Who Told You That You Have to Do It All

Standfirst

Clever, capable and running on empty, too many high-achieving mums have learned to push through stress rather than ask where it comes from. After 15 years in Big Four and raising 2 daughters with no family nearby, Dorota Wasik says it's time to stop getting through it and start getting out of it.

"I'll Just Get Through It"

There is one sentence I hear more than any other from the women I work with. They are smart, successful women who run teams, manage budgets, and keep a family going at the same time. When the pressure gets too much, they tell me:

"I'll just get through it."

They say it about a manager who makes their stomach turn every Monday morning. They say it about the panic that hits in the car park before work, and about lying awake at 3am going over a conversation from 2 days ago. They say it about a year that has been too much from start to finish.

Every time I hear it, I feel angry. I don't mean mildly frustrated. I mean I want to hit the table and say: stop, what are you doing?

What they're really saying is: I'll let this make me ill. I'll make myself smaller so nobody thinks I'm difficult. I'll keep going, because stopping isn't an option.

I get angry because I recognise the sentence. For most of my adult life, it was mine.

300 women, 1 message

Earlier this year I sat in a room in Edinburgh with over 300 women from across Scotland at the Women on Top event. The speakers covered business, motherhood, leadership and what success really costs. By the afternoon, one message had risen above everything else.

Women are tired.

The numbers say the same. In the Motherhood Index 2026, a survey of over 4,000 mothers in the UK and US, 93% said they had experienced burnout, and 70% get fewer than 5 hours of unbroken sleep a night. A Deloitte UK survey found that 66% of working mothers feel burnt out because they have no time for themselves, compared to 47% of fathers.

Everyone in that room agreed on the cause. We are doing too much, and there isn't enough support.

I agree with that. But I left thinking about the part nobody said out loud. A lot of the weight we carry isn't handed to us. We pick it up ourselves, because somewhere along the way we learned that's what a good woman does.

That's the conversation I want to have with women, and it's why I'm building the Regulated Success Club, a free community for high-achieving women who want to handle the pressure of work and family without losing themselves. Not to tell them to do less, but to help them understand why they feel they can't.

Where "I'll just get through it" comes from

Nobody is born believing they have to hold everything together. We learn it.

I learned it as a little girl. I learned that it was safer to keep quiet and not cause trouble, and that being the good, responsible girl got me love and approval. So I became very, very good at it.

Then I grew up and carried on. I swapped school reports for performance reviews. I said yes when I meant no. I worked harder when I was struggling, because working harder was the only way I knew to cope. I believed that if I was constantly busy, I was a good mum, a good partner and a good colleague. Sitting down felt lazy, and I felt guilty for wanting to rest. My friends lived the same way, so it all looked normal.

I lived for holidays. And 2 days after I got back, I was waking up in the night again as if I'd never been away.

The turning point came during a conversation with a psychologist. I was listing everything I had to do, everything that was expected of me. She let me finish, and then she asked one question:

"Who told you that you have to do it all?"

I didn't have an answer. Nobody had told me, not in words. But the little girl who learned to keep quiet was still making my decisions, in a grown woman's body, 30 years later.

The part you won't like

This next part is uncomfortable, and I understand if you want to push back.

I learned that much of the pressure I felt wasn't only about my partner, boss, colleague or child. It was also about the meaning I gave to what was happening.

An email from your boss, a comment from your partner, or your child refusing to put their shoes on can trigger thoughts like: "They think I'm not good enough." "I'm failing." "If I don't fix this, everything falls apart." Those thoughts can lead to panic, guilt or anger, which shape what you do next.

Situation, meaning, emotion, action. For me, learning to question those old rules was freeing because it showed me what I could change.

What my daughter taught me

My older daughter turned 11 recently, and it made me think about what she has taught me. The biggest lesson is that emotions aren't good or bad. They're information.

That should come naturally to anyone who has worked in a corporate job. We spend our days with data. We'll spend an hour chasing one odd number in a spreadsheet. But when our own stress spikes, we ignore it in seconds. We push through, pile on more work, and call it resilience.

It isn't resilience. "I'll just get through it" is the sound of someone refusing to read their own data.

If you never look at the feeling, you never find the thought behind it. If you never find the thought, you never question the rule. And if you never question the rule, it keeps running your life in the background, deciding how you work, how you parent and how you sleep.

What changes when you stop pushing through

When you're running on stress, it shows up everywhere. You make quick decisions just to make the discomfort stop. Everything feels equally urgent. You're short with the people you love most. By the evening, there is nothing left for your family or for yourself.

When you're calm, you're the same person with the same workload, but you think clearly. You can see what actually matters. You can say no. You have patience at bedtime.

Real resilience isn't about never feeling pressure. It's about coming back to calm faster, and more often. And that's something you can practise.

Try this today

You don't need to do more. You need one moment a day where you stop and choose, instead of running on the old rules.

Before you open a tense email, walk into a difficult meeting, or answer your child when you're at breaking point, take 3 breaths:

1. Notice. Feel your feet on the floor and take one slow breath in.
2. Breathe out for longer than you breathed in.
3. Ask yourself: what does this moment actually need from me right now?

And when you hear yourself think "I should…", "It's expected of me…" or "What will they say…", ask the question that changed everything for me: who told you that?

Getting out of it, not through it

I still have hard days. But now I catch the old rules sooner, along with the stress and guilt they bring. I have more energy for my girls, more clarity at work, and I sleep better.

That change came through daily practice, not one breakthrough. And it’s easier when you’re surrounded by women doing the same.

That’s why I created the Regulated Success Club: a free community where I share the tools and mindset shifts that helped me, alongside honest conversations with women navigating the same pressures.

So next time you think, “I’ll just get through it,” stop and ask: who taught me that? Sometimes the first step isn’t pushing through. It’s questioning the rule that says you have to.

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About the author

Dorota Wasik is the founder of the Regulated Success Method, an accredited mindfulness teacher and a leadership coach with 15 years in Big Four. She helps high-achieving mums handle the pressure of work and family without losing themselves, through free corporate workshops, 1:1 coaching and the Regulated Success Club, a free community she is building for ambitious women. Based in Edinburgh, she lives with her husband and their 2 daughters.

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