Balance & Beyond Podcast
Episode Summary
#143: When You Are the Problem (And the Solution)
The most confronting reason we stay stuck often isn't a lack of time, talent, or confidence.
It’s the moment you realise you’re the one holding you back and you can’t seem to stop, even though you can see the pattern coming a mile away.
I’m sharing what I’ve learned from working with 500+ successful women who feel trapped in people pleasing, perfectionism, overthinking, and rescuing everyone else. We talk about why “just set a boundary” can collapse the second guilt hits, why delegating can feel unbearable when your standards are wired for speed and control, and why being needed starts to look like the same thing as being valuable. If you’ve ever found yourself saying yes before you even meant to, then swimming in resentment later, you’ll recognise this instantly.
We also pull apart the myth that more discipline will fix it. Willpower is finite, it depletes when you’re tired, and it can’t keep up with the hundreds of micro-decisions you make every day. What’s really running the show is an old internal operating system built for a previous definition of success, one that links rest to earning, mistakes to danger, and stopping to falling behind. The shift isn’t about trying harder; it’s about rewiring so your ambition becomes sustainable and your work-life balance stops being a constant battle.
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Episode Transcript
INTRO: Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for women who've outgrown the old model of success. The ones who look fine on the outside but know the way they've been living no longer fits. If you're standing in the space between who you were and who you're becoming, this is for you. I honour the space you've created today. Let's dive in!
I have two years of data. Over 500 women, all successful, all capable. When I asked what's holding you back, many said time or confidence, which you'd expect. But one answer kept appearing that stopped me. Myself. Not circumstances, not workload, themselves. They were holding themselves back.
So what does it actually mean when you say, "I'm what's holding me back?" These women can see what they're doing. She says yes when she means no. She's overthinking. She's redoing other people's work, apologizing for things that aren't her fault, knowingly rescuing situations she knows she needs to let go. And this is so, so frustrating because she can see the pattern, but she can't stop it. She knows what she should do, but she doesn't do it.
You become the problem and the person who has to fix it, which feels impossible. If this resonates, or you know someone who's in this situation, they have a litany of books in their cupboard by their bedside table, and they're great at giving all the advice to someone else. Oh, that's about your attachment styles. That's your love language.
But when you know you need to delegate more, when you know you need to say no, when you know you need to ask for help, when you know you need to turn off your laptop, and then there you are at 10 o'clock, keep on worrying. You know you need to lower your standards and stop being so perfect. And the worst part is this just kills you.
Because you've been to therapy, you know all the implications, and yet, despite all of this, these women keep doing it to themselves. Even though they know better, they just can't seem to change. Here's the catch: you can't know your way out of these behavioral patterns that's giving your brain way more credit than it has. It's not as strong as you think.
These are deeper, deeper, hard-wired programs that are running. It's not just about more willpower or even about more sleep. This is about a completely different operating system. Now, the system that you are currently running by has these particular components. Your value is based on your output, how much you can get done.
Asking for help is weakness because you should be able to do it all yourself. Mistakes are a failure because that means you're going to get in trouble. Stopping is falling behind. Oh my God, we can't become mediocre. We have to go full speed ahead. Rest must be earned at all costs, preferably by lots and lots of hard work and strong work ethic. And if you are needed, you are valuable.
You're worth a lot, people keep you around. This operating system worked well for a really, really long time. It got you a lot of success. It got you a lot of perceived value, it got you a lot of gold stars, whether it was childhood or adulthood. But operating systems run automatically. You don't decide to say yes. The operating system does.
If you've ever found that the "yes" is out of your mouth before you realize it, and then you can't take it back because it's already gone, and you just swim in resentment. You don't choose to overthink. Your operating system is all about protecting you from making a mistake. So that's why you look at option A and option B and let me get some more information.
And before you know it, it's run away from you. And you don't want to do someone else's work. You know you need to delegate. You want to give it to them. But your system can't tolerate imperfection or a lack of speed or anything being mediocre. This operating system fires so much faster than your logical brain even has a chance. It is not a fair fight.
Think of it like an ant and an elephant. But what we try to do is we think, right, I just need new morning routine. Get me some more discipline, get me some more willpower, let me think my way to it. But willpower is finite. We only get so much of it. And sure, willpower might work if you're trying to stay away from the chocolate and choose the carrot.
But it's 10 o'clock, you've had a bad day, you're really tired. How well does that willpower work for you in that moment? No matter how much you try to ignore where you've hidden the chocolate away so that you're not gonna have any more. Willpower expires and it massively depletes when we're tired, when we're juggling all the things.
