It wasn’t caused by one catastrophic mistake.

Months before the launch, engineer Roger Boisjoly repeatedly warned NASA that the rubber O-rings sealing the rocket boosters became dangerously brittle in cold temperatures. He presented the evidence again the night before launch and recommended it should not go ahead.

But the shuttle had launched successfully before with damaged O-rings.

Each successful launch made the risk seem a little less significant.

People slowly adapted to increasing levels of danger because nothing catastrophic had happened… yet.

After the disaster, sociologist Diane Vaughan gave this phenomenon a name:
The normalisation of deviance.

I see this everywhere in the lives of the women I coach. When we repeatedly accept something that isn’t okay and over time it slowly starts to feel normal.

You do things because it’s quicker.
You organise things because if you didn’t, they wouldn’t get done.
You keep track of birthdays, appointments, uniforms, emotional upsets and family logistics holding so much in your head.

Each time you carried a little more… nothing broke.

So… you carried a little more the next time.
And then a little more after that.

Until the superhuman became ordinary.

The summer holidays don’t create the problem, they expose it.