How to Stop Taking Work Personally, Without Caring Less

What do you do when you care deeply about your work, but it keeps coming home in your head?

This episode is for the employee navigating workplace pressure, change, restructuring, unclear communication or high expectations, and for the entrepreneur or business owner carrying the emotional weight of clients, launches, visibility, money and results.

If you’ve ever found yourself replaying work conversations at night, struggling to switch off, checking your inbox when you promised yourself you were done, or feeling like work stress is stealing the joy from your everyday life, this conversation will meet you there.

This is not about becoming detached.

It is not about caring less.

And it is definitely not about lowering your standards.

In this episode of Sky High Coaching Conversations, Janelle explores why work can feel so personal for intelligent, high-performing women who care deeply about doing meaningful, excellent work.

Whether you’re leading inside an organisation or building something of your own, this conversation will help you look at the emotional weight of work in a different way, so your work can matter deeply without taking over your whole inner world.

Here are the links, as mentioned by Janelle:

Download your complimentary Blueprint, The Shakeable Woman HERE
Download your complimentary Blueprint, Success Was The Warmup HERE

Explore The Soft Strength Salon HERE

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Welcome to or welcome back to Ska High Coaching Conversations. I'm Janelle Ryan and I'm so happy you're here. As always, I invite you to listen along, notice what comes up for you, and later think about what you may like to do with that thought or insight. Let's dive in. Today's episode has been inspired by a conversation a client and I had earlier this week. She jumped on the call and there was something she wanted to know. And this is what she said to me, and I am paraphrasing by the way. She said or asked, How do I care deeply about my work without that care turning into stress? How do I hold the work in a healthier way so I can leave it where it belongs at the end of the day and be present for the beautiful, extraordinary, and ordinary moments of my life? To do the other things that I want to do. Now, my client works within a global organization, but I hear this too from entrepreneurs. In fact, when it's your own business, it can feel a little bit more personal, can't it? I want to share with you that I personally know both these examples from the inside. Yeah, over the years, there have absolutely been times when I cared so much about my work that it started to consume me. And I'm very happy to say that I am much better at this now than I used to be. Not because I care less. I care about sky high coaching a lot. But because I'm learning and practicing again and again that whilst my care is powerful, it still needs edges. It requires boundaries. And as I spoke with my client earlier this week, it became very clear that she wasn't saying that she doesn't want to care. Quite the opposite. She cares deeply. And I have known her for almost a decade. And when I say she cares deeply, I don't mean she likes to do a good job in a neat surface level kind of way. I mean she is emotionally, intellectually, and energetically invested in her work. She wants it to be excellent. She wants it to add value. She wants it to create something meaningful for herself, for her team, for the organization, her clients, and for the people who are ultimately impacted by the work. She's not someone who can just tick the box, send the email, close the laptop, and feel nothing about the outcome. It's not how she's built. She wants to contribute properly. She wants to bring her intelligence, her care, her standards, her creativity, and her heart into what she does. She wants her work to matter. She wants the outcome to matter. She wants to know that her effort has created something useful, thoughtful, and meaningful. And I absolutely love that about her. Because that level of care is not weakness. It's part of her brilliance. It's part of why people trust her. It's part of why she sees what others miss. It's part of why she can anticipate the ripple effect of a decision. It's part of why she holds a standard when other people might be happy to let something slide. So the answer isn't to care less. I would never want to take that from her. The question is, how can she keep that beautiful depth of care without letting it become the thing that consumes her? How can she stay invested without being swallowed by the work? How can she create impact without making every outcome, every shift, every delay, and every piece of chaos feel like it has to live inside her own body? Because we often think the problem is that we care too much. But I don't think that's quite right. I think the problem is that somewhere along the way, caring turns into carrying. And there's a really big difference. Caring says, this matters to me. Carrying says, this is now mine to hold, solve, absorb, fix, anticipate, emotionally process and take home. Caring has a