Taking on too much?

If you don’t have much going wrong in your life, then you don’t have much going on in your life….

This quote from motivational speaker and author Larry Winget sums up the last four months of my life to a tee. The fall of 2022 kicked my butt!

I returned from three and half weeks in Africa, filled with such joy and gratitude for having had the privilege to travel once more to this extraordinary land. It was the perfect reset. I was re-energized, focused, and ready to tackle a busy fall of work, clients, studies and more! Let’s go, I said!

Fast forward to today and it feels like I haven’t gone anywhere at all since August. On the contrary, it feels like I’ve been drowning in quicksand. Drowning in projects I said yes to at the time, but then they began to feel like a grind. With each passing week the work piled up and took me further and further away from my passion projects. I stretched myself too thin. AGAIN.   

Wait what? Déjà vu.

I’ve seen this movie before as a leader and as a leadership coach. Why do we take on so much? There are many reasons and no doubt the underlying issues are different for everyone. I do know that taking some time to examine them is probably a pretty good place to start if we want to change this pattern once and for all.

Has it become a comfortable pattern? The work fills a void? You are the person everyone can count on. You go the extra mile. You feel you can do the work better than a member of your team, so you just get it done? Yup. (been there) By doing so you are hurting yourself and the team. You’ve just missed an opportunity to empower a valued employee and help them grow as a leader.

Ask yourself, are the expectations you set for yourself the same as you set for others? If not, why not? Who initially set the bar so high for you? What is the worst that could happen if you lowered the bar for yourself?

Is it fear of failure or are you addicted to success? Perfectionism. You’ve forgotten to enjoy the journey.

And finally, do you know what you love? If so, then why aren’t you nurturing it? Why wouldn’t you stop, prioritize, and then map out time to spend on your passion projects? It’s never too late to recalibrate and refocus your efforts. Can you delegate some of the other work that feels like a grind to you, but may be better suited for a member of your team who is skilled on that file? Then do it! Don’t have a team? Perhaps it’s time to think again about your time management skills and make some improvements. Learn how to separate the urgent from the important.

Back to do you know what you love? It’s THE question for me right now, and so I’ll use it as an opportunity to explore the answer and hopefully, find a way out of the quicksand.