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Stepping in can ease your discomfort
Automatic stepping in
Anticipating what needs to happen and stepping in so things do not fall apart can run on its own after enough years. Past that point, knowing intellectually that something can be let go does not make letting go feel comfortable.
The hidden payoff
Taking over carries a payoff. If I take care of it, I know it is handled. If I stay involved, I never have to sit with the possibility that something might go differently than I would have done it. Stepping in becomes a way of reducing the discomfort of uncertainty.
Choosing when to step in
There is a difference between being responsible and automatically taking responsibility. A small pause creates a chance to notice whether something is actually yours to manage or whether stepping in only feels easier than holding back. Nothing about this asks anyone to be less ambitious, capable, or invested. It gives the freedom to choose when those qualities serve you, instead of operating from them all the time.
Why does uncertainty feel so uncomfortable?
Researchers at University College London reported in a 2016 Nature Communications study that volunteers showed the most stress when the odds of a bad outcome were 50-50. In the task, volunteers turned over virtual rocks, some hiding snakes, and received a mild electric shock when a snake appeared. Stress was lower when a snake was very likely or very unlikely. The team led by Archy de Berker measured stress through pupil dilation, skin conductance, and self-report.
Why do some habits run without thought?
Duke psychologist Wendy Wood and colleagues asked students to record what they were doing and thinking at random moments through the day. In the 2002 study, about 43 percent of reported behaviors were performed almost daily in the same context, often while the person was thinking about something else. Habits form when a behavior repeats in a stable context, so the context itself starts to trigger it. Wood later wrote about the research in her 2019 book Good Habits, Bad Habits.
Why do some people take over by default?
Family therapist Murray Bowen described overfunctioning and underfunctioning reciprocity within family systems, in which one person takes on extra responsibility and another takes on less. Bowen developed family systems theory in the 1950s and 1960s, during his work at the National Institute of Mental Health and Georgetown University. The pattern reinforces itself because each person's behavior invites the other's. Rabbi and family therapist Edwin Friedman applied Bowen's ideas to organizations in his 1985 book Generation to Generation.
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