beautiful energy. Carrying has heavy weight. And oh my goodness, so many intelligent, responsible, high-performing women are not exhausted because they care. They're exhausted because they're carrying too much. They're carrying the work, the outcome, the team dynamic, the tension in the room, the shifting goalposts, the uncertainty, the possible disappointment, the whole emotional weather system of a workplace as if it belongs inside their own body. And they wonder why they feel so tired. Of course they're tired. That is a lot to carry. And when work is chaotic, this becomes even more intense. That might be organizational chaos, change, restructure, uncertainty, shifting priorities, unclear communication, stressed colleagues, moving deadlines, new expectations. And you know, or that corporate, that delightful corporate phrase. We're still working through what this will look like. Which, as we all know, can mean absolutely anything. It can mean we have a plan. It can mean we have half a plan. It can mean someone mentioned a plan in a meeting three weeks ago, and now we're all pretending the plan exists. Or it might be the chaos of your own business. The launch that didn't land the way you hoped, the proposal that hasn't been answered, the income that feels unpredictable, the idea you're not sure to bring into form, the constant sense that there is always more you could be doing. Different worlds, same pattern. You care. And because you care, you can start absorbing the uncertainty as if it all belongs inside you. You're trying to make sense of it, you're trying to prepare for it, you're trying to steady yourself, remain calm inside it. And before you know it, work hasn't just taken your time. It's taken your evening, your attention, your body, your mood, your dinner, your sleep, your peace. And possibly your ability to enjoy a perfectly good muffin, which frankly feels rude. One of the things my client said to me, which I thought was really important, was that when she steps away from work for a couple of days, she feels fine. She's able to detach. That tells us something. It tells us this isn't some permanent flaw in her. It's not that she has no ability to relax. It's not that she can never switch off. It's that when she's in the work environment every day, the chaos pulls her in and she gets absorbed by it. And if you run your own business, you may know this too. You can be perfectly fine when you step away for a long weekend or go on a holiday. Then you come back, open the laptop, see your inbox, the numbers, the decisions, the thing that needs fixing. And suddenly your whole system is back inside it. So I think the aim is not learning how to detach only when you're away from your work. The aim is learning how to return to yourself at the end of an ordinary Tuesday, when the workday was messy, when nothing was fully resolved, when there were still unknowns, when someone sent that email at 5.14 p.m., always a charming time to send a loaded email, isn't it? The skill is being able to say, this is important, and I'm putting it down for tonight. This deserves my attention tomorrow. It does not get to steal the small amounts of joy in the rest of my day. This matters, and I'm allowed to return to my own life. And this, my beautiful friend, is a skill, and it's not something most of us were taught. In fact, many of us were taught the opposite. We were taught that responsibility means carrying. We were taught that being good means worrying. We were taught that being committed means being available. We were taught that being conscientious means thinking about the work until it's complete, approved, praised, resolved, signed off, handled, or no longer making anyone feel uncomfortable. And if you grew up as a high achiever, you may have also learned that doing well created safety. Doing well got approval. Doing well got recognition. Doing well helped you feel calm and steady. Doing well helped you know who you were. Now, here's the thing: there's nothing wrong with doing well. Please don't hear that. I'm never going to tell you to lower your standards and stop doing excellent work. In fact, that would be a very odd business model for me. But work becomes harder to put down when it starts to feel like evidence. Evidence that you're good enough, evidence that you're capable, evidence that you're valuable, evidence that you're safe, evidence that people respect you, evidence that you still belong. That is when it becomes personal. Not because you're dramatic, not because you're weak, not because you need to toughen up, but because something deeper has become entangled with the work. And as I said, I've had to practice this over and over again, first in my years as an employee and a leader. And now within my own business, I know what it is to care deeply, to take responsibility seriously. I mean, I work with people. I want to do excellent work and to feel the work following you long after the day is technically done, that is something I understand. I know what it is to have something at work or in business start to feel like evidence of your capability, your value, your place, or your future. But I also