198 | The Exhaustion No One Talks About as a Female Entrepreneur

Welcome back to Your Money, Your Rules podcast with me, your host, Erin Gray. Today I want to talk about something that I feel like many high-achieving women experience. They know very intimately, even if you might not have had the language to describe it. And I want to talk about over-responsibility.

So this is a pattern of caring more than what is actually yours. I've experienced it in myself. I see it. I'm actually doing this podcast because we actually had this conversation with a couple of clients over the past couple of weeks.

So I wanted to do an episode on this because I think that this bleeds not just into our business, it bleeds into our friendships, it bleeds into our marriage, it bleeds into parenting, like all of the areas of our life if we aren't aware. So let's dive in. I wanted to share a quick little update with you. I am coming back to YouTube.

It feels really aligned for me where I am right now. I have someone that I'm super excited about that's helping me edit and put everything up there for you guys. You know, as a consumer, I love to watch people on YouTube, you know, when I listen to podcasts. And also, you know, for me being on there to connect with you.

Like I love connecting. Video is another way that I love to connect so that you can see me face to face and have these conversations in a deeper way. I want to say that the episodes will be released on Thursdays. This is going to allow more continuity across all of the platforms and everything that I am giving and sharing with you guys.

So I just want to say thank you for being here, for listening, for growing alongside me, for all of the changes that I've made along the way as I've, you know, learned and iterated and refined. I just want to say thank you. If you're new here, I want to say welcome. So you can listen to me here like you continue to do.

And if you want to, come visit me and join me on YouTube. I'll be there as well. So, first, I want to define what over-responsibility actually is. And I think it is the one that handles more than we are actually meant to, right?

There's one thing with being responsible, like we take ownership for our actions. But what I have found with myself and with clients is we actually take responsibility for ourselves, and we also take responsibility for everyone else. So this is someone who anticipates everyone or specific person's people's needs. This is someone who remembers things when everyone else has forgotten.

This is the one who keeps the emotional temperature in the room regulated, and the one who steps in before anyone else has to. And I think that this comes from our childhood, and I'll dive into that here in a little bit. But just because that we are capable and we are willing doesn't actually mean that we need to or have to or should. Because when we have been good at nearly everything in our life, which that's what I found with myself and with clients, right?

We just do the thing. We're so good at what we do and we're good at a lot of things. We just take care of everything. And even though that we can do it, it doesn't mean that we actually are meant to or that it's actually best for us and best for those people around us.

And this is what I have learned is that capability does not actually equal responsibility. Just because you can hold it does not mean that it actually was yours to hold. I think a lot of us have learned very on in life, early in life in childhood, that being responsible had us feeling loving, or I should say, actually loved from our parents. It made us feel valuable.

A lot of my childhood, along with my clients' childhood, is very similar. We were more of the one that took care of things, that received love for taking care of things. And more often than not, we were probably the mature one. And we were the helper.

We were the ones that kept the peace. We did a lot of parentification. And parentification is, and I just Googled this, it's a psychological term for a role reversal in which a child is actually expected to take on the responsibilities that actually belong to the parent. So instead of being cared for as children, right?

Our parents are responsible for meeting our needs, the child becomes the caregiver emotionally, practically, right? Like doing a lot of household things and or both. So a lot of us have learned early on, we got praise for, we got, we received love for, got out of girls that our worth was connected to how useful we were. So we might have also received a lot of love, right?

The more helpful we were, the more that we took on more responsibilities, the more that we anticipated our parents' needs, then that had us receiving more love. And so maybe even if you grew up like I did in a house that felt very chaotic around you, maybe that taught you how to overfunction in order to feel safe. Because you have to come back to the body and the nervous system is always protecting you. There's a reason why you have been the one that has been taking care of everything, right?

Because that was your way of keeping you safe. So these patterns, they make sense and they begin as an adaptation. And what I want to say here is that even though what once actually helped us survive, it was a very good thing that we did that to keep the peace, to anticipate need, that also, as in an adult, can become the thing that actually drains you. Over responsibility can look like managing other people's emotions, right?

So we kind of put ourselves on the back burner because we don't want to upset, upset someone else. So when someone comes to you with an issue, think about this from an employer standpoint, running your business. When an employee comes to you with an issue, you jump in, you help, you solve it. And before you know it, you're already in the mix of it.

And you're like, wait a second, I've spent the last hour or so solving this problem. And you didn't even check in with yourself and ask yourself like if you even wanted to do this. And I think that this comes from a habit. This comes from, like I already mentioned, our childhood.

So you have to slow down. You have to get kind of be onto yourself and start asking yourself questions before you just jump in, right? Because the habit, the neural pathway is somebody comes and asks for help. I just start helping them versus do I want to help them?

Where is the growth for me? Where is the growth for them? And it can look like believing that if you don't do it, it actually won't happen correctly, right? Like sometimes with clients, they'll say, like, well, they don't know how to do it.

