Free Live Workshop for the woman who logs off, but can't switch off: 

Save your spot here

Leadership in 2026 can feel like a full-body contact sport: restructures, redundancies, tighter budgets, and that constant hum of uncertainty. And if you’re the capable one, the reliable one, the “leave it with me” one, you’ve probably noticed something uncomfortable. The habits that made you successful are starting to cost more than they’re worth.

I walk through five patterns I see in high-performing women again and again, especially senior leaders: carrying everyone else’s uncertainty, moving the bar on what you think you need to know (hello, AI), automatically picking up extra work, trying to create certainty by overthinking and over-planning, and managing everyone’s reaction after you’ve made or communicated a tough decision. These are not character flaws. They’re success strategies. They worked, until the environment poured rocket fuel on their downside.

You’ll get clear questions to ask yourself, practical boundary lines to draw, and a more sustainable definition of “enough” so you can switch off from work without stepping back from your career. I also share details of my free live workshop, where we go deeper on what keeps you mentally clocked on after hours, and how to start interrupting it.

If this landed for you, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next, share it with a woman who needs the reminder, and leave a review to help it reach the people it’s meant for. What’s the one thing you’re ready to put down before 2027?

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. Honour the space you've created today. Let's dive in. 

Before you start making plans for 2027, which yes is just around the corner, I want you to think about what you absolutely do not want to take with you. Because 2026 has created the perfect conditions for some of our most successful habits to get completely out of hand. So today I've got five things I believe you must leave behind before this year is over. And I have a feeling you're going to recognize yourself in at least one, let's be clearly probably all of them. Now I call these patterns our success strategies. And we have all five, although we tend to rely more heavily on some. 2026 has given these strategies, in particular, certain parts of them, rocket feel. And as well as them being incredibly important to our success, it has amplified so much of their costs. So as we go through the ways these are showing up now, if you're not careful and don't find ways to keep the parts that are great of these and stop paying the costs, you are going to find 2027 is much harder than it already will be.

So first up, one thing you must put down is you must stop carrying everyone else's uncertainty. We live in a time of crazy restructures, redundancies, reporting line changes. Almost everyone is nervous in some capacity. As a leader, you've often had to communicate decisions that perhaps you didn't make, that you don't like, that you don't even support. And unfortunately, now supporting your people, whether they technically report to you or not, through unprecedented levels of uncertainty is now a prerequisite to leadership. But this is where it gets gnarly. So there is uncertainty that you're having to manage in your own nervous system. And now everyone else is coming to you for clarity, for communication. But often you can't give it to them. And so you are more likely, if you're not careful, to absorb their anxiety or their anger, their frustration, their fears about what does this mean for me? What's happening with the company? What's happening to my role? Their frustration about the comms, the decisions, the lack of comms, the lack of decisions, whatever it may be. How much of that is actually coming home with you? And I've coached a number of very senior women through some pretty gnarly restructures lately. And this piece is almost breaking them. But it's going to break you because into 2027, another year of crazy organizational change, whether that's regulatory, political, economic, restructuring, industry, you don't know. It could mean an entire another 12 months of absorbing everyone else's emotional load. And I would suspect that you are already full. And the thought of holding more, taking more, dealing with their fear, trying to allay their concerns could break you, especially if the dial is only going to be continually turned up. So the most important question for you as you exit 2026 is what can you put down once you've done your part? Communicate yes, then put it down. Their anxiety is not your problem. If this one got you in any way, then there is a very good chance that your sponge is strong and full. This is the success strategy that can succeed by carrying the load.

