Why Life Feels Harder Than It Should (And What To Do Next)

You know what I find interesting?

The number of women who are exhausted and yet are still trying to convince themselves they’re fine.

They’re getting through the day.

They’re doing what needs to be done.

They’re keeping everything moving.

So technically, it looks like there is nothing wrong.

And yet, if you were to take a moment to ask them how they really feel, they’d say that they feel irritated, flat and overwhelmed.

And this is not because life is awful. It’s because the way they’re living isn’t really working for them anymore.

The problem is, they usually don’t stop long enough to question it.

Their instinct is to carry on, and that is because somewhere along the line, they picked up a set of rules about the kind of woman they should be.

The rules that tell them they should be helpful, available, capable, easy-going and selfless.

And now they’re exhausted trying to maintain being that person and living by a set of rules they didn’t actually agree to.

The scary part is that most of this is happening on autopilot

This has all happened unconsciously without you even realising it. Because when you look back, you know that nobody actually sat you down and officially said:

“You must always put yourself last.”
“You should feel guilty for resting.”
“You need to keep everyone happy.”
“You should be able to do it all.”

And yet so many women are living exactly like that. I see it a lot.

A woman comes to me because she thinks the issue is confidence, stress, or feeling stuck.

It’s not until she has space and time to think that she realises those are the symptoms, not the cause.

She has built her life around everyone else’s expectations and lost herself somewhere in the middle of it.

This is something that doesn’t and cannot happen overnight. It happens incrementally over a longer period of time.

Saying yes when you mean no.
Putting everybody else first.
Pushing through when you’re tired.
Telling yourself it’s easier if you just do it yourself.

Until eventually your whole life feels heavy.

I learned this the hard way

I used to live by those rules, and I know when I’m feeling overwhelmed and stuck that I’ve slipped back into following those rules again. I have allowed my autopilot to take over.

I’ve had times where I’d go to bed absolutely exhausted, thinking I just need a good night’s sleep.

And yet, I’ve woken up the next day still feeling tired.

Because I hadn’t been able to switch off.

I was replaying conversations from the day. I was thinking about what I should have said differently. I was running through everything I still needed to sort tomorrow.

I was unconsciously making sure I was following the rules.

And instead of questioning how I was feeling, I was thinking everyone feels like this, or this is just a busy phase.

Until I learnt what was really going on.

You are allowed to decide differently

What people struggle with is deciding to live differently, and that is because to do this, they need to change the rules, which means setting new boundaries.

The moment people hear the word boundaries, it all seems far too difficult and staying where they are and following the rules feels like the better option. And that’s because it’s easier.

People instantly go to:

“Well, I can’t.”

I can’t work less.
I can’t say no.
I can’t upset people.
I can’t ask for help.

And sometimes there are genuine limitations.

At the same time, I think a lot of women dismiss what’s possible far too quickly because it’s uncomfortable.

If you’ve spent years being the dependable one, the capable one, the one who keeps everything together, boundaries can feel wrong at first. And that is because you’re worried about what people might think, as well as thinking that life will fall apart.

And yet boundaries are simply the rules by which you decide to live your life.

That’s all they are.

Not controlling other people.
Not becoming difficult.
Not shutting everybody out.

It’s simply about deciding what works for you and what doesn’t.