Thriving After Burnout: A Conversation With Fitness and Wellness Expert Reena Vokoun

Anyone, but especially women, can overcome burnout and restore balance in their lives by prioritizing these four pillars of wellness.

Reena Vokoun started Passion Fit to help others find balance and wellness in their lives. Courtesy of Passion Fit

Women today often hold themselves to impossibly high expectations. While aiming to be the best wives and mothers they can possibly be, they often also aim to conquer demanding career goals, all while trying to be good friends and neighbors and to contribute well to their communities. It’s a lot. No wonder so many report feelings of burnout.

We asked Reena Vokoun, a wellness expert, work-balance authority, and author of The Women’s Wellness series, for her insights as to how women today can find more balance between their personal and professional roles. Here’s what she said.

The Epoch Times: In your TED Talk, you mention experiencing burnout in 2012. What happened?

Ms. Reena Vokoun: Life was pretty busy in 2012. Our younger son was born the year prior, and my husband and I were adjusting to having two kids, with our older son being four years old at the time. My husband was also offered a demanding new job that year at Google, as I was getting used to being back at Google after maternity leave with my own demanding job there. We were both traveling for work as well. My husband was traveling about 70 percent of the time, and I was traveling about 25 percent of the time, when he wasn’t out of town.

These life experiences and changes led to my burnout. I felt exhausted, stressed, and in over my head, and I felt a sense of working mom’s guilt. Since I was so busy taking care of my family and was swamped at work, I lacked time and energy to take care of my own health and well-being, including getting regular exercise, eating healthy, sleeping well, and managing stress. And I experienced health issues as a result.

Reena Vokoun, fitness instructor and founder of Passion Fit. Courtesy of Passion Fit

The Epoch Times: How is your life different now from that difficult time?

Ms. Vokoun: When I decided to leave Google and my corporate career, I knew I needed to get my health back on track and incorporate wellness back into my life. After all, wellness has always been my passion. My wellness practices, including my workouts, meal planning, sleep, and mindfulness tools, are now non-negotiables, which are listed on my calendar.

I also wanted to design my life and career in such a way that I could live and work on my own terms. While becoming an entrepreneur and starting my own company wasn’t exactly an easy path to take, I knew I was pursuing my passions, building a company and brand that could positively impact people’s lives, living my life’s purpose, and creating the work-life balance I always wanted for myself and my family, which I’m still grateful to be enjoying today!

The Epoch Times: Your work inspires other women to live with passion while taking care of themselves. What have you found to be the most common ways today’s women are struggling?

Ms. Vokoun: My work with clients over the last decade and my own experiences have shown me that today’s women are often struggling with competing priorities, trying to balance work and family life, inequity in the workplace, unplugging from technology, self-confidence, stress, anxiety, exhaustion, a lack of energy, and feeling the need to be perfect in many areas of their lives.

These are the very challenges I wanted and still want to solve in my work through my company, Passion Fit. My mission is to empower women to flourish both personally and professionally through wellness. Through my health and wellness and personal and professional development coaching, wellness programs, retreats, classes, books, online courses, workshops, newsletters, blog, and videos, I try to provide the education, tools, motivation, and inspiration to help women overcome their struggles and thrive.

The Epoch Times: You wrote a mission statement for yourself as a sophomore in college. What can other women do to identify their own life’s mission?

Ms. Vokoun: My mission statement has been a positive guide throughout my life, and other women (or anyone) can write their own mission statements at any age or stage in life as well. I would start by taking a step back and reflecting on your life and what you ultimately hope to experience or accomplish. What type of an impact do you want to have, and what type of legacy do you want to leave behind? Grab a journal and write freely and from the heart. The ideas will flow and help guide you to write a mission statement including your deepest values, goals, hopes, and dreams.

The Epoch Times: What inspired you to write The Women’s Wellness series?

Ms. Vokoun: I had always dreamed of becoming an author and writing a series of books. I started my Passion Fit blog back in 2014 in an effort to prepare myself to become an author down the road. And before I even published my first book, “The Wellness-Empowered Woman” in 2021, I already had the idea outlined for my second book, “The Wellness-Evolved Woman,” which came out in 2024.

My work with hundreds of clients is what inspired me to write The Women’s Wellness series, which includes practical tips and resources, as well as some of my personal stories, anonymous stories of clients, and motivational stories of public figures.

The Epoch Times: What are the key strategies you recommend to women who wish to find balance in their personal and professional lives?

Ms. Vokoun: The key strategies I would recommend include prioritizing your health and well-being and doing the following things:

Finding Your Power Move, which consists of small, intentional micro-actions that help you take that first step to shift your energy, motivate you, and transform your focus, confidence, and decision-making in different areas of your personal and professional life.

Leveraging my 7-step holistic approach to wellness, including key tools for productivity, self-assessment, sleep, self-care, mindfulness, exercise, and nutrition.

The Epoch Times: You mention four key pillars of wellness: mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. How do you nurture each of these in your own life?

Ms. Vokoun: I truly believe in taking a holistic approach to wellness, and I nurture the four key pillars of wellness in my own life in the following ways:

Mental: I keep my mental health strong and sharp by continuously studying, reading, researching, writing, learning, and growing in my knowledge, interests, skills, and passions.

Physical: I focus on my physical health by staying active and teaching Pilates, barre, yoga, dance, bootcamp, and high-intensity interval training classes five days per week, and following the Mediterranean style of eating and getting a mix of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats.

Emotional: I tend to my emotional health by writing in my journal to express my thoughts and feelings, prioritizing open, honest, and healthy communication in my relationships, facing my fears, reminding myself I don’t have to be perfect, embracing my flaws, and focusing on my strengths to build confidence and security.

Spiritual: I strengthen my spiritual health through meditation, prayer, focusing on things I can control and letting go of things I can’t, having faith and hope for what lies ahead in the future, learning from the past, and enjoying the present.

The Epoch Times: For the woman experiencing burnout right now, what are the first steps you’d recommend she take to make a breakthrough?

Ms. Vokoun: The first step I would recommend is recognizing and acknowledging her burnout and remembering she’s not alone. Everyone goes through burnout at some point or another.

Then I would recommend she assess where she is now, where she ultimately wants to be, and what steps she might take to get there. From that point, she can take small and manageable daily steps to come out of the burnout and work towards her desire for a better life situation. If she needs any external support, she should seek it out. And Passion Fit is always here to help as well!

The Epoch Times: What drives you to continue this work?

Ms. Vokoun: I have a true passion for health and wellness and helping and uplifting others. Staying true to these passions and leveraging my most authentic self to make a positive impact in the world is what drives me to continue to do this work year after year!