This post is an excerpt from The Significance Project. If this resonates with you, I’d love for you to be part of the community..
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When Being Good at Something Becomes a Role You Didn’t Mean to Keep
There’s a particular weight that comes with being highly skilled.
Not just capable—but trusted, leaned on, counted on.
You do something well—maybe better than anyone else in the room—and over time, it becomes expected. Natural. Automatic.
You show up, and without even offering, you’re tapped.
At first, it feels like power.
It feels like usefulness, purpose, identity.
But eventually, something shifts.
The Quiet Rise of Frustration
You start to feel it—quiet at first. A low, steady frustration.
It stirs when you walk into familiar spaces and sense the unspoken expectation:
You’ll lead.
You’ll guide.
You’ll hold the tension.
You’ll do what you always do so well.
At work, maybe it’s when you join a team offsite and someone says, “Can you just kick us off?”
Not because you offered—but because that’s what you’ve always done.
Or as a founder, when your team hits a wall and—even though you’re no longer in the weeds—everyone looks to you to vision your way through it. They want direction, clarity, perspective. And you have it. But you’re tired. You were hoping this time, someone else might step up.
Or in your family, when the emotional temperature shifts and all eyes instinctively turn to you to mediate, translate, make it better.
You do it, of course. You always have.
But something in you tightens.
Because this time, it doesn’t feel like contribution.
It feels like performance.
When Excellence Becomes Exhaustion
Not because the skill disappeared. But because it’s being overused.
Because it’s become reflex, not alignment.
Most people don’t name this moment clearly.
They chalk it up to stress or being overextended. But underneath, there’s often something deeper:
a signal that your identity is shifting.
That the way you’ve always shown up isn’t quite right anymore.
That the skill you’ve been praised for—the one that’s built your success—may now be the very thing keeping you from your next level of significance.
That quiet frustration, the sudden resistance to showing up in certain rooms, the impulse to withdraw or overfunction—these are not failures of character.
They are thresholds.
The Threshold Between Success and Significance
You don’t need to stop being excellent. But you do need to pause long enough to ask:
Where am I using this skill out of habit, not alignment?
Where am I unconsciously reinforcing an identity I’ve already outgrown?
When you’re in a season of evolution, these moments matter.
Because significance doesn’t emerge from reflex.
It emerges from discernment. From courage. From choosing on purpose.
The real discipline isn’t in continuing to offer your gifts.
It’s in knowing when to not.
When to lead, and when to let the silence hold.
When to allow yourself to just be in the room—not function in it.
Becoming More of Who You Are Now
This is the edge where I meet many of my clients.
They’re not looking to hustle harder or refine the performance.
They’re looking to reclaim their energy, their clarity, and their identity.
They want to matter, not just succeed.
And that requires more than new strategy.
It requires new agreements with self.
It requires a willingness to listen to the signals and step into something more honest, more vital, more aligned.
You’re not less of who you were.
You’re just becoming more of who you are now.
And that’s where significance begins.
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Jen Karofsky | Thought Partner & Coach for Visionary Leaders & Significance Seekers
Jen Karofsky collaborates with leaders who are ready to disrupt the status quo and craft a life of legacy, deep connection, and purposeful impact. Through intentional coaching and bold thought partnership, Jen helps you align your work, your values, and your vision to create transformational change in your world.
Join The Significance Project to redefine success and step into your power.
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