Retreats for Women in Business: What Actually Changes When You Step Away
Putting the out of office on for a week feels impossible when the business is you. Fiona McCoss, women's mentor and founder of Wild Feminine Retreats, argues that stepping away is a leadership decision rather than an indulgence, and sets out what to check before you book one.
For many women in business, stepping away can feel impossible. Especially for women who left corporate for the "freedom" of self-employment, only to step into another cage of long hours and demanding schedules. Retreats for women in business tend to be the first thing dropped from the list.
We are conditioned to believe success comes from doing more, pushing harder and staying available at all times. Yet the evidence on burnout suggests the opposite may often be true: sometimes the most important thing a leader can do is rest.
Why burnout hits women in business harder
The conversation around female burnout has never been more relevant. Research from McKinsey and LeanIn has consistently shown women experience higher levels of burnout than men. In their 2025 Women in the Workplace study, 60% of senior-level women reported frequently feeling burned out, compared with 50% of senior-level men. That research covers corporate America and Canada rather than UK founders, but the strain it describes will be familiar to anyone running her own business.
Women are frequently balancing the demands of business growth alongside caregiving responsibilities, emotional labour and the invisible mental load that follows them long after the working day ends.
I know this reality only too well: earlier in my career, I held a successful corporate role and outwardly appeared to have everything under control. Behind the scenes, however, I was running on empty.
Photo: FIona McCoss
Like many women, I ignored the signals from my body, convinced that exhaustion was simply the price of ambition. Eventually, the stress caught up with me and burnout became the catalyst for a complete reassessment of how I wanted to live and lead.
What actually happens on a retreat
A retreat is so much more than a “yoga holiday” with a good photographer. They are important spaces where women get to leave the to-do lists behind, put the out-of-office on, and simply receive. For many women, this is radical. For once, they get to put themselves first.
Women are chronically undernourished in terms of self-care. They have been socialised to always give to others but receive little back in return. This pattern often presents in business, too.
A retreat is a time when women get to simply be. The schedule is set for them; no need to be in charge or plan anything, with plenty of space and free time to rest or read your new book.
Throughout the day, guided practices and workshops help you get into the body, which helps regulate the nervous system. The benefits? Huge. More capacity, more joy, more creativity. A whole reset.
Why the community part matters more than founders expect
The isolation is the bit most founders underestimate. Building a business can be a surprisingly lonely job, and social media creates an illusion of connection that does very little for the woman carrying immense real pressure on her own.
The UK data backs this up. The Rise Report 2026, a survey of 2,225 female founders, found one in seven named loneliness as the hardest part of building a business, while 78% said connection was central to how they work. That gap between what founders need and what they actually have is one of the clearest findings in the whole report.
Spending time with like-minded women who understand the realities of leadership can be both validating and transformative. Conversations around a dinner table or during a workshop often create feelings of belonging, of being seen, and of not being the only one feeling this way.
For many women this helps heal their self-doubt and shame, both massive blocks in business and daily life.
How to choose a retreat that is worth the money
Not all retreats are created equal, and there are a lot of them now. Three things to check before you commit.
1. Read the reviews properly
Look past the polished marketing. Genuine testimonials tell you what you can actually expect from the experience and the quality of the facilitation. Pay attention to reviews describing specific changes rather than generic praise. "I felt amazing" tells you nothing. "I came home and finally restructured my client hours" tells you a great deal.
2. Work out the true cost
The advertised price is only part of the story. Factor in flights, transfers, accommodation upgrades and the time away from your business. A retreat should feel like an investment in how you lead, not something that leaves you anxious about cash flow three months later.
One correction worth making, because the opposite advice circulates constantly: do not assume a personal wellbeing retreat can go through the business as an expense. HMRC's test is that a cost must be incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade. A retreat with a genuine, evidenced business purpose, such as a mastermind or a training programme, is a conversation to have with your accountant. A rest and reconnection retreat almost certainly is not. Ask before you book rather than after.
3. Research the facilitator
Who is actually leading it? What qualifications, expertise or lived experience do they bring? Whether the focus is leadership, wellbeing, business strategy or personal development, the facilitator largely determines what you get out of the week. A beautiful villa run by someone out of their depth is an expensive holiday.
The thing rest is actually protecting
The best retreats do not promise quick fixes. They offer space to work out what matters, a new perspective on the business you have built, and often friendships that outlast the trip.
Heading further into 2026, with more founders reporting burnout rather than fewer, rest is worth thinking about differently. It is not the reward you get once the business is finally sorted, because that version of the business never arrives. It is what keeps the person running it in a fit state to make good decisions. That is the asset. Everything else is downstream of it.