But next up, another thing you must put down by the end of the year is you've got to stop moving the bar on what you believe you need to know. AI has poured rocket fuel on this in 2026. I am surrounded by very smart, experienced, capable women who constantly feel behind. Now they've always felt that way, but with AI and what they feel they need to know, they need to be spending every last ounce of time they have creating agents and building this and making that another tool, another update. Oh my God, they feel like they have to be the one who knows everything. But what is your current benchmark for say being good enough at AI? If your answer is somewhere around, you should know as much as Sam Altman does, then you may need to revisit your bar. Because the women I'm talking to are continuously moving it. It's like, yep, crack that. But hey, I'm moving so fast. Now I need to do this. Now I need to do this. Now I've heard from some women who are spending up to an hour a night sitting on the couch skilling. Now, I'm all for staying on top of latest trends. But if you continuously move the bar, particularly on this topic or whatever it is that you believe you need to know, you are going to be left permanently behind and constantly chasing your tail. So you need to be able to ask yourself: does your role actually require the level of knowledge you're demanding from yourself? And I know you're saying, yes, Joe, but my next role will need this. Yeah, but at what cost? Because AI is only going to accelerate. That's the most overused phrase right now. So if your bar moves every time the technology moves, well, you can spend hours and hours and hours each week and still feel behind. You have to decide what enough looks like for you. And I hope the one thing you've picked up from things that I've said about AI and things that others have said is that what you need more of in the era of AI is access to your own intuition, is access to your own emotional intelligence. And that, my friend, takes space. That takes being away from a screen. So filling yourself up to the gills and moving that bar is just an endless pit of wanting. This is classic achiever territory. This is somebody who succeeds by raising the bar, but then, especially around this topic, discovering that the bar has a habit of continually moving.

So as you are learning to stop carrying everyone else's uncertainty and stop moving the bar on what you need to know, the next thing that you need to put down this year is you need to stop automatically picking up the extra work. Doing more with less is not just the mantra of 2026. It's just the unspoken expectation now. Smaller teams, tighter budgets, roles not being replaced, priorities are still piling up. And I have had so many women who are like, yep, don't worry, I'll sort it, I'll take it. You are likely continuously volunteering yourself as the solution. And companies right now, because things are tight, because not many companies are growing, they keep asking for more. And you, as a capable woman, keep finding ways to deliver it. Meanwhile, you sit there spewing, drowning in resentment because how dare they? I can't believe they asked that of me. Because you keep bloody while saying yes, and you keep doing it again at what cost. Eventually, fewer resources has to affect the amount of work being done. You do not have to immediately fill the gap, and it's not your responsibility to pick up and cover all the holes that you can see. Just because you can see them doesn't mean it's yours. Because here's the cost of this whole doing more with less. It becomes the way that you operate everywhere. So you just do it, leave it with me, I'll get it done because you're a get shit done person. So you get it done on the couch, you'll pick up that thing for school, you'll pick up that thing for your parents, and eventually you, my friend, are going to break because there will always be another thing available to pick up. The list is only going to grow. And the more you show everyone else that you can just hold it and hold it and hold it and hold it, and then one day you're going to wonder, why did I break? You have to be the one who keeps track of your capacity and doesn't have your worth so wrapped up in how much you can do. So if you are regularly working till midnight, still, if you are constantly picking things up, if you are plugging gaps, if you're doing roles while they supposedly recruit, meanwhile, you know they're not recruiting, you have some really hard questions to ask yourself before you end this year. Because it's only going to get worse. There is only going to be more to do. So if your instinct is to continuously keep moving, take things off the list, and find a way, your hustler may be doing exactly what it's always done very successfully. But the cost to you, your family, your relationships, your health is going to become too great to tolerate anymore.

