Stop borrowing other people’s emotions (it’s fuel for burnout)

One of my clients is a senior leader at a growing tech company. She's the succession plan to her leader because she is deeply principled, a great role model and her clients and colleagues absolutely love her. Her boss regularly tells her she's valued. Her performance reviews are strong. By every external measure, she's doing great work.

But she admitted to me on a call that it is hard for her to actually feel this way and feel confident in her leadership abilities due to the impossible standards she defines for herself.

No matter how much evidence stacks up that she's doing well, there's a voice inside that whispers: 

     Are you sure? 

     Maybe do one more thing. 

     Don't get comfortable. 

     Don't you dare leave at 4:30.

One of the causes of this “Am I enough?" trap that many high-performing women fall into no matter how strong their track record is that they take on others' frustrations as their own and tie it to their performance and worth.

My client told me a story that demonstrates this well. She was leaving for the afternoon when a colleague pinged her with a last-minute request. My client said, "I'm heading out, but I'll have it to you first thing in the morning."

The colleague responded with one word: "Ugh."

My client heard "ugh" and translated it into: 

     You're letting someone down. 

     You're not committed enough. 

     If you leave right now, they'll know you don't deserve to be here.

So she canceled her plans, stayed late and got it done but she carried a deeper resentment that bothered her for a full week until our meeting. 

This is what I call borrowing other people's disappointment. And it's a common habit that I see in the women I coach. We take someone else's frustration, urgency, or emotional reaction and we make it ours to fix. We abandon our own boundaries to manage someone else's feelings. And then we wonder why we're running on fumes by Wednesday, losing resilience and teetering towards burnout.

Here's what my client and I uncovered together: deep down, she was afraid that if she stopped over-functioning, that if she actually held a boundary and let someone sit in their own discomfort, she'd lose her edge. She was believing a story that the relentless inner critic driving her to do more, stay later, and never disappoint anyone was actually the thing keeping her successful.

But the opposite is true. When you stop running on resentment and start leading from your values, you actually create a more sustainable, respected edge as a leader. 

At the end of the day, you are always teaching people how to treat you. Whether it's your partner, your kids, your team, or your colleagues. When you say yes to a 4:55 request that could absolutely wait until morning, you're not demonstrating commitment. You're teaching people that your time has no boundaries or edges and it can always be misused.

🔥 Are you holding boundaries that protect your energy, or are you borrowing other people's disappointment and calling it dedication?

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PUT THIS IDEA INTO ACTION

How to Stop Borrowing Other People's Disappointment (or any other emotion)

Here are some questions I walk my clients through to help them recognize the pattern, reclaim their boundaries, and stop owning emotions that aren't theirs:

1: Ask the resentment question before you say yes 

Before you agree to anything that falls outside your plan for the day, ask yourself one question: 

• Can I complete this without resentment? If the answer is no, if you can already feel the slow burn building, that "yes" is not a yes.

• Resentment is the clearest signal that you are working outside your values.

2: Ask "what is truly mine to own?" 

When someone expresses frustration, urgency, or disappointment near you, pause. Is their emotional reaction actually about you? Or are you absorbing something that belongs to them? 

That colleague who said "ugh" was almost certainly frustrated with her own timing, not making a statement about my client's value. Stop making other people's reactions immediately a reflection of you or your worth.

3: Define what "truly urgent" actually means in your role 

Not everything that feels urgent is urgent. I encourage my clients to get specific: 

• What are the two or three scenarios in your job that genuinely require you to stay late or respond after hours?

• If a request doesn't meet that bar, it's a tomorrow problem. When you stop treating every ping like a five-alarm fire people will learn to plan ahead before reaching out to you (or maybe even solve the problem on their own :) ).

4: Establish a shutdown boundary and protect it 

Pick a time to close the email and put the work phone and computer in another room. You don't have to be available from 7 AM to 9 PM to prove your value. You prove your value by the quality of what you deliver when you're on, not by the number of hours you're reachable. 

The leaders I see thrive long-term are the ones who protect their recovery with the same discipline they bring to their work.

Try this next: This week, notice the moments when you feel the pull to abandon your own plan to manage someone else's emotions. Pause for three seconds and ask yourself: Is this mine? You might be surprised how often the answer is no. And how much lighter you feel when you let it stay where it belongs.

Kelli Thompson is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, and executive coach who specializes in helping high achievers advance to influential leaders in their organizations. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Closing The Confidence Gap: Boost Your Peace, Your Potential & Your Paycheck.

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