7 Scripts to Push Back on Overwork (Without Sounding Difficult or Unprofessional)

Most people don’t burn out because they’re weak or uncommitted. They burn out because they never learned how to say, “This is too much,” in a way that doesn’t sound angry, dramatic, or disloyal.

So they say nothing. They stay late. They absorb more. And eventually, they shut down.

You don’t need a perfect boundary speech. You just need language that’s honest, professional, and still human. Here are seven scripts you can adapt when work keeps asking for more than you can give.

1. When You're Given More Work Than You Can Take On

Old response: “Sure, I’ll get it done.” (While panicking internally.)
Try this instead:
“I can take this on. Which project would you like me to delay or hand off so I can give this the attention it deserves?”
This keeps you helpful, but reminds people your capacity isn’t infinite.

2. When the Deadline Is Unrealistic

Old response: “I’ll try.”
Try this:
“To meet that deadline, I would need to set aside other responsibilities. Is the priority speed or quality on this one?”
You’re not refusing—you’re asking them to choose.

3. When You Keep Getting Pulled Into “Quick Questions”

Old response: “No problem!”
Try this:
“I want to help. I’m working on something that needs focus—can I circle back at ___?”
Saying no to interruptions makes space for real work.

4. When You’re Expected to Always Be Available

Old response: “Text me if you need me.”
Try this:
“After 6 p.m., I’m offline unless it’s urgent. If it’s something that can wait until morning, email works best.”
Clear communication beats silent resentment.

5. When You’re Volun-told for Yet Another Committee or Task Force

Old response: “If no one else wants to, I’ll do it.”
Try this:
“I care about this work, but I’m at capacity. If you still need me involved, something else will need to come off my plate.”

6. When Someone Drops a Task on You at the Last Minute

Old response: “I’ll make it work.”
Try this:
“I can do that, but not by today. I can have it to you by ___, or I can help you find someone who’s available sooner.”

7. When You Feel Guilty for Saying No At All

Internal script to practice:
“I am not failing—this is me choosing to stay healthy enough to keep doing good work.”
If you only change one thing, let it be this: boundaries aren’t barriers. They’re oxygen.

Not Sure How Burned Out You Really Are?

Before you assume “this is just how it is,” get a clear picture of where you stand.

Two-minute burnout screening here: MyBurnoutTest.com

Want More Language, Tools, and Support?

This kind of communication is built into The Burnout Hub—video lessons, downloadable scripts, reflection prompts, and leadership tools you can use with your team.

You can explore it here:
https://www.myburnouthub.com/learn-more

Or if your organization needs training, a keynote, or a workshop on burnout and moral distress, my speaking availability is here:
https://patrickriecke.com/live-presentations

The Pitt, Brain Death, and My Repressed Emotions

The Complicated Death of a Teenager

As the brain dead teen laid in the bed, his tattoo arm sleeve still demonstrated his personality. I'll never forget the beautiful images.

Five days earlier, I met his parents in a consult room. At that time, his mom would not accept the news of his brain death.

She begged God for a miracle, and implored us to wait--to leave him on life support.

Waiting is complicated in these situations--when a patient has been declared brain dead.

One complication in this case was that the young man was "donor-designated"--he had a heart ❤️ on his license.

In the state of Indiana that's considered a binding advance directive.

In plain English--he was going to be an organ donor whether mom approved or not.

For days, she did not approve.

Yet, ten days after his car accident, the organ procurement organization was gowned up, standing outside his ICU room, and ready to take him to the operating room.

An honor walk was scheduled for the afternoon.

Then it was pushed back to early evening.

Healthcare Leaders--Always On Call

It was Friday. I was at home. I was not on call. But healthcare leaders know that--in situations like these--it doesn't matter if you are technically on call or not. At 6:30 that evening, my phone rang.

"The mom is refusing to accept the brain death diagnosis--again."

After a long week at work, I didn't bother to put my suit back on. I just grabbed my badge and headed back to the hospital.

"She said she'll throw herself onto his bed if we try to wheel him to the OR for organ recovery..." the nurse leader was working late, too.

At 6:45, I met with the team outside of his room--donor network, nurses, and public safety. They were throwing up their hands, at a loss for what to do next. They were stuck between the need to procure his organs and the possibility of having to physically restrain his mother.

No one wants to be heavy-handed with a grieving mother. Least of all, me.

After all, her son was the same age as one of my own sons. Putting myself in her shoes was easy.

Both our sons were big-hearted, outgoing, faith-focused young men.

The Tug-of-War between Grief and Medicine

The team looked at me--"What are we going to do?"

I assured the representative from the organ procurement agency that we understood--the patient had to donate.

"Can I go into the room?" I asked.

Inside, I hugged his mom. I stood in silence. I asked about his tattoos. We made some connections about our faith, our friends, and being parents.