The other thing you need to do is you need to stop trying to create certainty where there isn't any. This year has produced so many unanswered questions. Between economic uncertainty, cost of living, stuff, constant change, business direction, pivots, restructures, AI jobs, where is the world going? Oh my God. Now, I want you to notice what happens in your head when you don't know. What do you lean into? Do you think more? Do you plan more just in case? Do you scenario check A, B, C, D, okay, A1, A2, B3, B4? Do you check? Double check. There comes a point where you've used all the useful information currently available. There is no more knowledge. There is nothing to be gained by thinking more, planning more, checking more, whatever it is that you're doing. But your brain doesn't know that because it likely keeps working on the problem well past that point. I'm curious how much evening headspace you are spending right now in an environment of so much uncertainty. How much is being spent trying to answer questions that you don't have answers to yet? How much wasted time are you triple-checking, doing this thing? There's to be a point where you go, you know what? Uncertainty is not disappearing. We do not wake up on the 1st of January and go, Yay! I know everything now. Like it is only gonna get worse. Uncertainty is only going to accelerate, become more volatile, become more multifaceted across everything. And so if you're not careful, your brain will speed up at the end of this year, trying to get ahead of the holiday season, of the school holidays, of whatever it is, and then you lurch across the calendar year, exhausted and constantly feeling behind. So I'm curious if you were to look over your life right now, work and home, where have you prepared enough for now? Where can your controller actually put it down and go staying one step ahead has served me brilliantly? But right now, stare down. Because uncertainty gives your controller endless material. And if you're not careful, it will never stop and hijack your brain and your life at significant personal at professional cost.

And lastly, you need to stop managing everyone's reaction to difficult decisions. This environment is requiring leaders, and probably you in some way, to make and communicate unpopular decisions, budget cuts, restructures, changing priorities, resource constraints. You have to say no to things, you have to say yes to things. Now, very often, you have to either make an unpopular decision or you have to communicate it, whether you agree with it or not. That's what a leader has to do. But if you are not careful, there is a second shift happening in your head that I am seeing make really confident and powerful and really capable women come completely undone. Are they annoyed at me? Was I too direct? Should I explain it again? Oh my gosh, are they gonna hate me because of what I've had to do? Gosh, they've put in so much work to this thing and now I've had to change direction and I feel so bad. I've let them down. How much work are you wasting? Are you ruminating in after the actual leadership task is complete? People are allowed to have a response to a decision. I'm gonna say that again. People are allowed to have a response to a decision. They don't have to like the decision you've made or the one that you've communicated, even if you don't support it. That is on them. But as we move into 2027, you are going to have to make more decisions faster with less information. And guess what? The more you make decisions, the more chance you have that someone isn't going to like it. How much of their response are you prepared to keep carrying? How much of your time and headspace are you willing to give up worrying about stuff that isn't yours? Yeah, I know that you're probably emotionally intelligent and it's wonderful being able to judge a room and know how to make an uncomfortable decision land, but the cost you are paying from this second shift is astronomical. And so if this is any part true for you, your pleaser is probably running rampant. And this is your strategy that succeeds by having a beautiful achievement to other people and keeping relationships running smoothly, but at an incredible personal cost, especially when you are having to communicate and share very difficult decisions.

So I'm curious, of those five, stop carrying everyone else's uncertainty, stop moving the bar on what you need to know, stop automatically picking up the extra work, stop trying to create certainty where there isn't any, and stop managing everyone's reaction, and stop managing everyone's reaction to difficult decisions. Which one got you? Which one made you go? God, I'm so doing. Maybe several did. Maybe they all did. These patterns became success strategies because they have genuinely helped us succeed. We don't shame them. And 2026 has been an unusually fertile environment. What organization isn't going to praise someone who puts their hand up and says, I'll take it, I'll hold it, I'll manage the team, I'll manage their anxiety, I'll absorb everything, I'll continuously be the one who learns everything and then share it with everyone else. Of course, they are going to feel that and they are going to reward you for it. However, what I'm particularly seeing with these as we exit this year is switching off is becoming increasingly difficult because of all these things that you're absorbing for learning everything. So you can still leave the office and be anticipating, carrying, doing, replaying, evaluating. And it's getting worse than ever.

This is exactly what I'm going to unpack in more detail in my free live workshop, which is on the 15th of October, if you're in Australia, or the 14th of October in the US. How to switch off from work without stepping back from your career. We're going to go deeper on what may be keeping you switched on, the role that these success strategies are playing in that, and most importantly, how to start interrupting it. The links in the show notes to save your free seat, and I'll see you there. 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.