I have a significant problem...I overcommit myself a lot!
Did you know that overcommitting can lead to disorganization as well as burnout?
I know that very well, but yet, for some reason, I continue to do it.
Why do we continue to overcommit, knowing how crazy it drives us, knowing that it can lead to disorganization and complicate things?
This year, I told myself that I wasn't going to have a repeat of last year with overcommitting.
Which is what I tell myself at least once a week.
Last year, I committed myself to everything I could think of and was so exhausted.
I joined the sewing club at church because I like to sew.
I also decided to become an ambassador for a brunch social group without ever having gone to a brunch. Then, I also helped someone find locations for the retreat.
I joined the book launch team for one of my favorite speakers and authors, who frequently comes to my church. I was also still trying to make shirts, and I was trying to do other items that people asked me for.
I wasn't necessarily doing my crafting business, but if someone called me and said, " Hey, I need you to make a shirt for me, or can you make a shirt for me?" I would do it. I was also still trying to make stuff for people I had never made or no longer made when they asked me.
Then there's the whole thing: being a wife and a mom, working full time, being a podcast host, and trying to focus on my public relations business.
So, my to-do list continued. My to-do list had to-do lists, and I think those had to-do lists as well. There were not enough hours in the day, the week, or the month to do everything I had committed to.
I was so stressed out and over-committed that I was talking in my sleep.I am not a sleep talker. I was talking about the stuff on my never-ending to-do list. My husband asked me if I was ok. I was like, yeah, I'm fine. That's when he told me I was talking in my sleep and what I was talking about.
You would think that would make you like, whoa, let's slow down some. But no, I didn't. It took me a few more months to finally start thinking about what brings me joy and fulfillment.
What is going to help me reach my goals?
That worked for all of two days!
I started creating the courses for my business.
I started signing up for bundles to promote myself more.
My son wanted to play soccer again. Of course, we're going to let him do soccer.
We won't stop him from doing his activity like he likes to do. So, I got him signed up for that.
I started planning our spring break trip, then started thinking about things to do for my husband's birthday. I also wanted to do some home project that would more than likely involve me reorganizing something or trying to talk my husband into buying something that I needed to reorganize or complete this home project that I decided we just had to do.
My list kept growing and growing, and I kept having to move things to the next day or the next week or be like, oh, do I need to get that done right now?
I can put this off for a bit, and I guess God was like, you know what? We're not going to do this this year. You already gave yourself your pep talk. You told yourself that you weren't going to overcommit this year. And here we are, two weeks into the year. Yep, two weeks.
You have already started committing yourself to all this stuff and overcommitting, and you're going to get burnt out, frustrated, and stressed out again.
So you all know what happens when you don't listen to God. He has a way of making you listen. So that's when the accident happened. When the accident happened, I had already committed myself to too much, but none of that mattered anymore because the only thing I wanted to do was sleep. And if you're sleeping, you can't overcommit yourself because you can't make decisions about anything, right?
That downtime helped me realize that I was doing everything and accomplishing nothing because I was committing to things just to commit to them.
Let this remind you that if you still need to set up your priorities, do not put it off for another minute.
If you are doing things, think about how those things will align with your goals. Consider whether those things are taking away time that you could be doing something else.
If it does not lead to you accomplishing something, or if it does not bring you joy or fulfillment, then it's probably not something that you should be doing.
Create a plan. Set your priorities and create a plan for what you'll do, what you'll let go of, and what you'll put on the back burner.
Stay organized, and don't overcommit!
Check out the full episode below!
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