"Are you 100% sure he is brain dead?" Mom finally choked out her question.

I stayed silent. She wasn't actually looking for answers.

Later, I gently slid the words out to mom, "You asked if we are sure. The answer is yes, we are 100% sure."

Finally, she started to cry.

"No one can say I didn't fight for him until the end..." she surrendered.

"No," I echoed. "No one can say that."

We encircled the young man in prayer. RNs, Nurse Manager, donor network team, family, and me. Tears fell onto the concrete floor. Just as they are falling on my desk and keyboard as I write these words.

The honor walk solemnly began after the long delay. Dozens of family and friends lined the hallways, peppered with staff from our hospital.

When we reached the red and white tape on the floor that designated the entrance to the surgery wing, the procession stopped for the parents to say goodbye one last time.

Even Hell is Filled with Miracles

Nearby, one of our public safety officers stood--quiet and respectful--grateful he wasn't called on to restrain this grieving mother.

Mom spotted a tattoo on the officer's arm--a bright, colorful depiction of heavenly gates. Standing at the surgery threshold after her son was wheeled away, she took his arm in her hands, wiping tears.

She touched the officer's tattoo. Held his arm. He did not pull away. He understood.

As her son entered those gates, it just so happened that an officer stood nearby with this icon blazing across his arm.

Back in the ICU room, now empty, the patient's dad thanked me for coming. He said, "You preserved a lot of peace tonight."

The Incurable Condition of Moral Distress

Yesterday, I read a social media comment that claimed one of the tasks of nursing school is to "spare future nurses moral distress."

Obviously, that is bull sh*t.

As vital as education is, nothing prepares a person for these moments.

Moral distress and moral injury can never be eliminated in healthcare. As long as teenage boys, completely sober, total their cars and end up braindead, there will always be moral distress.

The Pitt and The Truth About Healthcare

That's the end of my story. If you want to discover my reason for writing now, read these last few paragraphs.

I am probably the last person in America to finally start watching the hit series The Pitt.

Season one includes the story of Nick Bradley. A braindead teen boy.

Nick and my patient were similar.

I cried several times while we watched these episodes, and my experience came rushing back like a spring-loaded punch to my face.

Had I repressed this story--this experience of secondary trauma?

Probably.

Why?

Not because it was the hardest experience I witnessed. It wasn't.

It was for three personal reasons:

1. It was because this patient's death occurred two months after a good friend of mine died during childbirth. I stood in her room when she was also declared brain dead. And my wife and I became primary support people for her widower and newborn baby (that would last for a couple of years).

2. This patient with the tattoos died one week before my father-in-law died. One of the world's sweetest men, his absence left a huge hole for our whole family.

3. Finally, this patient died two weeks before my own son graduated from high school.

So, yeah. I probably repressed my feelings about this experience until--years later--it was safe to feel them while watching Dr. Robby navigate Nick Bradley's death.

These morally distressing patient experiences--they never happen in a vacuum. We face them in the middle of our own stories.

Today, healthcare workers are showing up for their patients despite...

• Their miscarriage grief still feeling raw

• The angst from their last shift trying to pin them to their bed

• Their mind looping on the last patient they watched die

• Their questions about what good they are doing in this broken and dying world

And, while they work today, something will go wrong. They'll lose a patient. Or be physically assaulted. Or a leader will be overly critical. Or a family member will accuse them of not caring about their patient.

When people talk about moral distress, stress in healthcare, and burnout as something we have to "fix"--it demonstrates that they don't understand.

You don't fix this.

You address it. You acknowledge it. You try to overcome.

But it can't be fixed.

And that. That's why I do what I do.

When Winter Storms Come, Healthcare Doesn’t Stop

When a winter storm is approaching, hospitals don’t wait to see what happens. They prepare—because they don’t close.

The 24/7 Nature of Healthcare

The 24/7 nature of healthcare, especially on the inpatient side, is difficult to fully appreciate until you experience it firsthand. Severe weather doesn’t pause illness, injury, or emergencies. People still need care, and the system is built to respond.

I remember the first time a major weather event was forecast after I started working in healthcare. It was eye-opening. Conference rooms were converted into sleeping spaces. Air mattresses and pillows were pulled from office closets. Staff were told they might need to stay until relief could arrive. Public Safety and Grounds teams doubled their presence to keep operations running safely.

The message was clear: patient care continues, no matter what.

To be clear, I support that wholeheartedly. It’s one of the things I admire most about healthcare.

In 2022, our second son required an emergency appendectomy in the middle of a significant winter storm that forced many other businesses to shut down. Despite the conditions, every physician, nurse, and staff member we needed was there—on time, prepared, and fully present. That experience reinforced just how deeply committed healthcare professionals are to the people they serve.

