It usually begins the same way - staying composed until you suddenly aren't.

You pride yourself on being composed. Professional. The person who delivers, no matter what. So when your manager asks how you're doing in a routine catch-up meeting, the last thing you expect is to break down in tears.

But here you are-managing four teams when most colleagues manage two, picking up the work that others drop, maintaining quality standards while your team underperforms. You've been telling yourself you just need to be stronger, more organized, better at managing your time.

And now you're on mental health leave, wondering how someone as competent as you ended up here.

Here's what most high achievers don't realize: your competence might actually be the problem.

The Strength Story That's Failing You

If you're the kind of person who consistently delivers excellent work, you've probably internalized a particular belief about what it means to be good at your job.

It goes something like this: competent people can handle whatever comes their way. If you're struggling, you just need to work harder, be more efficient, develop better systems. The solution is always to level up your own capacity.

When you're given a fourth team to manage, you don't push back-you figure out how to make it work. When a team member reports completing work they haven't actually done, you fix it yourself rather than deal with the confrontation. When someone asks for help with something that isn't your responsibility, you say yes because you have the skills and saying no feels selfish.

This approach has probably served you well for years. You've built a reputation as someone reliable, capable, excellent. People know that if they give you something, it will get done right.

So why are you crying in front of your manager instead of thriving?

What Would You Tell Someone Else?

Before we go further, try this thought experiment.

Imagine a colleague you respect-someone whose judgment you trust. Now imagine they're in your exact situation: managing four teams while most people manage two, dealing with team members who lie about completed work, handling someone connected to senior management they can't properly manage. And one day, when their manager asks how they're doing, they break down.

What would you think about them?

If you're like most high achievers, you'd think: "That's completely understandable. They're overwhelmed. The situation is untenable. Why were they given so much in the first place?"

You wouldn't think they were incompetent. You wouldn't think they were weak. You'd think the system was broken.

But when it comes to yourself? You think you should just be better somehow.

This double standard is your first clue that something deeper is happening here.

How Your Competence Makes Things Worse

Here's what's actually happening, and it's going to sound counterintuitive:

Your ability to manage an unsustainable workload is preventing your organization from fixing the problem.

This is what researchers call the "competence trap." When someone is exceptionally skilled at managing chaos, they inadvertently enable the system to avoid addressing structural dysfunction. Because you can manage four teams and maintain quality-even though it's destroying you-the organization never has to face the fact that the workload distribution is unsustainable.

Your competence is hiding the problem.

Think about it: if you actually collapsed under the workload earlier (like most people would have), what would have happened? The work wouldn't get done. Quality would suffer. Leadership would be forced to either redistribute the teams or hire additional managers. The natural consequences of poor resource allocation would create pressure for change.

But you're too good at your job for those consequences to materialize. So the dysfunction continues, and you burn out while the system stays broken.

Your strength isn't solving the problem. It's enabling it.

What Nobody Tells You About Saying No

Now you might be thinking: "Okay, I see how my competence enables the system. But I still can't just let things fail. What am I supposed to do, let the teams crash?"

This is where we need to look at what's really stopping you from setting boundaries.

It's not the workload itself-it's what happens in your mind when you imagine saying no.

When you think about declining additional work or delegating something that might not be done to your standards, what do you feel? If you're like most high achievers, you immediately experience anxiety and guilt. Your chest tightens. You imagine projects failing, people thinking you're not a team player, losing credibility.

And here's the critical part: those feelings are so uncomfortable that saying yes feels easier than tolerating the discomfort of setting a boundary.

This is how perfectionism actually functions. It's not just about high standards-it's a safety behavior. You maintain perfect work and take on everything to prevent the catastrophic outcomes you imagine. Saying yes makes the anxiety go away immediately. Setting boundaries makes the anxiety spike.

So you choose short-term emotional comfort (saying yes) over long-term sustainability (managing a reasonable workload).

The cost of that pattern? You're literally on mental health leave right now.

The Anxiety Trap You Keep Falling For

There's something else happening that makes this pattern so hard to break. It's an invisible process that psychologists call "emotional reasoning," and once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Emotional reasoning works like this: "I feel anxious about this, therefore it must be dangerous." Or in your case: "I feel guilty about saying no, therefore saying no is wrong."

Your brain is treating the feeling itself as evidence.

But here's what research actually shows: managers who set clear boundaries on their availability and workload actually improve team performance and psychological safety. Why? Because it models sustainable work practices and prevents the "rescue dynamic" that keeps teams dependent and underdeveloped.

That team member who reports work as complete when it isn't? They keep doing it because you keep fixing it. Your perfectionism isn't just harming you-it's preventing your team from growing.

