When Being Capable Becomes the Problem: Why Coping Is Not the Same as Thriving

The ability to carry a heavy load doesn’t necessarily mean the load is reasonable. Sometimes capability is the very thing that prevents us from noticing how much we’ve normalised.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the phrase “getting back to normal.”

It’s something we say almost automatically after illness, holidays, upheaval or difficult periods.

“I’ll be glad when things get back to normal.”

Except, after several weeks away from my normal life (first through travel and then through illness) I’ve found myself questioning whether returning to “normal” is actually what I want.

Because before the interruption, I was coping.  More than coping, actually.

 

I was managing a team, supporting a CEO, running my own business, creating content and keeping an extraordinary number of plates spinning.

I wasn’t sitting at my desk thinking, This is completely unsustainable.  I was getting on with it.

And perhaps that’s precisely the problem.

Capability can hide an unreasonable load

We tend to think that when something becomes too much, we’ll know.

We’ll drop something.

We’ll miss deadlines.

We’ll stop performing.

We’ll visibly struggle.

But that’s not necessarily what happens when you’re someone who is highly capable, experienced and accustomed to being relied upon.

You compensate.

You work a little longer.

Think a little further ahead.

Become more organised.

Absorb another responsibility.

Find another workaround.

You don’t necessarily reduce the load.

You become better at carrying it.

And every time you successfully manage something difficult, it provides more evidence, to you and everyone around you, that the arrangement works.

Except there is an enormous difference between something working and something being sustainable.

That’s a distinction I think we need to talk about far more.

“But I’m managing” can be a dangerous benchmark

I’ve spent much of my professional life in roles where anticipating what other people need is part of being good at the job.

Many EAs, PAs and other business support professionals will recognise this immediately.

You notice the thing nobody else has noticed yet.  You remember what someone else has forgotten.  You quietly solve the problem before it becomes a problem.

You carry information, relationships, deadlines, preferences, sensitivities and dozens of tiny pieces of organisational knowledge that may never appear on a job description.

And when you’re good at it, much of that work becomes almost invisible.

But this doesn’t only happen professionally.

Capable women often do exactly the same thing in their wider lives.

We become the person who remembers. Organises. Anticipates. Checks. Smooths. Carries.

And because we can do it, an interesting shift takes place.

Our capability gradually becomes justification for the responsibility.

I can handle it quietly becomes therefore I should handle it.

Those are not the same thing.

The invisible load isn’t always imposed on us

This is where the conversation becomes more uncomfortable and, I think, more useful.

It’s easy to talk about overload as something other people do to us.

The demanding employer.

The family who relies on us.

The colleague who doesn’t pull their weight.

The impossible expectations.

And sometimes that’s absolutely what’s happening.

But sometimes nobody has explicitly asked us to carry everything we’re carrying.

We’ve become accustomed to stepping in.

We anticipate because it feels easier than waiting.

We do it ourselves because we know it’ll be done properly.

We keep an eye on things because not knowing what’s happening feels uncomfortable.

We continue being the dependable one because dependability has become woven into our identity.

And perhaps somewhere along the way, being needed has become confused with being valuable.

That’s why “set better boundaries” is rarely a sufficient answer.

A boundary isn’t simply a diary decision.

Sometimes it challenges who we understand ourselves to be.

If I stop being the person who always steps in, am I still dependable?

If I leave something for somebody else to handle, am I being difficult?

If I finish work while something remains unfinished, am I still committed?

If I prioritise myself, will somebody else think I’ve changed?

And perhaps the most revealing question:

Will I think I’ve changed?

Knowing the boundary isn’t the same as living it

There’s another irony I’ve had to confront recently.

I’m very good at defending other people’s boundaries.

As an EA Team Manager, I want people to take their lunch breaks, use their annual leave, finish at a reasonable time and go home when they’re ill.

I would never regard somebody routinely working twelve-hour days as evidence that I’d created an excellent working environment.

Yet somehow, when we’re judging ourselves, the rules can change.

We call it commitment.  Going the extra mile.  Just getting through a particularly busy period.

And sometimes that’s exactly what it is. There will always be seasons when life or work asks more of us.

The question is what happens when the exceptional becomes ordinary?

When did the temporary workaround become the permanent working pattern?

When did staying late stop being an occasional choice and become simply how I work?

When did carrying that responsibility become so normal that I stopped remembering there was ever an alternative?

Interruption gives us something we rarely give ourselves: perspective

I wouldn’t recommend becoming ill as a route to greater self-awareness.

But being forced to stop has given me distance from routines I was too busy living to examine.

And that’s made me question the idea that recovery should be measured entirely by how quickly we can resume everything we were doing before.

Perhaps there is another measure.

Not simply:

Am I strong enough to do all of this again?

But:

Now that I’ve had some distance from it, which parts do I actually want to resume?

That is a very different conversation.

Because returning doesn’t have to mean recreating.

Recovery, a holiday, a career break, redundancy, a change of role, children leaving home, menopause, bereavement or simply reaching the point where something no longer feels right can create a natural review point.

An opportunity to look at what had become normal while we weren’t paying attention.

Not necessarily to throw everything away.

But to choose again.

Perhaps strength needs a new definition

For a long time, we’ve celebrated the woman who can handle everything.

The one who keeps going.

Who can be relied upon.

Who somehow makes it all work.

I still value those qualities enormously.

I don’t want to become less capable, less dependable or less committed.

But I’m increasingly interested in a different expression of strength.

The strength to notice that being able to continue isn’t, by itself, a reason to continue.

The self-trust to disappoint an expectation occasionally.

The discernment to recognise which responsibilities genuinely belong to us.

And the confidence to stop treating our capacity as something that must always be filled.

Perhaps that’s one of the quieter forms of self-leadership.

Not proving how much we can carry.

But becoming much more deliberate about what deserves to be carried at all.

A question worth sitting with

So rather than asking what you need to add, improve, organise or become better at managing, try something different.

Give yourself ten quiet minutes and ask:

What have I become exceptionally good at coping with that I no longer want to accept as normal?

Don’t immediately turn the answer into another action plan.

And don’t dismiss whatever appears because you’ve managed it for years.

The fact that you can cope is already established.

Perhaps the more interesting question now is whether coping is still the standard by which you want to measure your life.

Because capability is a wonderful thing.

But it should give us more choice about how we live and work not become the reason we keep accepting less choice.