know this. The work may need your attention, your discernment, your courage, or your clear next step. But it does not get to decide who you are. And that's the distinction I invite you to hear. Your work can matter deeply without becoming the measure of your worth, your value, or your place. And once the work is no longer carrying the weight of your identity, the next question becomes much more practical. Where does this actually belong? Because if we don't consciously place our work somewhere, it starts to spread everywhere. And that's where compartmentalizing comes in. And I know that word can sound a bit cold and a bit clinical, almost as if we're putting our feelings in a drawer and becoming some strange corporate robot woman with excellent calendar management and no pulse. That's not what I mean. When I talk about compartmentalizing, I'm not talking about becoming detached. I'm not talking about pretending work doesn't matter. I'm not talking about doing less than your best. I'm talking about creating clearer boundaries. Work belongs somewhere. Your business belongs somewhere. It deserves your attention, your skill, your care, your intelligence, your contribution. It does. But it does not get unlimited access to your whole inner world. It does not get to follow you into every room. It does not get to sit at the dinner table every night. It certainly does not get to climb into bed with you. It does not get to steal the moment when you're chopping vegetables, making muffins, walking the dog, talking to your husband, laughing with a friend, playing with your kids, I don't know, or simply sitting quietly with a cup of tea. Because those moments are your life and they're not small. They are the texture of life. They are the tapestry of your life. And they're the moments we say we want more of. More peace, more joy, more connection, more presence, more spaciousness, more time to actually feel like ourselves. But if your attention is still sitting inside tomorrow's meeting, tomorrow's launch, that conversation you had today, you miss them. And this is why I think the real aim is not simply work-life balance. In fact, I don't even love the phrase, to be honest, because sometimes it makes it sound like we're trying to move blocks around in a calendar. I'll put a bit more work here, I'll put a bit more life there, a Pilates class on Thursday, and suddenly we're all healed and everything's fixed. Lovely if it was that simple. But this is deeper than time management. This is about attention, it's about identity, it's about nervous system steadiness. It's about whether you can be where you actually are. Because when you're at home obsessing about work, you're not really at home. Your body might be there, but your attention is still in the meeting, still in the inbox, still with that person's tone, still trying to solve a problem that can't be solved at 9:30 on the couch, still rehearsing, defending, proving, preparing, still carrying. The invitation is to bring yourself back. Not perfectly, not with some serene monk-like detachment. Because honestly, let's you know, most of us are trying start that again. Honestly, most of us are just trying to get through the day without losing our key keys or sending the wrong email to a person. I'm gonna start again because this is a perfect example. Not with some serene like monk management, because honestly, most of us are trying to get through the day without losing our keys, sending the wrong email to the wrong person, or saying the right sentence at the right time on her podcast. We want to bring ourselves back gently, deliberately, with practice. You bring your attention back to the room you're in, back to the person in front of you, back to the meal you're eating, back to the body you live in, back to the life you're building, back to yourself. So I want to give you a few reframes that may help. The first is I can care without carrying. The part of you that cares may believe that putting something down means abandoning it. It may believe that if you stop thinking about the issue, you'll drop the ball. It may believe that if you're not worrying, you're not being responsible. So we want to give that part of you a different instruction. You're not saying I don't care. You're saying I care and I'm not carrying this tonight. The second reframe is this is work chaos, not my chaos. Or if you're in business, this is business uncertainty, not my identity. So this both of these are especially useful when you're in an organization going through change, or when your business is in one of those seasons where there are more questions and answers. It doesn't mean you're ignoring what's happening, it means you're just positioning it, positioning it properly. Excuse me. You stop letting the organization's instability or the business's uncertainty become your personal instability. The third reframe is my responsibility is my contribution, not the entire outcome. And this is a big one for high-performing women. Because many of you are so used to taking ownership that you accidentally take ownership of things that are not actually yours. Your preparation? Yes. Your communication? Yes. Your