WHY DO WE HAVE TO DO IT ALL?
I was on the phone solving yet another client emergency, ordering groceries for the week, rescheduling the vet and answering my email — all before 8am.
Without missing a beat.
I’ve been carefully watching for patterns that have become status quo in my life. Part of writing my next book.
This was a huge one. For pretty much all of my life. Yet I’d never really questioned it. It just felt normal. The very definition of status quo, right?
When did this become normal?
When did running three separate operating systems in my head all at once become just… what I do?
What we women believe is normal?
Most importantly, who programmed us to believe we had to? And how do we change that?
Here's what most of us don't realize. That thing we do. The juggling, the anticipating, the constant mental tracking of everyone else's needs.
It has a name. Researchers call it cognitive labor. The invisible thinking work that keeps a household, a family, a life running. Not the cooking and cleaning. The planning, anticipating, monitoring, deciding, and coordinating that happens before anyone lifts a finger.
A 2024 study from the University of Bath put a number on it: mothers carry 71% of all household mental load tasks.
Seventy-one percent.
Let that land for a second. Nearly three-quarters of all the invisible work. The stuff nobody sees, nobody thanks you for, nobody even knows is happening.
And here's what makes it brutal.
It's invisible. It happens inside our heads, so nobody sees it.
It's ubiquitous. It bleeds into work, into sleep, into what's supposed to be leisure time.
It’s enduring — it never ends, because caring for people we love is never done.
Boy does that resonate. Status Quo in Action, right there.
Over 67% of women report feeling significant pressure to “do it all.” Not some of it. All of it. Career, home, kids, relationships, fitness, friendships, aging parents. And oh by the way, look good doing it, please.
This isn't something we chose. It was installed.
From childhood, girls are taught that caregiving, anticipating needs, and managing the emotional temperature of every room is our job. Research on social role theory shows that these expectations don't just shape our behavior, they shape our understanding and logic.
That’s right, the expectation that women should be communal influences how we think.
We're not choosing to carry everything. We've been taught a status quo, aka programmed, to believe it's ours to carry.
Then we're told we're “strong” for doing it. Praised for never dropping a ball. Celebrated for being the one who holds it all together.
The applause is part of the programming.
Researchers are now calling this the invisible third shift. First shift: paid work. Second shift: physical housework and childcare. Third shift: the mental management of everything.
That third shift, the one nobody sees, is the one draining us dry.
I lived this. For decades. I was proud of doing it all, no matter what toll it took on my life, my health, my joy or my sanity. It didn’t matter how much I did, I had to do more.
I spent every single minute of “downtime” mentally managing the next ten things. I didn't rest. I couldn't rest. My mind wouldn't let me. Even lying in bed, I'd be running lists, anticipating problems, planning solutions for things that hadn't happened yet. Especially at 2 am.
There's a reason for that.
A neuroscientist studying women's cognitive load described what happens to us as “low power mode.”
Think of it like a phone running too many apps. The part of our mind that plans, decides, and focuses doesn't have unlimited capacity. Under sustained load, it fatigues. We default to short-term thinking and self-interruption. We go into low power mode.
The more we operate in low power mode, the more it becomes our default program. A status quo of how we operate.
It hits everything. That same research found women who carry a disproportionate mental load experience higher emotional exhaustion, leading directly to lower career resilience.
We're not opting out of careers because we can't handle them. We're running three jobs while being measured against people running one. When we finally lie down? The load follows.
Our rest is most likely to be interrupted by family demands, and bedtime becomes worry time. The mental load doesn't clock out.
The system wasn't designed for us to succeed.
It was designed to be sure we believed we had to cover everything, care for others, put ourselves last. I know I did just that for over 5 decades.
Ready to Take Your Truth Back?
First, recognize and internalize this.
Nothing is wrong with us. We were programmed with a status quo that is untenable.
The first step is seeing it for what it is. Not handling it. Not just “what women do” programming.
Just because it’s deeply imprinted status quo, it doesn’t mean it’s who we really are or who we were meant to be.
It’s a status quo we can shatter and move on to a better way.
Here’s a simple exercise for this week, and beyond if you choose. BTW, I created this one when I realized I’d never given myself grace in my entire life. Seriously. Talk about a journey of discovery:)
It’s simple. Pay attention. Notice the following:
When you put yourself last, decide to give up something for yourself to take care of yet another whatever.
When you give up and say “I’ll do it,” because there are no other takers, the whining is too much, you’d rather do it than try to get someone else.
When you hear your voices telling you that you HAVE TO DO THIS, followed by some lame excuse designed to trigger you to just do it. “You’ll be upset later if you don’t step up now. What happens to the world, the family the business if you don’t do this?” Yes, guilt is a favorite tactic of our status quo.
Notice and prepare to be amazed at just how deep this mind habit goes.
Then, simply start to give yourself permission NOT to do it all. Consciously say and feel that you do enough, you deserve grace, you are loved and worthy for what you can do.
Really step into what life looks like when you give yourself grace. Make an image of yourself giving you grace, detail it, feel it, sense it. Notice every detail.
Call that image up and FEEL yourself as that person… every time you catch yourself grabbing onto that impossible thing to wrestle it to the ground.
Do it consistently and stay focused. You’ll notice the change. Why? Because you just taught your mind a different belief and program.
Keep going and let your neuroplasticity do its magic
Question to ponder for the week. What would really happen if you simply stopped doing 10%, 20%, more?
I have my answer. I’d love to hear yours.