Why you keep doing the thing you said you wouldn’t.

A client said to me this week, “I know this is ridiculous, but I can’t seem to stop.”

She was talking about saying yes when she meant no. About volunteering for things she didn’t have the capacity for. About picking up the emotional slack for everyone else and then lying awake at 2am feeling mildly furious with the entire world.

“I understand where it comes from,” she said. “But why am I still doing it?”

Ah yes. That familiar, slightly maddening gap between knowing and doing, where you can analyse yourself beautifully and still send the email you swore you wouldn’t send.

Most of my clients could probably run a small workshop on their own coping strategies. They know how they became the over-preparer, the peacekeeper, the one who doesn’t rock the boat. They can explain it in detail.

And still, they’re rewriting the email for the fifth time, agreeing to host, overthinking the text, bracing for criticism that hasn’t happened.

What I see, again and again, isn’t a lack of insight. It’s a set of rules about how life works and what you need to do in order to be okay.

They’re not written down anywhere, and you won’t remember choosing them. They gather slowly, sometimes when you’re small and trying to figure out how to be in the world, sometimes much later when life requires a certain version of you, until one day you realise you’ve been living by them for years.

They usually sound something like this:

If I put other people’s needs before my own, then they won’t reject me.
If I worry and expect the worst, I’ll be prepared when it happens.
If I am perfect, I’ll be considered good enough.
If I keep in control, I’ll cope.
If I keep my emotions to myself, I’ll be seen as strong.
If I don’t try, I won’t fail.

When these rules first took shape, they made sense in the context you were living in.

They helped you feel included. They helped you stay connected to the people around you. They gave you some footing in situations that didn’t always feel steady.

They worked.

I can see my own version of this very clearly when it comes to emotions. At some point, I learned that if I kept my feelings to myself, I would be seen as strong. If I stayed composed, if I didn’t add to the noise, if I handled things quietly and privately, then I would be safe.

And in many ways, that rule served me. Being steady, thoughtful and not overly reactive has been useful. It’s helped me navigate difficult situations and show up for other people without collapsing into them.

But that same rule can still show up now in my life, long after it’s needed. There are moments when something hurts or unsettles me and my first instinct is to tidy it away, to process it alone, to present the calm version of myself. Even when letting someone see the wobble would probably bring more closeness, not less.

The rule once protected me. But at nearly 45, I can see how it also keeps certain parts of me out of reach.

And this is what tends to happen with these early rules. They keep operating long after the original conditions have shifted.

So you find yourself in a workplace where nobody is going to explode if you say no, and yet your chest still tightens at the thought. Or you’re at home on a Sunday afternoon with nothing urgent to do, and yet you can’t quite relax because you haven’t “earned” it.

And this is the tricky tender bit:

Inside the rule, you feel steady. Outside it, even briefly, there’s discomfort.

You say no and feel like a bad person.
You stop over-performing and feel oddly uneasy.
You loosen your grip and anxiety rises.
Admitting you need help feels exposing.

Those reactions are a clue, they tell you the rule was once essential.

Now the question is whether it still is.

So perhaps the more useful question isn’t “Why am I like this?” but: What am I assuming will happen if I don’t follow the old rule?

And is that still true?

You don’t have to change everything at once. Just test one small thing and watch what actually happens. Let someone else take responsibility. Rest without earning it. Say what you think and allow the silence that follows.

Reality is often kinder than the rule predicted.

You’re allowed to update the rules now.