Balance & Beyond Podcast

Feeling constantly drained despite giving your all at work?

You're likely paying a tax you never agreed to – not in dollars, but in energy, sleep, health, and joy. This eye-opening episode reveals the hidden "silent tax" that disproportionately affects professional women and fuels burnout.

We unpack three insidious ways this tax manifests: First, through the impossible double bind where women must navigate contradictory expectations (too soft or too tough? too ambitious or not ambitious enough?). Second, through unpaid expectations like being "voluntold" to organize office celebrations or act as the emotional sponge for your team – responsibilities that consume your energy but never appear in your job description or KPIs. Third, through the exhausting need to constantly prove your credibility in rooms where men are automatically assumed competent.

The cost? Chronic exhaustion, sleep disruption, stress-related health flare-ups, and that persistent feeling of running on empty. One particularly revealing anecdote shared involves being asked by a senior male colleague to "be a doll" and fetch coffees during an important board meeting – highlighting how even accomplished women face these demeaning expectations that rob them of opportunities and energy.

But there's hope. The most radical act of leadership available is to stop paying this silent tax by setting unapologetic boundaries, choosing where your energy actually matters, and refusing to subsidize broken systems with your health. Burnout isn't a personal flaw – it's a systemic issue perpetuated by invisible expectations. Are you ready to declare you're done funding it?

Share this episode with a friend who needs this wake-up call, and visit balanceinstitute.com to discover the toolkit that has helped thousands of women create lives where career, relationships and health all thrive together.

Episode Transcript

INTRO: Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for ambitious women who refuse to accept burnout as the price of success. Here, we’re committed to empowering you with the tools and strategies you need to achieve true balance, where your career, relationships and health all thrive, and where you have the power to define success on your own terms. I honour the space you’ve created for yourself today, so take a breath, and let's dive right in…

Jo (00:12.876)

You're paying a tax you never agreed to. Not in dollars, but in energy, sleep, health and joy. And it's the reason burnout hits women so much harder. The tax you're paying isn't a financial one, but it is costing you everything. This tax is invisible, it's unpaid, and most women have been paying it since the moment we entered the workforce, without even realizing it.

This is why we're calling it a silent tax. And the subtle message in this tax is that who you are isn't enough. So you have to keep doing a little bit extra, doing more, keep carrying more. And this starts early on when you join the workforce. And as you get more and more senior and you take on more and more responsibilities, what you don't realize is you are adding more and more silent tax to everything that you're already holding.

And this tax you're paying energy, sleep, mental health, physical health, joy, fulfillment, peace, all the things that it robs you of. So let's talk about what the silent tax is because you may not be aware of how much this is costing you. The silent tax comes out in the double bind. Too soft, then you become weak.

But too tough, you become too cold. Too ambitious and you're ruthless, not ambitious enough and you're mediocre. Women are walking this constant tightrope, which leads to an exhausting level of vigilance. That's right. Did I say that? no. What about this? no. I came across too direct then. I didn't want to be conceived as bossy, but then I talked in circles and they didn't.

You compound all of this with our people pleasing tendencies, which are deeply buried in most of us. And then we are constantly worried about what other people think of us. So not only does it lead to hypervigilance of our power perceived by others, but it also leads to internal hypervigilance.

Jo (02:32.299)

What do I say? How did I say that? You're re-assessing, lying awake at 2 a.m., thinking about that thing that you said last week in the meeting and then they're gonna take offense to it. You have no idea how much this is costing you in terms of energy and mental headspace going around and around being stuck in this double bind. For most women, it just ends up in paralysis and overthinking because it's easier to criticize yourself and just say nothing than walk this constant mental tightrope.

Another way this tax is being paid is in unpaid expectations. Maybe you've been asked to mentor junior staff because you're good with people. Have you been voluntold for committees, for wellbeing activities? Are you the ones ordering the cupcakes or organizing the Christmas party because you're organized and good at multi-tasking? Huge one is often acting as the emotional sponge for your team's stress.

