better care of yourself, or setting firmer boundaries. The difficulty may be following through when responsibilities are real and other people are counting on you.
Seeking therapy or coaching for burnout can make sense even when you’re still performing well and getting things done.
This work may be a good fit if you:
I help you break the rules you've been living by.
You may already know exactly what you should be doing differently. The interesting question is why you keep doing the opposite.
In our sessions, I pay attention to the moments when your reasoning and your behavior don’t quite line up. Maybe you believe in delegating but feel compelled to redo someone else’s work. Or you tell yourself a disagreement isn’t worth addressing, then spend hours thinking about it. Together, we get curious about what makes those choices feel necessary, including expectations you may have absorbed long before your current career.
We take the time to examine these reactions without rushing to fix them. As you begin to recognize what triggers them and what you’re trying to avoid, you can experiment with responding differently in real situations. The aim is to make decisions more deliberately, with less guilt, second-guessing, and unnecessary pressure.
I grew up with a founder. My dad ran his own company, so I saw firsthand how the pressures of running a business can spill into the rest of life. Today, I’m a therapist, coach, and angel investor, and I’m still fascinated by the ways smart, capable people can fool themselves and get in their own way.
I’ve explored the psychology of entrepreneurship in presentations with LAUNCH and Growth Factory. I also write Notes from the Blind Spot, where I examine the mistakes we make without realizing it and offer practical ways to approach things differently.
I take this work seriously, and I don’t shy away from difficult conversations. I’m also endlessly fascinated by the absurdity of human behavior, including my own.
If what you’ve read here resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you.
You can care about doing excellent work and still know when to stop.
Schedule a free consultation below.
I offer therapy for clients in California and coaching for clients nationwide.
Burnout doesn’t stay at work. For founders, entrepreneurs, and high-achieving professionals, its effects can show up in relationships, physical energy, concentration, everyday decisions, and even the ability to enjoy what they’ve accomplished.
A partner may be talking about their day while part of the mind is still working through a business problem. Conversations become shorter. Patience wears thin. Even when there’s time to be together, it can be difficult to feel fully present.
Over time, the people who matter most may start getting whatever attention is left after work.
A full night’s sleep doesn’t always leave someone feeling rested. Exercise starts feeling like another obligation. Minor frustrations become harder to tolerate.
Burnout can be easy to overlook when someone is still meeting deadlines and getting things done. The physical cost may become apparent long before work performance suffers.
An email that once took five minutes now takes twenty. Reading the same paragraph repeatedly becomes frustrating. Small interruptions make it harder to return to the task at hand.
For someone accustomed to thinking quickly and solving problems, these changes can be particularly unsettling. The temptation is often to compensate by working longer.
After a day of making consequential decisions, choosing what to eat for dinner can feel like too much.
In my work with high-achieving professionals, I’ve noticed how easily this can turn into another source of frustration. Someone who manages complicated problems all day may have very little patience left for ordinary choices at home.
The deal closes. The project launches. The promotion comes through. There’s a brief moment of satisfaction before attention shifts to what needs to happen next.
When achievement is closely tied to a sense of responsibility, celebrating can feel less important than preparing for the next challenge. Burnout can leave remarkably little room to appreciate what all that effort was for.
My work draws primarily on psychodynamic therapy and primal theory, with a strong emphasis on understanding the feelings behind people’s behavior. Someone may know perfectly well that they need to set limits, yet feel guilty, anxious, or selfish when they try. I’m interested in why.
I trust my instincts, but I also pay close attention to how someone responds to what I say. I ask questions, challenge assumptions, offer examples, and adjust my approach as we go. Sometimes that means confronting an uncomfortable truth. Sometimes it means making room for feelings or grief that have gone unexpressed for years.
Understanding yourself matters. But lasting change may also require experiencing feelings you’ve learned to avoid and discovering that you can respond differently.
There’s no fixed script for our first session. We usually dive right in, often picking up on something we discussed during our initial phone consultation. I start with what’s happening in your life now, whether that’s a situation at work, a difficult relationship, or something you’ve been struggling to understand about yourself.
As we talk, I’m getting to know you, paying attention to what you say and how you respond, and helping you get comfortable sharing things you might ordinarily keep to yourself. Every first session is different. We begin wherever you are and take it from there.
Success should include time to enjoy what you have worked so hard for.
Reach out to schedule a free consultation.
Individual therapy is $195 for a 60-minute session. Individual coaching is $350 for a 75-minute session. I do not accept insurance for therapy.
I work with burnout in both therapy and coaching. The right fit depends on what you’re dealing with and what you want to explore. Some people are primarily interested in their current decisions, responsibilities, and professional challenges. Others want to understand deeper emotional patterns and how past experiences continue to influence their lives.
Both therapy and coaching can involve meaningful psychological exploration. We can discuss which service is appropriate for you during an initial consultation.
That depends on what brings you in and what we discover as we work together. Some people want to address a particular situation, while others find that the patterns contributing to burnout have been part of their lives for a long time. We can discuss your goals and revisit them as the work progresses.
I see therapy and coaching clients in person at my Roseville office. I also offer online therapy to clients located in California and online coaching to clients across the United States.
Because I’m licensed as a therapist in California, clients outside the state can work with me through coaching rather than therapy.
Yes. We can explore what might need to change within your existing responsibilities, including how you make decisions, handle conflict, delegate, and set limits. Leaving your job or business isn’t a prerequisite for examining your relationship with work.
We can discuss a meeting schedule based on what you’re dealing with and what makes sense for our work together.
If you’re ready to take the next step, please book a consultation or request an appointment today!