integrity? Absolutely. Your effort? Yes. Your standards? Yes. Your courage? Yes. Your willingness to show up and do the work? Absolutely. The entire outcome, including every person's response, every organizational decision, every moving part, every client decision, every future consequence, every result? No, that's too much. Your responsibility is your contribution, not the entire outcome. And the fourth reframe is work gets my excellent, but it doesn't get my whole life. Your work or business gets your creativity, your discipline, your courage, and your care. It doesn't get to become the sole measure of your worth. Because this is not about becoming less excellent. It's about becoming more self-held, more discerning, more able to know where your energy belongs, more able to give beautifully and then come home to yourself. So let's make this practical. Because it's all very well to talk about carrying less. But what do you actually do at the end of a workday when your brain is still running like a slightly unhinged project manager with a clipboard? I'd like to offer you a simple practice. I think what many people are missing is a clear ending to the workday. I know I was. Not just physically, but emotionally. So work ends physically, but not emotionally. You close the laptop, but your mind keeps going. You leave the office, but your attention stays behind. You stop being paid for the day, but somehow the workplace still has a full access pass to your nervous system. And if you run your own business, this can be even trickier. Because there may not be a clear end to the day. There may not be anyone telling you to log off. There may always be something else you could do. One more email, one more post, one more idea, one more tweak, one more thing to check. This ritual is really important. At the end of your workday, or at the point when you're choosing to stop for the day, pause. Just for a minute. And I do mean a minute. I'm not giving you a 17-step ritual involving a journal, a candle, a gong, and a small ceremonial robe. Unless you want the robe, you do you. I support you no matter what. But for most of us, let's just start with a minute. Close the laptop, put your phone down, stand up, take one proper breath. A proper one. Long, slow, deep. And ask yourself, what belongs to work? What belongs to me? What can wait until tomorrow? What am I allowed to put down now? And then one more question. What moment of joy do I want to actually be present for tonight? Because joy is often ordinary. It doesn't usually arrive with a marching band, does it? It might be that first sip of tea or wine. It might be chopping vegetables. It might be making muffins, yummy apple ones. It might be your dog doing something ridiculous. Always one of my favorite times of the day. It might be hearing someone you love laugh. Oh my gosh, I love that so much too. It might be a quiet house. It might be dinner. It might be the way your kids run to the front door and tackle you when you arrive home from work. It might be music. It might be getting into bed and feeling the sheets. It might be being ignored by your teens while they're watching TV. But if your attention is still trapped in your workday, you can miss the very things that would have restored you. And then work doesn't just take your work hours. It takes the medicine that could have helped you recover from them. And that is the part I really invite you to hear. The small moments of joy are not frivolous. They are part of how you come back to yourself. They are part of how your system remembers there's more to life than the latest organizational chaos, business uncertainty, client decision, email thread, or messy season. So if you're in a season where work feels chaotic, heavy, overly personal, or far too loud inside your own body, I invite you to try this distinction. Am I caring? Or am I carrying? Because caring may ask you to take action, but carrying usually asks you to suffer. Caring may be asking for a conversation. Caring replays the conversation for three days. Caring may ask you to prepare. Caring asks you to rehearse every possible scenario while pretending to watch television with your family. Caring may ask you to contribute, but caring asks you to become responsible for everyone and everything. Caring is alive, but caring is heavy. And the aim is not to stop caring. The aim is to stop abandoning yourself in the name of caring. Because many women, especially women who are intelligent, capable, sensitive to dynamics, and highly responsible, the line between care and self-abandonment can get really blurry. You care about the work so you stay available. You care about the team so you absorb the tension. You care about the outcome, so you overthink every detail. You care about doing a good job, so you keep proving. You care about being trusted, so you never quite let yourself switch off. You care about your business, so every result starts to feel like it's saying something about you. And yes, it this can look noble. It can look committed, it can look like leadership, it can look like entrepreneurship. But if it costs you your peace, your joy, your