And I'm like, well, how do you think they don't know how to do it? Because you haven't either taught them or they haven't had to in air quote struggle yet to figure out how to do it. But how is that actually growth for them? And how is that actually growth for you?

So this can look like stepping in too quickly, rescuing too often, carrying burdens before anyone has actually asked us to. And I want to bring in this business thread here of like not looking at their employees from an empowered perspective. So when we don't look at our employees from an empowered perspective, first and foremost, then that is a reflection and in a mirror of us. Where are we not feeling empowered?

That's number one. Number two is when we don't look at our employees from an empowered perspective, where are we overcompensating and doing things for them because we don't think that they are capable of doing it? I see this a lot with clients and their employees. So when we don't look at them from this place, we will overcompensate to help the employee when in reality, what they actually need to do is set very clear expectations and boundaries and consequences and do more leading and coaching versus less coddling and being over responsible.

And so I always ask my clients, as well as myself, is like, where's the growth? The growth actually for a lot of us high-achieving women isn't to actually do more. It's to do less. It's to have more fun, it's to rest more, it's to lean back, it's to let other people kind of, and I don't like that word struggle, but it's to let them figure things out.

And it's for us to feel that uncomfortable feeling in our body. Because more often than not, what we're doing is that feels uncomfortable for us. So we just jump in, we do the thing because we know that that will appease our nervous system and it will appease theirs. Now, whether we're doing this subconsciously or not, that's another thing.

But I think a lot of us actually do this unconsciously because this is just what we have always done, right? This is a pattern that we have. So, what we also have to start thinking about is like, where is my growth? What is the actual growth here?

Do I need to actually rest more? Do I actually need to let them figure it out and then come to me after they've tried it multiple times and then be able to ask questions? We also have to discuss, you know, what are we getting from being over-responsible? Because there is or are several feelings from the action of being over-responsible, right?

Think about in childhood, we probably got praise for being very dependable, very, I want to even say likable, right? Like there's that feeling that like we're a good girl. We've done the things, we were strong, we were selfless. And I'm air-quoting, right?

Selfless. We're the ones that always get stuff done. Like we are the dependable ones that everyone can rely on us, the ones that everyone can come to for the answers. We are the go-to person.

But underneath that praise, those accolades, those atta girls, many of us feel resentful, right? If you were to really ask yourself, is this serving me? How do I actually feel? I know when I over responsible, when I'm overly responsible, I get frustrated.

I feel fatigue. I have experienced many times of burnt out in my life, right? I feel pressure. There's probably loneliness there.

Because at the end of the day, more often than not, over-responsibility actually means that there is really less room left for you. If you think about, you know, a circle, and I think this comes from the book Essentialism. He talks about, and he he deals with it more so from energy and like where do you want to put your energy? And then and this ties to this is if you have a circle and an arrow and all of these arrows, which is where we are putting our energy, how much energy do we actually have left for us versus being very intentional with our energy and choosing like where do we want to steward it?

You know, so if you're so busy and you're concerned and taking care of everybody else, then how much room is there left for you? Right. And I think what at this very what's not being said here, thread is receiving to be just who you are, to just be, not to be the person who's always doing, to not be the person who's always focused on somebody else's growth and expansion, like allowing yourself to receive, to allow yourself to put in and pour into your creative growth and expansion, to allow yourself to rest.

Like if we're always putting out everybody else's fires, how much energy is actually left for us? And so if this has been your pattern, I want you to know and I want you to hear me when I say that you are not weak for wanting relief or support or to let go of some of this stuff. This doesn't make you selfish or weak for wanting this support. I often hear this with clients like that they shouldn't ask for help or that they shouldn't ask for support.

This is a practice. This is a skill set that you are developing. If you've spent your entire life supporting somebody else or everyone else, you don't flip a switch and just automatically change overnight, right? This doesn't just happen all of a sudden with your employees.

You have built neural pathways. They have built neural pathways to come to you to expect to get the answers from you. You have taught them that. You have to retrain them and yourself into a new way of being.

It's fine. It's not a problem that this takes some time, right? But if you want to be able to grow, if you want to be able to feed yourself first, if you want to be able to support yourself and nourish yourself first, we have to start putting ourselves first and we have to start asking ourselves, where is the growth? You're not failing because you don't want to support them any longer.

It's just that you're redefining what support actually looks like. It looks like slowing down long enough to ask, is this actually mine to carry or is the growth for them to learn on their own? And I don't think, you know, like I was telling a client this the other day. It's not that you're just gonna stop answering the phone and you're not even gonna like educate them and convey to them what you are doing and how you are changing.

You're going to tell them, hey, look, listen, I'm recognizing some patterns in myself. I see where I have been taking responsibility over responsibility for you guys. I recognize that I actually need to take a step back. I need to let you guys learn some things and then be able to help you, but not be the go-to person.

So there's a couple of things that are going to shift. Like I'm not going to be answering the phone every single time you call. There's going to be some boundaries that are set up. So lovingly to yourself and to them, have those conversations.

