On "What Am I Doing Wrong Here?"

For when we find ourselves asking this question in our daily lives

[Originally published on Substack on September 25, 2024. Moving it here as part of building a more complete, unified archive of my work.]

A picture from a particularly beautiful place near my home that reminds me that we exist in just a tiny moment of history.

A few months ago, I had a minor personal epiphany. One that has opened my eyes and super-shifted my perspective on how I experience my life.

It hit me on a particularly unruly day in our household, with demands coming from every direction. Like many of us, I’ve been operating in “overwhelm” mode for years and years (and yes, thank you pandemic for exacerbating all of it). A thorough, penetrating, depleting overwhelm that stems from trying to manage oh so many things at the same time. Work, building a business, personal health, parenting, household management, family relationships, social engagements, and on. And of course, my own personal growth while navigating the circumstances of any given day. This overwhelm, the frustrations, the recognition that maybe life isn’t meant to feel this way, all of it has led me at many, many points over the past years to look around and ask myself “What am I doing wrong here?”.

This question is almost a default response for me. As someone who believes in my own agency to make change and to create what I want in my life, as someone who believes in my ability to achieve and accomplish what I go after (and to accept the sacrifices that are necessary to get there), I have a strong tendency to put responsibility on myself to identify what I need to shift and change in order to get where I want to go. At the same time, I consider logic to be one of my superpowers. My experience of the world and my life to this point has been so firmly grounded in logical reasoning, problem-solving, understanding and interpreting the data (no surprise, coming from a former scientist). So of course, this question “What am I doing wrong here?” naturally stems from a desire to solve the equation for what I need to change in order to feel the way I want to feel in my life. 

In general, I don’t believe that this approach to life, based in logic to navigate where to go, is a bad thing. It has led to accomplishing hard things, to believe in my personal abilities and responsibility, to navigate based on the apparent solid foundation of data/evidence/”truth”. (note: I may now be developing a different definition of “truth” for myself, but more on that some other time). 

So, for right now at least, I think this approach is okay. But my epiphany came from realizing that the question, “What am I doing wrong here?”, most decidedly is NOT okay.

It occurred to me, as I was standing there in the middle of my kitchen, wondering how everyone else seems to manage getting everything done in a day while mediating conflict between quarrelsome kids, while quieting the dog barking at the bunnies, while making dinner, and oh yeah, responding to that text about “can ___ have a playdate this weekend?”... As I stood there wondering, “What am I doing wrong here?”, it occurred to me that the problem might not be within myself. It occurred to me that the problem might actually be structural, might be a result of how we are expected to operate in our current society. 

It occurred to me that in not-too-distant history, families had so much more support. Different generations of the family living together or within close proximity, available to “take over” in moments when a care-giving adult needed to shift attention to someone/something else. It occurred to me that in not-too-distant history, the excess of material stuff cluttering our lives, taking up physical and mental space, creating conflict (i.e., sharing between siblings), requiring someone to figure out what to do with the stuff/where it fits into a home, was not a part of everyday life. It occurred to me that our food choices were so much more centered around food that came from the earth vs. the accessible but processed stuff that have created such widespread health challenges. (Side note: we talk about how this country has an obesity problem, and how overweight people need to work harder to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but good grief, how has the structure of our world made that oh so much more challenging in the past 100 years?). It occurred to me that our technology options, while supporting more connection, have also enabled a constant stream of demand on our attention, demand for instant response, etc. And of course, there are so many other examples of how our structures in our current world have actually made it more difficult to be present in actually experiencing our existence in this world rather than the overwhelm of constant reaction to our circumstances. 

And we know this, of course. There has been much said about how all of these things are a problem. But what I find interesting is that, at least for me, I hear about these things and I hear the message that “you, as an individual, must do something about it if you want to improve your life.” Too much clutter in your house? Become a minimalist. Want to lose weight? Stick to this diet. Want your kid to have a meaningful, developmentally enriching summer experience? Enroll them in this camp. Etc. So much responsibility is put on us, as individuals, to “fix” the problem. So of course, we end up with “What am I doing wrong here?”

But. BUT. What if instead of using that question to beat ourselves up for not figuring out the answer for how to fix it, what if this question could actually have a different purpose? What would change if whenever we hear the words “What am I doing wrong here?” running through our heads, we stop to ask whether the problem is actually coming from something outside of ourselves. What if this question is actually a signal to look for what is wrong in the structure of our society, rather than what is wrong in what we are doing as individuals. 

And so, since realizing this several months ago, simply noticing my response when “what am I doing wrong here?” comes up in my life and pausing to look around at my personal role vs. the role of social structure in the particular circumstance has been really eye-opening. For me, its has engendered more self-trust, by realizing that I may not necessarily be doing anything “wrong” at all. It has helped me to recognize that I am doing the best I can with the resources I currently have, and that there is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with a “doing my best with the resources I have” approach. But because society tells us we are meant to do more with less (particularly for women), it is uncomfortable to realize the limitations of our human capacity. However, a key part of this, at least for me, is remembering that we are humans. We do not have unlimited capacity, unlimited energy. We exist in cycles of energy, rest, etc. This is core to being alive on this planet, and if we want to have the experience of being alive on this planet, we need to trust ourselves to navigate our lives based on what’s coming from within us vs. expectations coming from the outside structures.

I don’t have the answers for how to change the structures of our world that have led to the overwhelm and chaos in our current-day lives. But I do believe that the change starts from simply noticing how the structures in our world influence our expectations for ourselves. And then proceeding with curiosity.

Now, when I hear myself saying “What am I doing wrong here?”, instead of beating myself up, I use it as a trigger to look outside myself and examine where our culture might be playing a role. And to instead also allow just a little bit of space and time for the question “What if I’m doing everything exactly RIGHT here?” It doesn’t have to be true, but what if at least allowing that possibility is an avenue to trusting our own experience of and in the world. And how would that shift in perspective, from “what am I doing wrong” to “what if I’m doing everything right here”, influence how we show up and operate in the world? I have a hunch that we’d be more apt to take on the things that overwhelm and defeat currently interfere with in invisible ways in our daily lives. I have a hunch that we’d be more apt to take the tiny little steps towards those things we believe in, those things that would contribute to creating more of the world we want to live in. And in the world I want to live in, I’m curious to see what innovation, change, and leadership can look like when we learn to trust ourselves, bit by little bit.