presence, your body, and your ability to inhabit your own life, then it's worth questioning. Not judging. Let's be clear, questioning. Because there may be another way, a way to stay deeply engaged without being consumed, a way to bring excellence without giving everything and everyone unlimited access to you, a way to be responsible without becoming over-responsible, a way to lead, build, create, and contribute without carrying the whole thing home with you. And this is very much the work of soft strength, because soft strength is not about becoming harder, it's not about building armor, it's not about pretending nothing affects you. It's not about collapsing under the weight of everything you care about. Soft strength is the ability to stay connected and self-held, to stay open and discerning, to care deeply and still know where you end and the work begins. To contribute fully and still come home to yourself, to be present in the life you're actually living, not just the work you're trying to manage. And if this conversation is landing somewhere in you, if you recognize this pattern of caring so much that work follows you home or the business follows you everywhere, then I want you to know this isn't a sign you're weak. It's not a sign you're bad at your job, it's not a sign you're not cut out for business, it's not a sign that you need to become someone else. It may simply be a sign that something in you is ready for more steadiness, more separation between what you do and who you are, more capacity to care without collapsing, more ability to hold your center when the world around you is messy, more skill in knowing what's yours, what's not yours, what belongs to today, and what can be put down. If this conversation has stirred something in you, there are a couple of ways I'd love to support you from here right now. The first is to download one of my complimentary blueprints. If you're the woman who's still building, leading, growing, stretching, and often finding herself in rooms where she's the only woman, the youngest in the room, or the one quietly wondering if she's really as capable as everyone thinks she is, I've been there too. I suggest you start with the unshakable woman blueprint. So this blueprint is for high-performing women who are ready to quiet the self-doubt, stop overproving, and build a steadier kind of confidence from the inside out. Now, if you're the woman who's already built a successful career or business, life or chapter, often whilst carrying a great deal for everyone else. And if you're her, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And you're now asking, what's next for me? Then success was the warm-up is for you. Download that blueprint. It's for accomplished women who know they're not done yet. Women who've created success, stability, impact, and achievement, and they're now ready to create their next chapter. One that feels more alive, more aligned, and more theirs. Both blueprints are free, and you'll find the links in the show notes. And is if, excuse me, as you've been listening, you're thinking, oh my gosh, Janelle, I do not need another thing to download. I don't need another thing to read and work through. I want to actually change this with someone. Then come and have a look at the soft strength salon. The salon is my six-month mastermind for intelligent women who are ready to stop handing work pressure, people's responses and outside situations and circumstances to stop handing them so much power over how they feel about themselves. This is the space for women who are ready to dive in, be guided properly, and build the kind of quiet, unshakable strength that changes how she leads, speaks, decides, and lives. Inside the salon, we look at the hidden patterns that shape how you respond when something feels loaded, important, or personal. We build the self-trust, presence, and inner authority that allow you to stay with yourself, even when work is demanding, people are complicated, business is uncertain, and the stakes feel high. Because the goal is not to care less. The goal is to carry less, to stop handing work, people, pressure, and outcomes the keys to your whole inner world. So stop letting every shift, silence, comment, result, outcome, or uncertainty become a personal verdict. To know how to give your excellence, your intelligence, and your heart without giving away your whole life. So download the blueprint that has been designed and created with you in mind, or come and explore the soft strength salon if you know you're ready to go deeper, and we'll pop that link in as well. I'd love to support you either way. And for now, perhaps take this with you. You can care without carrying. Work gets your excellence. Your business gets your brilliance. Neither gets your whole life. Thank you so much for listening to Sky High Coaching Conversations. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with another intelligent woman who cares deeply, perhaps a little too deeply, and could use the reminder that she doesn't need to care less. She may simply need to carry less. Enjoy the rest of your day. Catch you on the airwaves next time. Bye.