The oldest daughter syndrome.
The office “den mother”
The one squeezing in one more project as a favor (and everyone wants a favor)
The peacemaker and the buffer
Today, let's talk about the hidden cost of always being the reliable one, over-functioning, and what happens when being helpful becomes part of your identity.
It starts out innocently enough. You are a capable person with a lot of common sense and maybe stellar executive functioning. Unflappable. You see around corners. You seem to have a sixth sense for when something is going to go off the rails. You realize this before anyone else.
People love that about you.
You get promoted early on! You’re a rising star!
But over time, something happens.
And it’s hard to pin down but at some point, you seemed to take on all kinds of extra responsibilities, duties both spoken and unspoken, maybe you report to someone who heavily depends on you to do some of their job, too.
You absorb the office conflict and negotiate peace terms. You figure out extra tricky situations. Sometimes it seems you care more than others. You definitely feel you can naturally handle more than other people can.
And you might even feel some pride about this — but it’s coming at a cost. You’re crispy. A little burned out. You’re feeling overextended — and still expecting yourself to handle it all because you don’t want to disappoint anyone who has been singing your praises.
Some days, you might feel a little more judgmental or resentful of others.
Then judgmental of yourself - how’d you get into this mess anyway?
My friend, you might be an over-producer.
And you gotta stop.
The thing is, being a super-productive problem-solving star starts to morph into overcommitment, bad boundaries, burnout, and weird co-dependent work situations that a therapist would have a field day with.
“But I really can’t take anything off my plate!”
“Things will calm down soon!”
“I’m key to the whole thing, without me the team/project collapses!”
I’ve heard it all before. And I have a questions for you:
What are you afraid of?
What are you really trying to accomplish by taking all this on?
What would it mean about you if you stopped?
When you ask these questions, you might get down to a root of feeling afraid of disappointing others or being revealed as someone who “can’t handle it”. You might hope you (finally) feel important and needed if you continue to do all the things for all the people. And if you stopped? It might be too overwhelming to consider.
So… why do I care? Why am I bringing this to your attention anyway? I could just let you go along your merry way. Over producing. Business as usual.
But here’s the thing. Like an addiction, this tends to get worse until you hit some kind of bottom.
After spending years in the workplace, I’m (honestly) shocked to see the number of people who suffer from chronic illnesses, burnout, depression, or have other major health consequences from always putting work first. I can’t imaging its great news for the relationships in their lives, either. From what I can see, no one has gotten any kind of prize, reward or recognition for the sacrifice, either.
But the culture encourages it.
If you recognize yourself as someone who is always doing more, taking care of everyone at work, resolving issues that are sorta not even your business, give yourself some space to understand yourself better.
Why are you doing this?
What do you hope will come of it?
What are you afraid of?
