When Other People’s Problems Become Your Problems

Taking on other people’s problems is rarely a conscious decision. It starts as “just listening,” briefly becomes “just helping,” and then somehow shows up in your brain at 2 a.m. Maybe you are a naturally good roommate, have rabbit ears for kid arguments, or just can’t bear the silence at a meeting before raising your hand to volunteer. This month, we’re wrapping up our series on burnout and anxiety in high functioning adults by addressing The Hot Potato Problem.

The hot potato problem is how emotional load gets passed around, absorbed, and quietly accumulates in everyday relationships.

Weve spent this series focused on adults, looking at what happens when life feels like it’s running a little too hot. Our coping strategies gets overused (sometimes we run out of Elote corn chips), burnout creeps in, and everything starts to feel heavier than it should. This is the next layer of that same pattern is

What is a hot potato? (Taking On Other People’s Problems)

A hot potato is what happens when someone drops a problem—emotionally, practically, or conversationally—and it lands in your lap because you are:

• available
• competent
• paying attention
• or perhaps can’t stand the awkwardness of nobody else picking it up (volunteers 🙋🏽‍♂️)
• a caring parent, partner, roommate or friend

Sometimes it’s clearly dumped on you. Sometimes you pick it up without realizing it. Either way, you find yourself holding it. It feels heavy because not only are you carrying plenty on behalf or your own life, but now you’ve start carrying everyone else’s.

Why this happens (especially to high-functioning people)

People who take on other people’s problems well usually have two traits working against them:

1. They are conscientious
2. They remember everything

That combination can get you a lot of hot potatoes! You may feel like you’re being helpful, but instead you end up emotionally managing everyone’s life while still trying to live your own.

Example: The Volunteer

How did the world function before you raised your hand to cover the silence in the last meeting? You are a conscientious person whose tag line is “If I don’t do it, nobody will do it.”

Example: The Human Calendar

You know all the birthday coming up, the gifts you need to get for them, the fact your coworker is allergic to nuts so you need to doublecheck the office offsite menu, and where the shoes your kid needs for practice were last removed (it’s the backdoor on the other side of the house from the sports bags).

It is wonderful to volunteer, and to remember all the things. The trick is to not turn these bits of effort or knowledge into Hot Potatoes that weigh you down.

Because if you remember that one of your loved ones don’t love campfire smoke that “follows them no matter where they sit” (this may or may not be autobiographical), it suddenly feels like your job to optimize the entire environment forever. (The robot vacuum follows me everywhere too).

Our job is not to manage the temperature or smoke direction of everyone’s experience, including your partner. It is not your job to all discomfort on behalf of others, including your children. Or to redesign every campfire experience for a group

Sometimes people need a jacket, sometimes they need to move their chair. Or sometimes they just need to be a little annoyed for five minutes like the rest of us. 

Letting Others Solve Their Own Problems (Especially Kids, Partners, and Coworkers)

Beware of becoming the resentful volunteer, especially if you are a grumbling parent on the way to school with a forgotten lunch.

One thing the “eager-to-please” or “eager-to-quiet-the-complainers” forget is that by smoothing the way for others, you assume this is helpful. Often, it’s not.

People (including your kids, your partner, your coworkers) actually need practice:

• Reframing
  “This is annoying” –> “I can figure this out, I can handle the feeling of annoyance”
  Not every inconvenience is a crisis that requires intervention.
• Tolerating discomfort
  Being a little cold. A little late. A little embarrassed. Or a little BORED!
  (See also: our excellent discomfort tolerance post.)
• Solving problems
  Forgetting something, then figuring out what to do next
  Asking for help, or adjusting plans, or [shocking] being HUNGRY for just a minute.

When you step in too quickly, you remove the very experiences that build these skills.

If You’re Always Taking on Other People’s Problems, What Should You Practice?

Those who pick up Hot Potatoes like they are going out of style should remember that they will always be out there. Like a field of raised hands, there will always be more hot potatoes landing in your email or within eyesight. 

• more needs
• more requests
• more awkward silences
• more opportunities to step in

So the work is not eliminating hot potatoes, it is changing our relationship to them.

If you were the friend who could always find a “project” to date back in college, it is time to relieve yourself of these burdens that contribute to your burnout. Some ideas:

• Pausing. Just because you see it doesn’t mean you have to grab it.
• Noticing the urge to fix
  Especially when it shows up fast and convincingly.
• Letting something be unresolved for a minute
  This is where most people jump in too early.
• Tolerating other people’s discomfort
  This is the harder one. It can feel like you’re doing something wrong. You’re not.

How to Stop Taking on Other People’s Problems (Handing the Hot Potato Back)

This can sound like:

• “I’d love to help, but I can’t.”
• “What do you think you want to do?”
• “That makes sense. Let me know how it goes.”

It can look like:

• stepping away when two people are in a disagreement that doesn’t involve you
• taking a breath in a meeting and waiting to see if someone else speaks
• not rescuing a situation immediately

All of these return the problem to its rightful owner.

We can help you be a volunteer with boundaries, a roommate living in peace, or a parent whose kids grow and learn. Contact us for a free consultation!