These are big things that can drain you and result in constant interruptions. And because of your people pleasing tendencies, you want everyone to like you. And so you become their punching bag. You become the person who will listen no matter what it costs. I still remember being in a board meeting as the head of marketing.

So one of the senior people there on the executive team, and being asked by a 70 plus pale, stale male. I quote, be a dull, would you and grab us some more coffees? Yep. That's right. And this was not that long ago. He was horrified by my reaction when I couldn't hide the disgust on my face. But there was also a part of me that was very aware of the power imbalance in the room.

And so, I didn't feel I had a choice but to oblige. And so I left the room during a conversation that was actually really important and it was damaging that I ended up missing it because I made a decision while I was waiting downstairs, of course, because it wasn't just coffee from the kitchen. We had to go downstairs to the proper coffee shop and then I had to take their orders. And they're thinking, hang a second. I get that someone has to get the coffees, but why are you asking the woman at the table? And no surprise, I was the only woman. 

Jo (04:56.078)

Why are you asking me to do that? Pretty rare that you'll see them ask the CFO to go and grab everyone coffees. Or can you go get the cookies or can you organize this thing? So these unpaid expectations, which are just assumed as women, just like there's data that shows once upon a time, they're changing this now, they used to always ask a girl to accompany a boy who was sick to the sick bay because it was assumed that she was more caring. Rather than asking, would you like a friend to help you walk to the sick bay? They would always pick a girl.

These are these unconscious biases and expectations that come from childhood, but are deeply rooted in society. Women should be the caring ones. You are the organized ones. This comes naturally to you. So you can just take it on. But what happens is we take on all this extra stuff. The Christmas party, the cupcakes, the Christmas gifts, the birthday this, the emotional sponge. And these things are never in your KPIs.

And then they usually take away because they take energy, they take headspace, they can be hard to carry. They take away from what you're in theory meant to be doing, what your actual objectives are. And then when you don't meet those objectives, because you probably didn't have time, then you may not get your bonus or you don't get that promotion. But meanwhile, you were doing all of these unpaid and un-seed elements of labor that keep you trapped, keep you stuck and drain the crap out of you.

A lot of the time we do it either because we don't think we have a choice, but another reason we do it is because we feel like it gets us brownie points. We feel like people will like us more and we get significance from being the one who organizes the Christmas party and we get the big round of applause on the night and they give us a bottle of champagne and a bunch of flowers for giving up many, many, many hours, without extra pay.

And it took away from what you were actually meant to be doing that was part of your job that you were being benchmarked and rewarded on. So this is one example and a very, very quick thing for you to call out and shift. Two other ways we pay the silent tax is proving your credibility.

Jo (07:13.346)

There is unfortunately part of these unconscious bias and conditioning is often women feel like they have to earn respect in rooms where men are just automatically assumed credible. We feel like we have to over prepare. We have to have answers to everything. We have to over explain constantly and over deliver that kind of under promise and over deliver to prove that we're worthy of getting where we are.

When in reality, you've got the job for a reason. You wouldn't have been hired or given the promotion or put in the position you're in if you weren't capable of doing the job. And yet women still get into a job that they've been hired for and then think, my gosh, now I've got to prove that I can do it. No, you have nothing to prove. All of this over-preparing, being on top of your inbox. So in case they asked you for this particular question, wanting to know all the numbers or all the possible risks, instead of really grounding in actually, if I don't know the answer to that, I'm going to say, leave that one with me. I'll get back to you.

You're never going to know every answer. I would so much rather you get a really good night's sleep and turn up with a brain that's sharp. Instead of staying up to one o'clock preparing your deck or thinking about all the questions they could possibly answer, it's just nuts. This is another form of this vigilance tax.