The Costs to Coworkers

At the same time, the always-on nature of healthcare comes at a cost. Long shifts, disrupted rest, missed family time, and the expectation to show up regardless of circumstances take a real toll over time. Dedication alone doesn’t make people immune to exhaustion.

This tension—between a system that must never stop and the humans who keep it running—is something I think about often. It’s also why I’ve focused much of my work on burnout prevention, recovery, and sustainability in high-stakes professions.

Healthcare doesn’t need less commitment. It needs better support for the people who carry that commitment day after day.

Help for the Helpers

For those interested in going deeper, I’ve created practical, CE-approved courses designed for healthcare professionals and leaders who want to better understand burnout and build more sustainable ways of working. You can explore those resources at MyBurnoutHub.com.

Upcoming Webinar—Beyond Stress: Why Burnout Is a Systems Issue

Burnout is still widely misunderstood.

Most of the advice people receive frames burnout as a personal problem:
+ Try harder.
+ Set better boundaries.
+ Practice more self-care.

While individual support matters, this framing misses something essential.

Burnout doesn’t begin with individuals.
It begins with systems.

When capable, committed professionals are consistently exhausted, detached, or losing their sense of purpose, the issue is rarely a lack of resilience. More often, it’s the result of sustained pressure created by workload expectations, role ambiguity, moral distress, and workplace cultures that quietly normalize overextension.

This is especially true in healthcare, education, and other service-oriented professions—fields where people are deeply motivated by responsibility, ethics, and care for others.

Stress and burnout are not the same thing

One of the most persistent problems in burnout conversations is the tendency to collapse burnout into “stress.” Stress is typically episodic and recoverable. Burnout is cumulative and structural. It develops when recovery is no longer possible within the system itself.

When burnout is treated as stress, the solutions offered are often mismatched. Telling burned-out professionals to “take better care of themselves” can unintentionally increase shame, reinforce isolation, and make burnout harder to name and address.

A different conversation about burnout

On Wednesday, January 28, I’m hosting a live Webinar titled Beyond Stress: Why Burnout Is a Systems Issue. This is a teaching-focused session designed to offer clarity, shared language, and a more accurate framework for understanding burnout.

During the session, we’ll explore:

• How burnout differs from stress

• How organizational expectations, workload, and culture contribute to burnout risk

• Why individual-focused solutions often fall short

• What leaders and organizations can change without new budgets or sweeping reforms

This session is designed for healthcare professionals, educators, leaders, and anyone supporting others in high-pressure environments. Attendance and Q&A are anonymous, and continuing education credit is available.

If burnout has felt personal—heavy, confusing, or hard to articulate—this conversation is meant to help reframe it. Not to excuse harm, but to name it accurately. And to begin shifting the responsibility for change back where it belongs.

👉 Register Here

When Trauma Doesn’t End at the Scene

At a bus stop in 2018, three siblings were struck and killed. Another young boy was critically injured.

Last week, the trauma from that incident claimed another life.

Paramedic Jacob Amos responded to the scene that day. He saw the children who were killed. He treated the critically injured boy—who was later transferred to my hospital.

Last week, Jake died as a result of PTSD.

According to his memorial, Jake sought treatment. He even entered inpatient care, trying to carry on. He continued working as a paramedic, which meant—inevitably—responding to other pediatric emergencies over the years.

The trauma didn’t stay in one moment. It followed him.

I was part of the team that supported the critically injured child after that bus stop incident.

I sat in consult rooms with his family.

I visited his hospital room during recovery.

When reporters repeatedly contacted the family, I worked with our hospital marketing team to stop it.

Even in my own journal at the time, I wrote about how devastating this was for everyone involved.

So when I saw the news of Jake’s death last week, I was deeply saddened.

But I was also furious.

Not at Jake.

According to some commentors, his department didn’t provide any mental health resources to Jake or his colleagues after that horrific call. If that’s true (and it often is), it makes me so angry.

I applaud Jake for seeking treatment. Many people never do. That takes courage.

And here’s the harder truth we don’t like to say out loud:

Healthcare has always been hard.

• Before COVID.

• Before acts of violence in hospitals.

• Before political interference and non-science

It has always been hard.

Why?

Because people die.
Kids die.
And people care.

When you care deeply, you don’t just clock out of trauma. You carry it.

Jake’s death is not a failure of effort or willpower. It’s a reminder that exposure to repeated trauma—especially when it’s unrelenting and cumulative—affects people.

And that good, dedicated professionals can still be overwhelmed, even when they try to get help.

So here’s the ask—plain and urgent:

Check on your coworker.
Check again, even if they say they’re “fine.”

If you’re a leader, this is not optional. Supporting coworkers after crisis is part of the job

If you want to preview my on-demand leadership course, Supporting Coworkers in Crisis, you can find it here:
👉 https://www.myburnouthub.com/leadership-essentials-section-4

Because caring for people who care for others isn’t soft work.
It’s necessary work.