Life has been busy recently.
Between home life, traveling, clinical work in the hospital, administrative work in my leadership positions, speaking engagements, writing a blog, launching a podcast, and taking a coaching certification course (which equates to as much time as finishing a master’s degree), there is a lot on my plate.
If you’re not new here (or if you know me IRL), this won’t surprise you. In fact, being busy was the thing that led to my pause on this Substack a few months after I started it.
As I wrote about when I started up again, the accumulation of accomplishments and chasing external successes led to me needing a break. And it wasn’t until I replenished myself through rest and authentic connections that I was able to come back even better than I had been before.
Although I’m just as busy now, I don’t feel the need to take an extended pause. And my body and brain haven’t decided to take one for me.
Recently, I found myself wondering, “What’s different?”
It’s simple, really: me.
Or, more specifically, it’s my mindset that has shifted.
As I heard Peloton instructor Jess Sims say in a class recently: “I refuse to be overwhelmed.”
In other words, I choose not to be overtaken by the stress of everything on my plate. Instead of being at the mercy of everything that is happening in my life, I am more firmly in the driver’s seat.
Don’t misunderstand me… my very full plate is not perfectly balanced. I make daily trade-offs in the time that I spend on each part of my life. Sometimes, it’s more about work. Other times, it’s more about non-work. Often, I have the sense that I don’t have time for everything that I would like to be doing. But I know that I’m choosing to spend the time I have on activities that are meaningful for me.
Balance is not a 50:50 split. It is having enough of what is needed and desired by us as individuals. For me, that means a mix of work and non-work activities, often on the same day.
I have gotten to this more peaceful place partly through a fundamental mindset shift that I think all high achievers can benefit from:
You will never finish every task on your to-do list.
There will always be more to do.
Accepting that there will always be more and having self-compassion when you can’t get to everything on your list can go a long way toward decreasing the guilt and shame that contribute to overwhelm.
There is evidence that people will explicitly procrastinate to avoid shame. Feeling shame about work you have not completed is likely to make the problem worse, not better, making it an emotion that is almost never helpful.
-Art Markman, PhD via Harvard Business Review
We only have one life, and it includes all of the parts of us. To live it fully, we must feel like we are at choice about the things we are doing.
And, even when you have a mile-long to-do list, you deserve to choose to rest in order to prevent overwhelm.
Now, when I don’t feel like writing a blog or producing a podcast episode, I don’t. I listen to the message my brain is giving me and prioritize rest instead. This results in feeling renewed and puts me in a position to generate more work from a positive space rather than a depleted one. You can choose the same for yourself.
If you find that you are having a hard time with the concept of rest or with the cycle of shame/procrastination triggered by your busy life, coaching can help.
If you’re not sure that coaching is for you (or you don’t know what it is), you’re in luck. I’m currently in the process of becoming a certified coach and am looking for interested people who would like to get a taste of what coaching is through a free discovery call. In it, you’ll learn what coaching is all about and how it can help you get to your version of a happy, successful, fulfilled life with less overwhelm.
If you’re interested, comment below or send me an email at lifeandpicu@gmail.com. I’ll be selecting 5 interested people to participate for free, no-strings-attached.