How am I being perceived? Do I know enough? Am I smart enough? Have I asked the right question? Let me chuck in this piece of knowledge I know here. It can almost result in us coming across, and this sounds like a word that I used when I was a kid, but trying too hard, where we're trying to prove ourselves and we aren't actually present in the meeting because we're always thinking about, Oh, I haven't contributed enough.

Then I've got to say something smart and what, oh, but all that person just said what I was thinking. And it's so noisy in our head. And is it any wonder that we're not able to respond in that moment to what is going on? To what is truly there? Because we're so busy being sucked in to got to do this, got to say that I should have said this. Oh no, I shouldn't have said that. What are you thinking me?

Jo (09:36.184)

This is a huge part of the silent tax compounding. No surprise, you're trying to prove your credibility. You're taking on all this extra unpaid and unseen work and you're stuck in this double bind. The physical toll that you are taking, the chronic exhaustion where you wake up tired, the sleep disruption because you can't turn your brain off when you're waking up at 3 a.m. thinking about all the things that you haven't done. And then the stress related flare ups. Maybe it's migraine, maybe it's back pain.

Maybe you've got some perimenopause symptoms that have come out of nowhere. Maybe you've got various audioimmune diseases and tolerances. Suddenly all the things that you used to be able to handle now, it's like your body doesn't have enough bandwidth. And that's because not only are you constantly on the go all the time, but there's these sneaky layers of silent tax that you continue to pay. And with this silent tax, the reason it's silent is because it's rarely named. It's often just expected.

We're never given a prize at the end of the year that says, thank you for carrying all the invisible shit. No, it's just expected that we will pick it up. It's just assumed that this comes easy to us. This comes naturally to us. So it's no skin off your back. You can do it. And we often make it look easy. We do like the praise that can come with taking on some high profile things.

By the time you realize the cost of this, whether it's being passed over for promotion or not having time to get to that piece of work that you wanted or being having to work all weekend because you had to go and spend your daytime hours doing something else for someone else. You're often already deep in burnout. Now the fun part, what happens when you stop paying this silent tax?

When you turn around and say, no, you get to set unapologetic boundaries. get to say no, either get your own damn coffee. If it's the chairman, you might not want to say get your own damn coffee. You might want to ask if somebody else can get the coffees, or you might want to suggest that your break and go downstairs together. And you know, let's have a in the break, let's go and do that. You've got to be really, really careful of these power imbalances and making sure that you're able to hold these boundaries in a way that is sustainable.

Jo (12:02.828)

You also start choosing where your energy actually matters. What are my priorities for today or for this week? And I'm going to make sure I get my own priorities done first. I'm going to do what matters to me that's going to help me meet my KPIs. It's going to help me achieve my objectives and get done what I need to, ideally in the boundaries of working hours so that I am not up on the laptop until 11 o'clock at night.

I'm not waking up at 3 a.m. responding to an email from the U.S. because it's just quicker if I get back to them now. No, we have to stop doing this. And we have to, when we start, when we stop paying the silent tax, let me start that again. When we stop paying the silent tax, we're also going to stop subsidizing these broken systems with our health.

Because when you take on extra stuff on top of all the extra stuff in your role that you're already doing, probably with less resources and less budget, so you have to do more with less. Well, there's even less room now for you to go and visit the doctor or move your body or fuel yourself properly or get to bed at a reasonable hour or not feel like the only time you can exercise, stick it up at 4.30 in the morning because that's the only time you can fit it in. When we stop subsidizing these systems, you put yourself first.

You take care of yourself. You make sure you have enough in the tank. Burnout is not a personal flaw. It is very much a systemic issue. And this is the compound interest that too many women are paying on the silent tax. So this episode resonates. If there's something in here, if you are stuck in the double bind, if you are paying the physical toll, if you are continuously trying to prove your credibility, this is your wake up call.

The silent tax only keep us collecting if you keep paying. And the most radical act of leadership that you can make today is to declare that you're done and refuse to fund it any longer.