But more often than not, what I have found is the growth is for actually them to learn on their own, not to just call you immediately. Some other questions that you can ask yourself is did anyone ask me to actually hold this or to give them advice? Like that is something that I have asked myself or start asking myself like, is my friend actually asking me for advice or are they just wanting me to just listen? Because more often than not, what they want is just someone to listen.

Okay, well, then my advice isn't going to be heard and they're not asking for my advice. So I'm not going to give it. Right. So am I helping, right?

Or am I attempting to control a situation because I don't like how it feels in my body when people struggle or work through their growth? Am I actually being supportive or is this actually rescuing? Am I carrying this from love or is this from fear? Like only you are going to know by how you feel in your body.

But these are questions that you can start asking yourself and slowing down and really gaining more clarity before you just like go and do the thing. Because healthy responsibility, it feels clean. It feels very neutral. It feels unattached to the outcome.

It feels like either way is okay. Right. But I think what a lot of us do is try to control situations from that place of fear, right? Over responsibility typically feels heavy, it feels burnt out, it feels resentful, it feels angry or frustrated or bitter.

So those are things that you will know by how you are feeling in your body is going to tell you if that's actually clean energy or not. If you feel nothing when someone says, hey, you know, an employee says, Hey, I really need your help. And you're like, hey, listen, not on my schedule for the day. If you feel clean and clear, you know that you're on point.

If you feel guilt, if you feel shame because you said no, then you know that there is work within you that you need to do in order to transcend that relationship. You know, I was telling a client the other day that when you know, when you step in and you fix things for the employee, you're actually stunting their growth. You aren't allowing this natural process that actually has to ensue for him and for you. So you're skipping some of the most potent pieces of the process by jumping in and saving him, versus if you allow him to figure it out with your guidance, of course.

But then when you jump in and start fixing things, because that is what you have always done, where's the growth for you and where's the growth for him? And, you know, my client was like, I had never thought of it like that. It's like, of course not, right? Like this is where awareness happens.

Awareness typically happens after the fact. But it's one of those things of like, okay, I'm aware now. What do I want to do differently? What else could you create?

Could you return home to if you stopped being over-responsible? Right. So the question that I'm always asking myself is am I being over-responsible? Like, am I in over-responsibility mode or am I choosing this because I want to and because it lights me up and it helps me?

Like, where is the growth? Always be asking yourself that. Because when we allow others to experience whatever their experience is, we get to have our experience and our relationships become more honest. I think a lot of us are trying to control relationships.

We may not be aware of this, but we're trying to control relationships by controlling outcomes, right? And we control outcomes by stepping in and meddling in things when we're actually, like I said, stunting that process or not allowing the natural process to happen for growth for them and for growth for us. So when we can start to first and foremost, where's the growth? Allowing the discomfort that we feel in our body, allowing the growth for them and for us, our business starts to like feel more fun.

It feels more sustainable, you know. Like I was telling another client the other day, I'm like, yeah, that works right now for them texting you. But with the amount of employees you have, when you want to grow, you don't have enough time in the day to answer all of the text messages. So it's going to take some shifts on our part.

And I say it always starts with us first, right? So you want to think about honoring your energy first and how is that actually helping others? So if you've been feeling tired, if you've been feeling pressured or maybe resentful or bitter or like you're caring too much, this is your invitation, not to become stronger, not to push harder, not to keep going. I think that's the like sneaky little way that we beat ourselves up.

Like we actually don't need to push more, work harder, more hours, think, do more things. We actually need to re-evaluate. We need to let go. We need to set some boundaries and some expectations and some consequences.

We need to trust that everyone is capable, just like us. We need to look at our employees, we need to look at our vendors, we need to look at our children and our spouse and all of the things and humans is as they are just as capable and empowered as we are. And the more that you believe that and you see them through that lens, the more that things will shift for you. True leadership, it doesn't require martyrdom and fixing everything for everyone else.

That's what I don't think that's actually leadership. I think that comes from a place of control and from coddling. And that really comes from a place of fear, not actually love. So start to trust yourself with this, right?

What like journal on this? What would that look like if you were allowed to be supported, if you were to trust that people could come through for you, what would that actually look like? What would that feel like in your body? How would your business shift if you believed that to your core?

And if this is something that you have been experiencing and you're ready for real support, but I don't want you to do it alone. You don't have to do it alone. I offer a space where you don't have to overfunction and overgive or hold everything together by yourself. It's a space where you get to be held, where you get to be challenged and you get to be guided as you step into the kind of leadership that actually feels aligned and sustainable for you.

So if you are ready to explore what that could look like, I would love to work with you. But you can connect with me through the link that I'll put in the show notes and start building a new way of leading, one where you are supported too, because I think so many of us women actually need to be supported and feel supported and receive that support. Okay, that's all I have for you today. Thank you for being here.

I will see you in the next episode.