When You Love Them, But You've Outgrown Them

When You Love Them, But You've Outgrown Them

You know that moment when you're sitting across from people you genuinely care about, and you realize mid-conversation that something has shifted? Not in them. In you. You're still laughing at the right moments, still nodding, still participating. But there's this quiet awareness now that the woman sitting in this room isn't entirely the woman you're becoming.

And that awareness costs you something every time you ignore it.

This isn't about them being wrong for you or you outgrowing your loyalty. This is about recognizing that the energy it takes to show up as who you used to be is energy you're stealing from who you're becoming. And at some point, that theft becomes too expensive to justify.

The Grief That Sits in Your Calendar

I've watched this play out in my own life and in the lives of women I work with who are operating at levels that demand clarity about everything, including relationships. You start noticing that certain invitations require something from you that feels disproportionate to what they give back. Not because the people aren't lovely. But because the version of yourself you have to perform in those spaces no longer reflects your actual reality.

You leave feeling smaller instead of fuller. You're rehearsing an old script because it's easier than explaining that you've changed the entire play.

Research shows that women are conditioned from girlhood to prioritize relational harmony over personal truth. We learn early that maintaining connection matters more than maintaining accuracy about who we actually are. So when you start feeling misaligned with people you love, guilt shows up immediately. You start over-explaining why you can't make it to things. You manage everyone's feelings about your absence. You perform availability even when your capacity is screaming for something different.

The Professional Cost of Misaligned Networks

This dynamic doesn't stay in your personal life. It shows up in your professional world too, and often with higher stakes. You're in leadership meetings with colleagues you've worked alongside for years, and you realize the conversations that used to energize you now feel repetitive. They're still solving the same problems you moved past two promotions ago. They're debating work-life balance while you're thinking about legacy and organizational impact that extends beyond your tenure.

But you keep showing up to the lunches, the happy hours, the networking events with the same circle because you've built equity there. You tell yourself it's about loyalty and maintaining relationships. Meanwhile, you're spending prime thinking hours managing social dynamics with people who aren't operating at the level you need to reach next.

Here's what research from McKinsey reveals: women in senior leadership spend significantly more time than their male counterparts on non-promotable tasks, including maintaining workplace relationships and emotional labor that doesn't advance their careers. That's not just a time management issue. That's strategic misalignment that costs you visibility, influence, and the mental space required for the kind of thinking that creates breakthrough results.

You start turning down opportunities to speak on panels or lead initiatives because your calendar is already full of commitments that looked important three years ago but no longer serve where you're headed. You're managing relationships with colleagues who see you as you were, not as you're becoming, and that perception gap is quietly undermining your authority.

When I Realized I Was Managing Appearances Instead of Building My Future

There was a season when I kept showing up to gatherings that felt obligatory rather than nourishing. I was the dependable one, the one who remembered birthdays and checked in and made sure everyone felt seen. But I started noticing something. I was measuring invitations by how much recovery time they would cost me. I'd leave these perfectly pleasant afternoons and need two hours alone just to feel like myself again.

The same pattern showed up professionally. I was on committees that no longer aligned with my strategic direction. I was maintaining professional relationships that had plateaued years ago. I was saying yes to coffee meetings that consumed hours but produced nothing that moved my work forward.

That's when I used my own Self-Gut Check Method and asked myself honestly: Am I showing up from alignment or obligation? The answer was clear. I was honoring a memory of who I used to be while quietly betraying the woman I was trying to become.

Your emotional calendar has to match your actual capacity, not your historical patterns. Otherwise, you're just logging hours in relationships that no longer serve the life you're trying to build.

The Data You Need to Know

Here's a statistic that might surprise you: According to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the average person will completely replace their friend group approximately every seven years due to major life transitions, career changes, and personal growth. Yet women report feeling significantly more guilt than men about these natural relationship transitions, often maintaining connections long past their expiration date out of a sense of obligation.

The cost? Women in leadership roles report spending an average of 200 additional hours per year on relationship maintenance that doesn't advance their professional goals. That's five full work weeks annually spent managing dynamics that may no longer serve your trajectory.

You Don't Need Permission to Change

Here's the part that no one tells you: you don't actually need to cut people off. You need to stop participating in dynamics that require you to stay the same. Because the truth is, you're allowed to change. When your goals shift, when your thinking evolves, when your capacity reorganizes itself around new priorities, your relationships have to adapt too. Not because the people in them lack value, but because the structure you built five years ago doesn't support who you're becoming now.

This applies just as much in boardrooms as it does in living rooms. That colleague who used to be your thinking partner but now only wants to complain about leadership? That professional group you've been loyal to but that stopped challenging your thinking two years ago? That networking circle that feels more like a social club than strategic alliance? You're allowed to redirect that energy.

This is where my BLING Framework becomes useful. When guilt shows up because you're shifting:

Believe you have the right to redefine relationships without apology. Growth isn't betrayal, even when it feels uncomfortable for others.

Learn your patterns. When did you first internalize that changing meant you were being difficult or disloyal?

Investigate where the guilt is actually coming from. Is it about them, or is it about an old story you're still running that says good women don't prioritize themselves?

Negotiate new terms. What does meaningful participation look like when it's honest instead of performative? Maybe it's quarterly check-ins instead of weekly meetings. Maybe it's professional respect without personal intimacy.

Give only from surplus, never from deficit. Your generosity should enhance your life, not erode it.

Proverbs 14:10 says, "Each heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy." Your internal shifts are yours to steward. No one else can tell when your peace is running thin. That's your responsibility to notice and act on.

What to Actually Do

Go back through your last month and identify what restored you versus what required recovery. Look at both personal and professional commitments. That recovery cost is information. It's telling you where you're misaligned.

Practice saying no without a three-paragraph explanation. A simple "I'm not available" or "That doesn't fit my priorities right now" is complete. If the relationship can hold that boundary, it was real to begin with.

Write down what your future self actually needs. More solitude? Fewer surface conversations? More access to people thinking at higher levels? Strategic partnerships instead of nostalgic friendships? Be specific. Clarity written down becomes clarity you can act on.

The Sophisticated Exit

You're not withdrawing. You're refining. And refinement isn't about being better than anyone else. It's about being more honest with yourself about what actually serves the life you're building versus what you're maintaining out of loyalty to who you used to be.

In your personal life, this might mean fewer brunches and more intentional one-on-one time with people who see your future, not just your history. In your professional life, it might mean stepping off committees that no longer align with your strategic direction and saying yes to opportunities that position you where you're headed, not where you've been.

Sometimes growth isn't announced. It's just quietly practiced with your integrity intact.

If you're ready to identify where you're over-functioning in relationships and what it's actually costing you, take the Emotional Sophistication Map at www.davinadandridge.com.

And watch the full conversation on this topic in my latest video at youtube.com/davinadandridge.