Do you ever stop and think, what the hell is going on?

Have I lost control of my professional schedule, my personal sanity, or am I just flying by the seat of my pants waiting for things to calm down, get organized, or somehow just get better at all of this?

I think part of what makes this stage of life so strange is that we keep assuming the next season is going to be easier.

When your kids are little, you are managing childcare, school events, play dates, birthday parties and all the daily logistics that come with having little people completely dependent on you. So you think, once they get older, this will settle down.

Then they do get older, and the logistics just change. Now it is sports practices, games, driving everywhere, school schedules, college visits, social calendars and a whole new set of things to keep track of including stalking Life 360. At the same time, your career is usually getting bigger too. You are more senior, more people rely on you, the decisions are bigger, and the expectations are higher.

Then, depending on your life, maybe aging parents start needing more too, and suddenly you are standing in the middle of all of it wondering why the phase that was supposed to feel easier somehow feels just as full.

That was one of the things that really clicked for me in my conversation with Cherylanne Skolnicki, founder of Brilliant Balance.​

She talks about something called the peak of complexity, which is basically this stage where your ambition is still very much alive, but your responsibilities have multiplied to the point that the way you used to manage your life simply does not work anymore.

I think that is the part we often miss. We assume we need to get more organized, become more disciplined, wake up earlier, or find the right planner. But sometimes the issue is not that we are bad at managing our lives. Sometimes our lives have grown beyond the operating system we are still trying to use.

I can see this so clearly looking back.

When my girls were younger, I was trying really hard to prove I could do both sides well. I would stay late, go to work events and do all the things I thought showed I was fully committed professionally. Then I would turn around and volunteer for PTA because I also did not want to be the working mom who never showed up.

No one necessarily told me I had to do all of that at 100 percent. A lot of that pressure came from me, and from the belief that if I was capable of handling it, I probably should.

That is what made one of Cherylanne’s questions stick with me so much:

Am I uniquely qualified to do this?

That is a very different question than, can I do this?

Of course you can probably do it. Most ambitious women can do a lot. The harder question is whether you actually need to be the one doing it, or whether you have just become the default person because you are good at handling things.

And that applies at work and at home. It is the project you keep taking back because you can do it faster. It is the family logistics you still manage even when someone else could. It is the thing you keep carrying because you do not want to disappoint someone, lose control, or have it done differently than you would do it yourself.

At some point, the answer may not be getting better at carrying everything. It may be getting more intentional about what actually needs to stay yours.

That is what my full conversation with Cherylanne is about. We talk about the peak of complexity, why capable women become the person everyone relies on, the guilt and control behind letting go, boundaries, delegation, and how to start changing the way you operate when the old way just is not working anymore.

If you are in one of those seasons where everything feels full and you keep waiting for life to calm down, I think this episode will hit home.

🎧 Listen to the full episode:

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Lead louder. Grow stronger. Don’t do it alone.

And if you’re in Central Pennsylvania and looking for smaller, more meaningful connections with other women, email me and I’ll send you details on upcoming events.

Stay Loud & Lifted,

Betsy