The Fix-It Reflex: Why the Thing You Do Effortlessly Is Exhausting You
There's a concept making its way through business coaching circles right now.
It goes something like this: what ticks you off is your differentiator.
Find the frustration. Name it. Use it to shape your offer and your message.
It's a brilliant concept. And it's completely true.
It also assumes something that many high-achieving women simply don't have.
And it's not because they aren't self-aware or haven't done the work.
It's because of something far more specific, and far more invisible.
These women genuinely believe they aren't that frustrated. They know they’re ‘just not that angry’.
Here's the pattern I've seen, in client after client, and honestly, in myself.
Something goes wrong. A system is broken. A dynamic is off. A standard isn't being met.
And before the frustration can fully form into a feeling, something else fires first.
We assess. Problem-solve. Take action.
Within moments, the thing is fixed, smoothed, compensated for.
The project still looks polished. The meeting still runs well. The family still feels held.
And she moves on, because that's what she does. She fixes things.
Here's what gets lost in that sequence: Emotional data.
Frustration isn't just a feeling. It's information.
Anger, frustration, resentment all point to what matters, what's been violated, what shouldn't be this way.
When the Fix-It Reflex fires before the frustration can complete its cycle, that information never arrives.
It doesn't get suppressed exactly, but it does get interrupted.
Over and over, for years, sometimes decades, until the interruption feels so natural that it stops feeling like anything at all.
We don't think we're avoiding our feelings.
We genuinely think we're just not reactive. We think we're practical and measured.
We do what we know needs to be done, and we move on.
'Why waste good energy after bad?'
This insight comes from lived experience. Over the past few years, it's become clear to me, that I've been doing this my whole life.
And I had honestly believed, up until I caught this insidiously invisible pattern, that I had full access to my emotions.
'I'm not an angry person. I'm capable and measured'.
It took time to see what had actually happened.
Being capable and measured had become my proof that I wasn't an angry person. The two had collapsed into each other so completely that there was no gap left to question.
The women I work with are extraordinary.
They are visionaries, dot connectors, implementers, and fixers of things long before anyone else notices the break.
They are exceptional at both results and relationships.
And they have been rewarded consistently, for exactly this.
Which means the Fix-It Reflex didn't just become a habit. It became identity. It became the thing that felt most like them.
And here's the thing about identities: When something feels like you, you don't question it. And you certainly don't slow it down long enough to feel what's underneath it. 'It's just how it is.'
So when someone says "find what ticks you off and use it to inform how you operate" we nod along.
I mean, we agree with the concept. But when we sit with the concept in real life, we come up mostly empty.
Not because nothing's wrong with the situation.
But, because we've resolved every wrong thing before it ever registered as a feeling we could name.
We're not suppressed or avoiding our emotions.
We've gotten very, very efficient at the job of managing.
And honestly, until this part is addressed, life can feel extremely draining. It can feel destabilizing to not understand why everything feels so exhausting.
‘Why does it feel like I’m always running on empty?’
Perhaps this sheds some light on your own experience.
If you do want to "fix" the Fix-It Reflex, the path through is not with mental reframing or mindset work.
And that can sound like crazy talk, for those of us who are thinkers and doers.
And yet, the truth is, you can't think your way to feelings that were interrupted before they became thoughts.
What actually has to happen first is learning to sit in something broken for a moment longer than is comfortable.
To tolerate the problem being there, without fixing it. To resist the urge to fix.
Not forever, but just long enough to feel the wrongness of it before moving to fix it.
Just long enough to let the frustration complete one full cycle instead of being resolved on arrival.
For most people this is uncomfortable.
But for high-achieving, deeply attuned women, it can feel genuinely destabilizing. So much so that we don’t sit there for long.
Because our competence feels like our identity.
To not fix things when we know exactly what's needed… Well, that's just not us.
And that's the work.
Not just identifying the frustration.
But, building enough capacity to let the frustration exist for a moment before it disappears into a solution.
And when that starts to happen, something shifts.
The emotional data that was being processed out of awareness starts to accumulate.
Slowly, more clarity arrives. We start to notice what actually bothers us. What we actually believe to be wrong.
What we've been quietly compensating for that we never took the time to name out loud.
That's when "what ticks you off" becomes answerable.
If you read this and something in you quietly said ‘OOFF. So, THAT'S what's been happening’ …
I want you to know that you're not behind and you're not less self-aware than you should be.
This has been hiding in plain sight for years.
And companies, families… entire cultures have been supported on the back of our Fix-It Reflex.
You don't have a problem.
You have an extraordinary gift to see things that most people aren't capable of seeing.
And yet, unless you shift how you use this gift of yours, it will continue to deplete you.
What I'm describing isn't a total rebuild. I’m not asking you to stop being the person everyone counts on.
It's one extra beat before the fix.
Just long enough to let the frustration complete its cycle and allow the emotional data to arrive.
You've been carrying something that most people can't see, let alone name.
And what you probably haven't heard is that getting your energy back doesn't require dismantling who you are.
It just requires giving yourself a little more room inside of it.
To sit with the urge to fix for one beat longer, before the fixing begins.
Lisa Bobyak founded Living Fully Balanced LLC because she got tired of watching brilliant women break themselves trying to maintain excellence, in part because she'd been one of them. For over a decade, she's worked with high-achieving, deeply attuned women who are doing everything right. Competent, disciplined, and highly self-aware. Armed with strategies, protocols, and solid habits. The level of their exhaustion doesn't match their effort to feel better.
If you're a high-achieving woman who's tired of working harder at your own wellbeing than you work at everything else... you don't have to break yourself to prove your worth.
Here are some things to consider:
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