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Choose the Frumpy Dress
- Carolon Donnally
- Sep 1, 2023
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 12
A burnout-resistant life isn't the one that looks good. It's the one that actually fits.
So much of living burnout-resistant is about choice. Choosing the road less traveled. Choosing what is true for you, even when everyone else says you should want something different.
"I had a dream about two dresses. One was tailored, chic, straight out of a magazine. Everyone who saw me in it said it was perfect. And I hated every minute of wearing it. The other one was frumpy — ruffles in all the wrong places, nothing you'd ever see on a runway."
The tailored dress got all the accolades. "It looks so good on you. It fits perfectly. This is exactly what you should look like." And I stood there in it — uncomfortable, constricted, not quite myself — and said nothing, because it looked like the right choice.
The frumpy dress got the side eye. "That looks terrible on you. I would never wear that if I were you." And I stood there in it feeling, for the first time in a long time, like I could breathe.
When the moment of choice came — wear the tailored dress or the frumpy one — I chose the tailored one first. Because that's what you do. You choose the dress everyone else says you should want. You choose the path that looks right from the outside, even if it's cutting into your skin.
It wasn't until I heard myself say out loud, "I hate this dress. I don't want it," that I understood what the dream was really about.
The tailored dress is the life that looks good to everyone else. The frumpy dress is the life that actually fits. Most of us spend years wearing the wrong one.
The tailored dress is the life you're supposed to want. The climbing, the achieving, the yes when you mean no, the staying when everything in you wants to go. It's the one for which you get the accolades. "Your career looks so good." "You're doing so well." "Keep going — this is exactly the path for you."
It doesn't matter that it's killing you. It looks right. So you keep wearing it.
The frumpy dress is the unconventional path. The one where you say, "This doesn't work for me." Where you set the boundary that confuses people. Where you step off the ladder everyone else is climbing because the ladder doesn't go anywhere you actually want to be. From the outside, it looks like a mess. From the inside, it's the first time you've been comfortable in years.
The tailored dress
Looks perfect.
Feels impossible.
"It looks so good on you."
"This is exactly the path for you."
"It doesn't matter that it's uncomfortable — keep going."
"Don't talk about how much you hate it. Just keep climbing."
Getting accolades. Feeling nothing like yourself.
The frumpy dress
Looks wrong.
Feels like home.
That looks terrible on you."
I would not wear that if I were you."
Why would you choose that when you had the other one?"
Getting the side eye. Feeling, finally, like yourself.
A burnout-resistant life is not the tailored one. It's not the one that gets all the praise. It's the one you can actually live in — the one aligned with your values, your energy, your actual self — not the performance of yourself that everyone else has decided to reward.
And the choice to live it is yours. Which is both the most empowering and the most uncomfortable thing to know.
How to Actually Make the Choice
Knowing you have a choice is only the beginning. Here's how to actually use it.
Step 1
Acknowledge that you are at choice
This is where everything begins. Most of us live as though we have no options — as though the tailored dress is the only dress. But you are choosing it, every day, by continuing to wear it. Naming that changes something. It tells you that you are not a passive observer of your own exhaustion. You are an active participant — and that means you can participate differently.
Step 2
Get honest about what your current choices are costing you
What is your current way of working, living, and saying yes bringing you — both the good and the bad? This isn't about cataloguing everything wrong. It's about being honest. What is the tailored dress giving you? And what is it costing you that you keep not saying out loud?
And then: what might the frumpy dress give you that you don't have right now?
Step 3
Acknowledge that inaction is also a choice
This is the one people miss. Doing nothing is not the absence of a decision. Staying in the tailored dress is a choice. Choosing the status quo — continuing to work this way, live this way, say yes this way — is an active decision, whether it feels like one or not.
Once you see it that way, you can't un-see it. And that's a good thing.
Step 4
Weigh the options honestly
Not through the lens of what everyone else will think. Not through the lens of what you're supposed to want. Through the lens of what you actually need to live a life that doesn't require you to quietly disappear into exhaustion to sustain it.
What does the frumpy dress actually look like for you? What changes? What becomes possible? What do you have to be willing to give up — and is it worth it?
Step 5
Take one step — and treat it as an experiment, not a final answer
You don't have to burn everything down. You don't have to have it all figured out before you begin. Decide what is no longer serving you. Then experiment with one small step in the direction of a different way — knowing that you can adjust, that you can learn, that this is not a permanent and irreversible leap off a cliff.
The frumpy dress is not a disaster waiting to happen. It is the beginning of finding out what actually fits.
Sometimes the choice you make will not make sense to others. It does not have to make sense to others. It has to make sense to you — and to the life you are trying to build.
The burnout-resistant life is not glamorous. It is not the one everyone is applauding. It is the road less traveled — the one where you honor your values, protect your energy, and say "this doesn't work for me" even when no one around you is saying it.
It's the one where you choose the frumpy dress. Not because it's easier. But because it's yours.
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If you're ready to stop processing and start moving — the RESET program was built for exactly this moment. It's a 4-month group coaching experience for high-achieving women leaders who are exhausted, overextended, and ready for something to actually change.
Not tips. Not a list of habits. Real work, alongside real people, that builds lasting change.
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Carolon Donnally, MSOD, PCC
Burnout Resistance Coach · Trainer · Strategic Organization Consultant
Carolon helps high-achieving leaders and mission-driven organizations do great work without burning themselves or others out. She is a former Head of Leadership Coaching at the IRS, holds an MSOD from Pepperdine University, and is an ICF PCC credentialed coach. Her work is grounded in 20+ years of real-world experience — and her own experience on the other side of burnout.
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