For as long as I can remember, I have been the capable one, the reliable one, the one who gets things done. It's just who I am...or at least who I was.
If something needed organising, I'd organise it. If someone needed help, I'd help them. If there was a problem, I'd find a solution. I took pride in being dependable and, if I'm honest, I still do.
It wasn't something I questioned because it felt so natural. Then, almost exactly a year ago, I was attending a coaching weekend when I had a lightbulb moment: I realised I'd spent most of my life consistently playing the role of the good girl, at least since I was 10 years old
What I know now is that being reliable was part of the role, even though I thought it was part of my personality. I did what was expected of me, and usually a little bit more. I didn't want to let anyone down.
If I'm completely honest, I wanted to be seen and appreciated. To know that I mattered. (I nearly wrote "to be needed." Perhaps that's closer to the truth!)
That weekend was uncomfortable because it challenged something I'd believed about myself for years. If being the capable one wasn't simply who I was, then what was it?
Looking At It Through A Different Lens
Over the last year, I've started to see those qualities differently. I started off seeing them as flaws, but I don't believe that to be true now. In fact, I don't even see them as personality traits.
Instead, I see them as intelligent adaptations. They helped me feel safe. They gave me a sense of certainty.
If I did everything myself, I didn't have to worry about whether someone else would follow through. If I carried more than my fair share, I could convince myself I was making life easier for everyone around me.
At the time, those behaviours made sense; that's why I learned them and kept them. The problem was that I stopped questioning them, and then they became automatic.
I didn't choose to be the capable one, the good girl, the overachiever; I couldn't imagine being anything else.
When Protection Starts Running Your Life
This is what I now call armour, and to be clear, armour isn't a bad thing, quite the opposite. Armour exists for a reason. It protects us and helps us navigate situations that once felt difficult, uncertain or unsafe.
However, when protection becomes our default way of moving through the world, we stop asking whether it's still serving us. For me, my armour gradually came with a cost.
- I found it difficult to ask for help because, deep down, I believed no one would do it properly.
- Doing things for my children that they were perfectly capable of learning for themselves, because it felt quicker and easier.
- Without meaning to, I created dependency while telling myself I was being helpful.
- Carrying more and more, became resentful, felt exhausted and then I wondered why I was the one burning out.
Looking back now, none of that happened overnight; it happened one small decision at a time.
Maybe This Isn't Who You Are Either
Since that coaching weekend, I've started putting pieces of that armour down one at a time. Some days, I still catch myself stepping back into the old role before I've even realised what I'm doing.
The difference is that I notice it sooner and when I do, I have a choice.
I can keep proving that I'm capable or I can ask myself a different question: What do I actually need here?
This question helps in recognising the difference between who you are and the strategies you've developed to stay safe.
These strategies deserve compassion, they got us this far, and, they don't have to define the rest of our lives.
A Question I've Been Sitting With
So I'll leave you with the question I've been asking myself over the last year.
Which parts of your personality genuinely feel like you...
And which parts have simply been protecting you for so long that you've started calling them who you are?
Over the next few weeks, I'm going to explore this idea of armour in more depth.
We'll look at why boundaries can feel so difficult, why so many capable women end up exhausted, and why taking off your armour isn't something you do all at once.
Because I've come to believe that understanding our armour isn't about rejecting ourselves.
It's about discovering the person who's been underneath it all along.
Taking Off the Armour
Writing this has reminded me how much has changed in the last year. I started it thinking I needed to become someone different. I was trying to understand why I kept responding in ways that no longer felt aligned with the person I wanted to be.
Now I have finally started questioning some of the things I'd always accepted as "just the way I am."
That's exactly what Taking Off the Armour is about.
Creating the space to become curious about the patterns you've been living within for years, to understand where they came from, and to decide, in your own time, whether you still need them.
If this feels familiar, I'd love you to join me.
You can find out more about Taking Off the Armour here.