3 Things to Try This Week If You Keep Saying "I'll Just Do It Myself"
I did everything myself for two years until I hit a wall. Here's the reframe that changed how I think about delegation and 3 things to try if you're struggling to let go.
Welcome to Reframed! Work is complex, career advice shouldn’t be.
I’m Ashley Rudolph and I write this newsletter for people who are ready for the next level in their careers and want practical advice that works. Reframed readers describe the experience best: “I need to give feedback, so I searched through your newsletters. I knew you wrote about it <3”
Some of the things that made me great eventually kept me stuck. I had to give them up to grow. Here’s how I did it.
You asked someone on your team to do something and they didn’t get it quite right.
Instead of sharing feedback, and seeing if they can deliver what you want, you utter these five words: “I’ll just do it myself.”
This is probably the most expensive sentence a leader can say.
To be clear, I’m calling myself out. I’ve said this phrase at least a hundred times. As an executive and even as a business owner.
I love the challenge of building my business from scratch, which is why I did it all by myself for two years. The big stuff (coaching, sales, writing Reframed newsletters) and the small stuff (scheduling, inbox management, file organization) were all me. After awhile, the small stuff became a security blanket. Handling those tasks on a daily basis was an easy way for me to always feel like I was productive. But in my case, “productive” did not equal strategic or growth-oriented. I realized I couldn’t scale unless I handed some things over.
So I hired an executive assistant.
Not too long after, I had a mini identity crisis for two weeks straight.
The first few days were liberating! I found myself thinking and saying things like:
Wow — I don’t have to do that anymore.
Yay! She’s so much better at this than I was!
I don’t have to worry about balls being dropped.
FREEDOM!
With less task management, I now had to sit with a much harder question: What does my new version of success actually look like?
Surprisingly, I struggled to identify the highest leverage ways to spend some of the time that freed up.
If you’re a high achiever who has gotten where you are through excellent execution, people rarely warn you about the transition from executor to leader.
We talk about delegation.
We talk about becoming more strategic.
But growth means you’ll have to grapple with this: some of the things that made you great eventually keep you stuck. You need to give them up to grow.
“Doing What My Title Requires” Was the Reframe I Didn’t Know I Needed
When I was feeling stuck, I thought about something a client said while contending with the realities (good and challenging) of being SVP. Some interactions tested her, personally. She’d sit in a meeting knowing the right call, but hold back because she didn’t want to be seen as difficult.
Until she decided to reframe things.
Instead of worrying whether her decisions would be received well, or about delegating, or feeling like she needed consensus for a major decision, she asked herself whether she was “doing what her title required of her.” Simple.
To me, that reframe was everything.
When I think about the times I struggled to delegate, my first reaction was to dissect my weaknesses. That conjured up feelings of guilt and shame. I found myself thinking things like: I should be better at letting go. I’m too controlling. I just can’t trust people to do it right.
But when I took the time to zoom out and focus on my role, that kind of role clarity sounded like: Does my role require me to update this spreadsheet? Does my role require me to take notes during meetings? Does my role require me to make a difficult decision whether or not it’s the popular one?
If you’re not doing what your title and role require of you because you’re buried in tasks three levels below your pay grade, then that’s a problem you can solve. Although it might feel like a weakness or some kind of personality flaw, it’s not. The problem of letting things go is one you can overcome with just a few practical tips. Like I’ve said before about making myself visible: once you treat this like a skill you can develop instead of a personality trait you lack, everything changes.
3 Things to Try This Week If You Want To Be A Better Delegator
So, what does treating delegation like a skill actually look like? Here are 3 things that are helping me delegate effectively today:
1. Notice when you feel the urge to “do it yourself”.
Doing things myself was my version of working on autopilot. If you relate to this and want to change, you’re not just building a new habit — you're overriding years of muscle memory in real time. In order for me to disrupt my patterns, I needed to change two things:
I had to create self awareness around the habit. If you made it this far, you’re probably seeing yourself in some of my anecdotes and that’s okay.
I had to create a physical or mental reminder strong enough for me to come off autopilot in the moment. That could be a post-it on your desk or a daily reminder on your calendar. Bring the observation out of the abstract and into your daily flow.
Once I did these two things, I was able to take the next step and ask myself this question → Does my role require me to do this?
If my answer was no, I had to make an intentional decision to delegate it.
2. Interrupt and replace your “automatic yes” reflex.
One of my clients had a pattern of over-committing to stakeholders, signing up for additional projects and initiatives, and then having to live with the consequences of her decisions (for herself and her team). We worked to figure out a phrase she felt comfortable saying: ”Let me check my team’s capacity and get back to you.”
Those nine words bought her 24 hours to actually think about whether she could “just do it herself” or if she could delegate it to someone else. Some things require immediate action, but for the asks that don’t, this is a lifesaver.
3. Transfer ownership, not just the task.
SOPs were most transformative for me when onboarding my executive assistant. For every task I outlined:
What the task was
Why it was important to me (and my business)
My expectations and any constraints (e.g. emails must be answered within 24 hours)
Yes, this sounds time consuming especially when your time is limited. But spending an hour or two upfront saved both of us a ton of time. For most of the responsibilities I handed over, she had what she needed to execute. The process of writing things down was transformative for me because it made me put the “why” in writing. It also forced me to think about her role and what made sense for her to own. I couldn’t just offload the grunt work and keep the interesting parts for myself. I had to give up some things I loved, too, all in service of doing what the role “business owner scaling a growing business” required of me. Giving her the details also allowed me to shift my focus to providing feedback and providing more context when needed.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
My New Version of Success Has Nothing To Do With My To-Do List
I’m on the other side of it now. But I wish someone had told me what was actually happening in those first two weeks without my productivity theater security blanket.
I felt lost but I wasn’t lazy.
I lacked direction but I wasn’t failing.
In reality, I was struggling to let go of a version of myself I had to outgrow if I wanted my business to continue growing.
As a high achiever, after all, I’m allergic to stagnation.
I started this work because I genuinely love helping people. Somewhere along the way, I let the admin side of running a business quietly overtake the part that actually lights me up. Now my version of success has nothing to do with my to-do list.
If you recognize yourself in any of this, you likely just haven’t defined what your new version of success looks like yet.
Start by reflecting on what you want that definition to be and let me know how I can help.
Good luck. See you next week!
Ashley
P.S.
One more thing - am I effectively challenging your thinking? Are my personal stories helpful? My #1 goal is to help you level up in your career, so let me know what you need.
This newsletter was edited by Rachel Aylward
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This is fantastic. Exactly what I struggle with - thank you for this way to look at the problem as well as steps towards how to work through it effectively!
A great one Ashley! Cheers to you for recognizing that delegation leads to growth and more space!
I love delegating to other people who can do something better than me! When I started doing bigger photo productions, I knew I would outsource styling AND retouching. A lot of photographers gasp at the idea of outsourcing retouching, but for me it was an executive move and non negotiable.
It made sense to outsource something that while I knew how to do it, there were professionals who could do it faster and better than me. All I needed to do was create the container so they knew how to do it the way I needed it.
I built the pricing in the budget and timing in the scope. It allowed me to manage multiple projects at one time and do more client management.
If I decide to start another business/consulting I’d do the same thing.