Nobody ever asked me that question. But I wish they had.
Because every day of working in organisations where you take on one more project, one more assignment, one more initiative and working towards someone else’s goals, drowning in the weeds, pushing slowly on, trying to deliver and deliver well, putting aside the things that matter most to you, all of this takes its toll. But mostly invisibly. You do not notice your self-esteem, your confidence, and your energy being eroded. And the question becomes not “how do I manage all of this without falling apart” but “how do I recognise this is happening?”
Because you don’t fall apart until you find yourself unable to get out from under the duvet and find no joy in anything you do.
You are not yet at burnout
We hear a lot about burnout โ the endpoint that gets named and diagnosed and written about. But most of the women I work with are not there yet. They are somewhere earlier and harder to name. The moment where they find themselves banging their head against an imaginary wall. Still functioning, still delivering, still showing up. But doing it from a place that is slowly running out of something essential. The avalanche of advice that follows a burnout diagnosis, meditate, take a walk, find someone to talk to, arrives too late and targets the wrong moment. The problem is not what to do once you are there. The problem is recognising where you are before you get there.
Never let them see you sweat
But this is what I have learnt from personal experience, from colleagues, and from clients. You have likely shut down the people who could tell you the truth about what they see. In environments where being seen to struggle carries a real professional cost, you have trained them not to comment and not to ask. Because every deflected “are you okay” with “I’m fine, just busy, under pressure, deadlines looming” was a reasonable act of self-protection in a context that penalises vulnerability. Never let them see you sweat.
The accumulated effect is that the people best positioned to hold up the mirror have learned to keep their mouths shut.
Take time to take stock
The wall you have built is not the problem. In many ways it makes professional sense not to display that you are struggling to every individual you work with. No one wants to see their leader failing, it frightens them, and gives your senior leaders the impression you are not a good bet. But the majority of leaders reach these struggles at some point in their career.
So the problem is not that there is a wall. It is that you are on the inside of it alone, trying to assess whether you are okay, whether you need to take stock, with an instrument that is highly compromised. Research on stress and self-assessment confirms what experience already knows: the more you need accurate self-knowledge, the less reliably you can access it.
So my invitation to you is this. Find someone who doesn’t need you to be fine, a trusted colleague, a friend who knew you before this phase, a partner who has been watching quietly. Sit down with them. And ask them to ask you the question this article started with.
What is stopping you from falling apart? Ask someone who loves you enough to help you answer honestly.
Linda Terry is a scientist and coach working with women scientists who are navigating leadership in every room.
If you want an outside perspective on where you are losing the most ground, I built something that might help. You can take the quiz here.
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