The anxiety you feel about boundaries isn't giving you accurate information about what would happen. It's just your brain predicting discomfort and trying to protect you from it.

And here's the thing about that anxiety: it typically decreases with practice. When people actually experiment with setting boundaries, the anxiety peaks quickly and then comes down, following a predictable pattern. But the burnout from never setting boundaries? That compounds over time.

You're experiencing the worst of both worlds: maximum anxiety (because you're drowning) and maximum workload (because you never say no).

Why Letting Things Fail Isn't Sabotage

There's one more cognitive trap to understand, because it's probably the biggest barrier to changing your pattern.

It's called "thought-action fusion," and it works like this: thinking about not doing something (like not rescuing a team member or not taking on extra work) feels morally equivalent to actively causing harm.

Not fixing your team member's incomplete work feels the same as sabotaging them.

Not volunteering for additional projects feels the same as letting people down.

But here's the crucial distinction: Not doing something isn't the same as doing harm.

If you don't fix your team member's incomplete work, you're not hurting them-you're allowing natural consequences to teach them. If you don't take on work that isn't your responsibility, you're not abandoning anyone-you're maintaining sustainable boundaries that allow you to do your actual job well.

Inaction isn't sabotage. It's just... not preventing consequences that should naturally happen.

That distinction probably feels less morally loaded than "I'm refusing to help someone who needs me." Because that's not actually what's happening. What's happening is: "I'm allowing adults to experience the outcomes of their choices so they can learn and grow."

Which is actually good leadership.

How to Actually Set Boundaries

You're on mental health leave right now. You have a choice: rest and then jump back into the same patterns, or use this time to start questioning the beliefs that brought you here.

Here's a small experiment to try when you return:

Create space between requests and automatic agreement.

When someone asks you to take on something, instead of automatically saying yes, use this phrase: "Let me check my capacity and get back to you."

That pause-that space between the request and your response-is where change happens.

In that pause, ask yourself three questions:

• Is this mine to carry? (Not "can I do it," but "should I?")
• What's the cost of saying yes? (To your health, your actual responsibilities, your team's development)
• What would I advise a colleague to do? (Remember that double standard?)

Then-and this is the hard part-actually tolerate the discomfort of uncertainty instead of saying yes to make it go away.

Here's what will probably happen: the anxiety will spike. Your chest will tighten. You'll want to cave and just say yes.

But if you can sit with it for even 10 minutes, you'll notice something: the anxiety doesn't keep escalating forever like your brain predicts. It peaks and then starts to come down.

Track this. Write down your anxiety level (0-10) when you first set the boundary, and then again 10 minutes later. You need concrete evidence that your brain's predictions aren't accurate.

The other experiment: that team member who reports work as complete when it isn't?

Schedule a direct conversation. Use this script: "I've noticed [specific work] hasn't been completed. What's getting in the way?"

Don't fix it for them. Don't rescue them. Just have the conversation you've been avoiding because it feels uncomfortable.

What you'll probably discover: the discomfort of the conversation is temporary. The relief of not carrying their work anymore is permanent.

And finally: start journaling examples of "good enough" work from your teams that achieved its purpose without being perfect. You need to build an evidence base that challenges the perfectionist belief that everything must be excellent to be acceptable.

Because here's the truth: functional outcomes matter more than ideal standards. Your teams don't need perfect-they need sustainable.

What This Pattern Really Reveals

If you've gotten this far, you've probably recognized yourself in this pattern. You see how your competence became a trap. You understand that perfectionism functions as a safety behavior that paradoxically increases your vulnerability to burnout.

You're starting to see that the anxiety about boundaries isn't giving you accurate information-it's just your brain trying to protect you from discomfort.

But there's a deeper question this raises, one that might be worth exploring:

Why did your self-worth become so entangled with professional achievement in the first place?

Because here's what's interesting: this pattern of perfectionism and boundary-resistance probably didn't start with this job. It's likely a deeper belief about what makes you valuable, about what you need to do to be worthy of respect and belonging.

Understanding where those beliefs came from-what needs they originally served, what they were protecting you from-might reveal whether this is purely a workplace pattern or something more fundamental about how you see yourself.

But that's a question for another conversation.

For now, the work is this: notice the competence trap. Question the emotional reasoning. Practice tolerating the discomfort of boundaries. Track what actually happens instead of what your anxiety predicts will happen.

Your breakdown wasn't a sign of weakness. It was your body's way of forcing you to stop doing something unsustainable.

The question is: will you listen?

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What's Next

Stay tuned for more insights on your journey to wellbeing.