You manage relationships all day, at work and at home. There’s one you rarely stop to notice, and it sets the tone for every other.
Ask a leader how things are going and you’ll usually hear the same words: “I’m very busy.” And it’s said like it’s a badge of honour.
What’s running underneath is a quiet, unacknowledged, and unspoken exhaustion. It shows itself when you react to a question or comment from a colleague or team member. Sometimes you manage to run things smoothly for a while but on the inside you are quietly at war with yourself.
You can’t lead a relationship with anyone else from a place you’ve abandoned in yourself
[Text Wrapping Break]It’s something I experienced as I progressed through a management consulting career, just ploughing and pushing through, ignoring all the physical symptoms that were signalling me to pause and ask some different questions. During my transition from corporate consulting to a niche leadership development firm, I started a coaching qualification, and it was through that programme I began to notice my own patterns, particularly around control and wanting life to work in the way I wanted it to. That began my inner leadership path of relearning, and dissolving many hindering patterns.
The relationship with yourself
Here’s the control paradox. We believe the long hours and constant availability equal better performance. They don’t. Working 70 hours yields the same output as 55 focused hours. Sleep deprivation drops decision-making accuracy by 20%.
Teams led by ‘always-on’ leaders burn out at 35% higher rates. We know this, and yet we keep going, because the behaviour feels like control. It isn’t. It’s usually the sign we’ve already lost it.
| WHAT WE BELIEVE EQUALS CONTROL | WHAT IT ACTUALLY SIGNALS |
| 70+ hour weeks Always being available Never switching off Tasks ahead of wellbeing | Poor sleep Relationships gone quiet Physical tension, symptoms Team burnout |
The relationship with yourself is where that pattern breaks or repeats. It starts with noticing the tightening in the body, for me it was my jaw and shoulders, before a hard conversation or seeing the fatigue you’re feeling as information, not weakness.
Most of us meet those signals with one question: ‘What is wrong with me?’ It’s seen as a problem to fix. But that instantly puts us on trial, at fault, instead of curious.
Next time the tightening starts, say “That’s interesting,” and ask something different, like;
- What happened, without the labels and meaning attached to it?
- What are you still arguing with that already happened? What shifts if you let it be what it is?
- What are you trying to control?
I love these two quotes;
- “What happened, happened and couldn’t have happened any other way … because it didn’t.” — Peter Crone, Mind Architect
- “What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.” — Carl Jung
Then, the one at home
The limited version of you that overrides its own signals all day doesn’t clock off at the front door. It arrives home as a ‘floating head’, present in body, with a mind still half in the last meeting, with the leftovers of your attention for the people who matter most. Presence isn’t a scheduling problem. It’s a relationship-with-yourself problem in disguise.
We’re conditioned to stay in survival mode, on alert 24/7, never really switching off and the nervous system stays in that heightened state. So notice: What is your breath telling you right now, as you read this? Is it shallow, held, easy, deep?
Your breath shows you what your nervous system is experiencing. The work you do on your nervous system today becomes the floor from which you start tomorrow. It compounds. So why wouldn’t you start to notice?
Start with the breath now. It bridges the mind and body. Have a go:
• Sit comfortably.
• Notice your natural breath without changing it.
• Follow the path as it enters and leaves your body.
• Silently say “in” as you breathe in, and “out” as you breathe out.[Text Wrapping Break]
→ What did you notice in your body?
→ What’s one moment this week where you’ll use this practice? What stops you? It’s free.
And the relationships at work
Watch the pattern. A capable person spends an hour working out how to handle their manager, his or her style, and triggers so the Monday meeting lands well. They do it alone, in parallel with their actual job. The manager walks in having done none of it. That’s the hidden labour of a relationship where only one person is paying attention to how it works. It doesn’t show up in any survey. It shows up as your best people going quiet, disengaging, or leaving and nobody quite able to say why.
When you’ve done your own noticing, when you can sit in a hard conversation without needing to win it, you carry your share. That’s what shifts a culture: not a values poster, but leaders regulated enough to let other people be real.
→ What’s the gap between the leader I intend to be and what my team actually experiences?[Text Wrapping Break]
The work you do today becomes the floor you start from tomorrow.
| THE DAILY NOTICING |
| Four questions, choose one or use each one. Notice — Where did I override a body signal today instead of pausing on it? Breath — Did I pause and follow my breath, or push straight through? Nervous system — What is my body telling me right now, as I ask this? Compounding — What can I do today that my tomorrow self will thank me for? Progress, not perfection. The control cycle will pull you back and that’s normal. Notice it as that’s where it starts to break. |
None of this is a call to add self-care to an impossible list. It’s the opposite. It’s noticing daily moments where you are reacting vs where you are open and truly listening to yourself and others.
The relationship you forget to notice is the leverage point. If you tend to it, and every other one you’re working so hard to manage quietly improves. At your desk, in the difficult conversation, at your own kitchen table. It doesn’t start with doing more. It starts with noticing.
Breaking the Control Cycle is available as a standalone session.
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Let’s talk about where you are and what you’re navigating.
kate@kateadey.co.uk ●
