🗞️ The Wellness Briefing – Edition No. 22 “Smart Risk-Taking When You’re Burned Out” | November 25, 2025
3 minute read
Quick, high-impact wellness insights for ambitious professionals. Delivered Tuesdays.
Welcome Back to The Wellness Briefing
High performers treat risk the same way they treat rest: they wait for the perfect moment that never arrives. But the truth is this — your life and career expand when you take smart, controlled risks, not when you cling to certainty as a coping mechanism.
This week, we’re breaking down how to make decisions that stretch your growth — without stretching your nervous system to snapping point.
Let’s get into it.
🧠 1 Insight Worth Reading: Smart risks aren’t reckless, they’re asymmetric.
A 2025 MIT Sloan article highlights that the most successful leaders make decisions where the downside is contained but the upside dramatically expands opportunity. It’s not about being fearless, it’s about being strategic under pressure.
Stress narrows perspective. Strategic risk expands it.
Neuroscience research from 2024 shows that uncertainty increases cognitive load by up to 30%, which is why overthinking feels like “safety” — even though it’s actually draining working memory.
💡 What That Means for You: You don’t need to wait for confidence.
You need a risk filter:
Is the worst-case scenario recoverable? (Annoying is not the same as catastrophic.)
Is the best-case scenario meaningful? (Impact, visibility, growth, options.)
Will action teach you more than hesitation? (Hint: yes.)
Smart risk-taking is a stress management tactic, not a personality trait.
When you move while uncertain, your nervous system learns that discomfort isn’t danger — it’s momentum.
✅ 1 Minute Practice:
The 10/10/10 Reset Before making a high-stress decision, ask:
Will this matter in 10 days?
Will this matter in 10 months?
Will this matter in 10 years?
This reframes stress-driven tunnel vision into strategic clarity.
If anxiety is steering the decision, this method knocks emotion out of the driver’s seat.
🎯 Pro Tip from the Guide: “If the only thing you risk is being uncomfortable, it’s not the action that’s the threat… it’s your ego.”
High achievers regularly confuse ego threat with actual threat. One feels scary. The other changes your career.
Treat discomfort like training load: progressive, intentional, and never all at once.
📊 Wellness Stat of the Week: A 2024 Gartner survey found that 63% of employees avoid career-advancing risks due to stress and fear of failure, yet 72% of those who took strategic risks reported higher job satisfaction and reduced burnout within six months.
Risk avoidance is a burnout accelerant, not a safety mechanism.
💬 Coaching Cue: “Stop waiting for perfect readiness. Clarity comes from movement, not before it.”
If the downside is recoverable, take the step.
📣 Pulse Check: What’s one small risk you can take this week that would expand your options?
📈 The Burnout Approval Matrix: Smart Risk Edition — A grid to highlight what are strategic risks vs. what might be self-sabotage.
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See you next Tuesday.
– Michelle