But willpower also can't work on 50 or 100 micro decisions we're making each day. That little decision. "Do I reread that email?" "Do I respond now?" "Do I wait?" "What should I be working on?" "How do I walk into the room?" "Do I say hi to them?" "All these little pieces that we aren't actually thinking about are happening in the background."
This is why we work off an operating system, because all of these micro decisions, often the hundreds, thousands that we make in a day, it would require too much cognitive load and energy if we were making all those decisions from scratch. This is why our brain works.
Imagine every time you went to a red light, you went, "Oh, red." "Interesting." "Wonder what that means?" "What should I do with it?" No, your body goes, "Red light, stop." It wants to short circuit it. This is the main point of your brain. It needs to conserve energy. So all of these decisions are banked in: Just like you see a red light, you come to a stop. Well, also banked in is how you use your time.
Be busy all the time. Because remember, if you're needed, then you're valuable. So always be needed. Always say yes. The standards that you set are hardwired. I still remember the day that I had a presentation. It was an all-staff town hall that I had done for my CEO, and I was in the back, and I could see a typo.
There was one or two letters that were actually in a different font, and it was a type of A and E the wrong way around, in the wrong font. My whole system was like, I can spot misaligned, not quite perfectly left aligned graphics on a PowerPoint slide. A mile away. That's my operating system because it wants perfection. And hardwired in is how I scan a room.
Making sure I say "Hi, making sure I'm nice to everyone." That's all your wiring. That's your operating system. Trying to fix this wiring with willpower is like trying to upgrade your computer by clicking harder. If I just click, it's not going to work. It's just going to get me more exhausted.
So this is the challenge. You're the problem, and you're also the solution at the same time. This is the beautiful loop you've got yourself stuck in. You created the problem, but you're judging yourself for having the problem in the first place because you should know better. And yet you're the only one who can fix it.
But because it's an operating system, your brain can't fix it and you don't know what to do, as you start to fix it or decide you want to fix it, you have to directly challenge the system that built your success. And you've got to try to keep yourself safe while doing it.
So you can say, "Right, that's it." "I'm going to hold a boundary." "I've read a book on boundaries." I'm going to do it." "I'm all inspired." You say "no". And then when you're hit by this wave of guilt, when someone goes, "Aww". And then you backpedal. And then you go, "Oh, I guess I can probably manage it".
Because that fear and weight of letting someone down is completely contrary to your operating system, which says, "I have to be needed". "I have to be nice". "I can't rest". "Because I think, well, what else are you doing?" You can't tolerate the discomfort of watching somebody else fail, or not rescuing someone. Just letting something go.
Your entire system goes and it rears up. And it goes, "I can't, I can't do this." "I can't." I've got to fix it." "I've got to fix it." Because in your mind, "I may as well fix it now." "Otherwise, I'm just going to be left cleaning up the mess later." "And that's going to be even worse and take me more time." "So I'll just do it now." And while trying to, and I remember this viscerally, as I started to rein in my perfectionist, I stopped left aligning everyone's lights and fixing them, and making them all uniform triangles, or hexagons, or whatever was in at the time.
Witnessing something going out at a less than respectable standard, your entire system will rage. Your entire system will rage. And you make all of this happen on top of tiredness, on top of busyness, on top of life, on top of pressure. And you've got Buckley's chance because you are at war with yourself the entire time.
This is why it's exhausting because it's not like you have anything else calling on your energy, like children, managing a job, managing finances, trying to walk the dog, all of these things that we've stacked in our lives. Because remember, being needed is valuable. "I have to earn my rest and I have to work really hard." And value is output. "So therefore I can't ever stop." Can you see how all of this wires in?
And you're trying to do the work. You're trying to improve yourself. You're trying to change all these patterns that you know are there while battling an operating system that consistently wants to go back to default mode. Because willpower or clicking harder will never upgrade the system. You go back to how it was because it's easier. Of course it is initially.
You don't have the energy for change. Of course it's easier just to collapse the boundary and say yes because that's what you've always done. But then, of course, you're going to beat yourself up because you should know better. And thus the cycle continues. Another year goes by, waiting until a better time when you feel like you've got the headspace or the energy to change.
But this isn't about changing, it's about rewiring. The good news is you're not the only one. This is what hundreds of women come to me for. It's for this exact reason. You're not broken, you're not failing, you are not weak, and you don't lack willpower or discipline. You are simply running a different operating system than your life now calls for. But remember, you are the problem, and you are also the solution.
OUTRO: Thanks for joining me today. If this episode resonated, share it with a woman who needs to hear it. And if you want to be part of the Ripple Effect, leaving a review helps it reach the women it's meant for. I'll see you next time.
