221. Journal With Me: 4 Prompts to Stop Doing Everything Yourself at Work
You’re not doing everything yourself because you want to. You’re doing it because letting go feels risky.
You step in before things fall apart. You tell yourself it’s faster if you do it yourself. And somehow, you’re still the one carrying it all.
This episode builds on Part Two of the Beyond Awareness series.
Journal Prompts to Help You Stop Doing Everything Yourself
- Name one task at work you’re still doing even though someone else could handle it. Why are you really holding onto this? Not the surface reason. The honest one.
- Imagine you delegated this and it was done differently than you would do it. What do you believe would happen next? What is the worst-case outcome your mind is trying to prevent?
- If you weren’t the one checking, fixing, or holding everything together, who would you be? What would that mean about your value, your role, or how you’re seen?
- What would you need to believe about yourself, your work, or the people around you to let this go? What permission do you need to give yourself?
If something came up while you were writing, that’s the point. You didn’t need a better system. You found the belief running the pattern.
Work with me:
- Breakthrough Intensive - You already know you should slow down, delegate more, stop overcommitting & be emotionally present. So why can't you? That's what we figure out in 90 minutes + integration call 2 weeks later. Book your Breakthrough
- Exhale: Private Coaching - For women ready to do this work until it sticks and you can't revert back. 4 open spots: Work with me
Transcript
Do you ever think, it's just faster if I do it myself? Maybe you think that with your team, your kids, or everyone. We are in part two of the Beyond Awareness series. Just the other day on Tuesday, we broke down why you're stuck in the weeds, redoing your team's work, hand-holding them instead of delegating, or micromanaging even though you're drowning, and why hiring more people both
at home and at the office and creating SOPs hasn't actually gotten you out of the trenches and able to do the visionary work and those high-level projects that you want. Today, we are doing strategic journaling so that you can figure out what you are actually afraid will happen if you let go. Quick note before we start, all of these prompts are in the show notes. So if you are driving or can't write right now,
Just save this episode and you can come back to it later. right, let's dive in.
Prompt one, think about a task or project that you're currently doing even though you know that someone else could handle it. What is that task? And be honest about why you haven't handed it off yet. What's the real reason that you're still holding on to it and doing it yourself?
Prompt you did delegate that task or even a part of it, and the person did it differently than you, what's the worst thing that could happen? Walk through the entire scenario. Your team does it their way, not yours, and then what? Your partner does it a different way, or whoever it is, what is the ripple effect? This might seem really big and important, or you might realize that there's actually nothing at stake. Either way is fine.
Right? Whatever comes up about someone doing something differently than you and what their way of doing it or what their outcome might mean about you, about your business or about your leadership. And you might find that it's not about how the other person is doing it. It's about the outcome and what that means about you.
Prompt you weren't the one who caught all the mistakes and answered all the questions and fixed all the problems, if you weren't the person who had to be in control of everything, who would you be? Would you be lazy? Would you be judged? Would you still be needed? Would you still be valuable? your team still respect you?
Write what comes up even if it sounds irrational.
prompt for. What would you need to believe about your team, your family, or about yourself to actually trust them or yourself with things? What permission do you need to give yourself?
Amazing job. Prompt 3 showed you the reason that you're not taking action on delegating. This podcast and this series in particular is literally closing the gap on knowing and doing. And Prompt 3 showed you that gap. That even though you're exhausted, that your to-do list literally can't get any more full, your plate isn't getting any lighter.
And prompt three is showing you that you have an attachment to that action or emotion or that fear that came up for you. And then prompt four is the start of allowing yourself to be both the powerful leader that you already are creating space for rest, communication, connection, or whatever came up for you without it meaning that you are less than.
And that's the sort of work that you can't solve with better delegation or more delegation or SOPs or anything like that. So to keep digging into it, feel free to download the free Calm Mind Blueprint resource at the link in the show notes, or consider taking one of my three breakthrough intensive spots this month to work through this one pattern once and for all with me by your side. And come back next Tuesday for part three, the final part.
where we're going over If I say no, I'm not valuable. We're talking about why you keep saying yes when you want to say no, why you are overcommitted and resentful, and why boundary scripts haven't actually helped you stop people pleasing. If you have ever thought, don't want to let them down, you definitely do not want to miss this one.
Thanks for tuning in and journaling with me. I will see you next week.
