Hi, I’m Christine. Military spouse. Work from home mama. And chronic over-committer.
It happens every time we move to a new duty location. I miss the community we had at our last base. I am impatient to make new friends and find my new community. And my over-committer-ness comes out in full force. I immediately sign up for all-the-things so I can meet all the people.
The only challenge? I still have my family and my job and all the other commitments that come with keeping our household functioning. And I quickly become over-scheduled, over-extended, and overwhelmed.
CAN YOU RELATE?
Maybe you don’t suffer from “want-to-do-all-the-things” syndrome. But there’s still a good chance you might be overcommitted.
This isn’t a new problem for me. I’ve been wrestling with the desire to participate in all the things since I was in high school. But when you’re 17, you can have a job and volunteer and be on the debate team and the robotics team and the journalism club and the church youth group AND still make good grades.
Trying to juggle all the things with an active duty husband and three small children is a completely different story. My time is no longer my own to give away.
My children are still young, so they need me 24/7. (The other day my 3-yr-old woke me up in the middle of the night just to tell me she wanted a narwhal. Go back to bed child!).
But on the other hand, we haven’t even reached the stage where my kids all have their own activities they want to add to our schedule yet!
Military life really hasn’t helped me out either. It seems like every time I blink, I am either preparing for a move or unpacking from a move and trying to settle in to our new home (five moves in the last seven years).
And every time I move, this vicious cycle starts over. It usually takes me a year or so to find a healthy balance of family, friendships and community commitments at a new base, and by the time I’ve found my people and my rhythm, it’s time to move again.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Where did this trend of being overcommitted come from? I think, ultimately, the problem is as much a societal one, as it is personal.
You see, many of us grew up with the belief that “you can have it all” which translated to “you can do it all.” Busyness became a badge of honor. On top of that, we now live in an era where we have more options than we ever have before to keep us busy. We have more choices than we know what to do with.
When I look around, I see so many – moms especially – stuck in this cycle of over-commitment. Between taking care of the home, kids’ activities, school, work, family commitments, church commitments, etc, we often feel like every hour of the day is spoken for (at least pre-Covid). A reactionary life is not one that leads to a life of joy, contentment, fulfillment or impact. We’re mentally and physically drained. We’re stressed. Worse yet, there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it.
PRODUCTIVITY IS NOT THE ANSWER
A quick Amazon search shows over 50,000 results for the topic of books on productivity and over 80,000 results for time management.
This idea that we can just manage our time better and fit more into our schedule leaves many of us just trying to make it through the day, rather than live with intentionality and purpose. We feel like we are doing more, but not doing our best.
Did you know that when the word priority came into the English language (around the 1400s), it was singular? It meant the first thing – as in singular, only one. Only in the 1900s did we manage to pluralize the term!
I’ve listened to various people talk about productivity hacks, but it always seems like the goal is just to fit more in. I’m good at doing that on my own. I can schedule out every minute of my day so that I can squeeze in the maximum number of projects and check boxes off my list. But the truth is, I’m tired of living that way. I’m tired of life without margin.
IN SEARCH OF A DIFFERENT WAY TO LIVE
Despite my desire to not get caught up in living without margin, I still do it.
Knowing that a problem exists is one thing.
Knowing what to do about the problem is another thing entirely.
One of my goals for this year was to focus on my health – both mental and physical. And I knew this would only happen by creating more white space in my schedule.
Earlier this year I read 4-hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. He had some terrific ideas on productivity, simplifying work and building a life you love. However, I felt his approach still lacked something. He advocates a process of eliminate (create time freedom), automate (create income freedom), liberate (create mobility freedom). I think the ultimate purpose of these processes was lacking. Do all these things…so you can be happy??
Happiness in and of itself is not a bad thing. But I was reminded of the words of Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning, “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”
In other words, happiness cannot be the goal. A life of satisfaction and fulfillment only truly comes about through pursuing a purpose greater than oneself.
The question I then found myself asking was this, “Could I create a life of margin and intentionality, while still pursuing a purpose?” Or did I need to sacrifice feeling like I was contributing to a bigger purpose, so that I could take care of my family and find the white space I so desperately craved?
THE WAY AHEAD: LESS, BUT BETTER
Essentialism by Greg McKeown had been on my reading list for a while, but sometime mid-quarantine I decided to actually sit down and read it.
It was like someone was explaining all of my bad habits to me. It was similar to when I first read a book about the Enneagram and felt like my soul had been exposed.
Especially the part where McKeown talked about the nonessentialist tendency to have five extra minutes and try to fit yet another project into that five minutes. “Let me just do this one thing before we run out the door.” Yep, this is why I’m always late. Guilty, as charged.
Essentialism, in a nutshell, is about doing less, but better. It’s about not increasing productivity for productivity’s sake, or even for enjoyment’s sake, but rather for the sake of being able to make our highest contribution.
Essentialism, for me, merged the ideas of margin and purpose together. McKeown advocates pursuing essentialism so that we can make our highest contribution and ultimately live a life of meaning and purpose.
He writes, “Only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.”
So how do we choose the pursuit of less, but better?
IT BEGINS WITH MINDSET
As with almost every lifestyle and habit, change has to begin with what we believe. There are three key phrases to remember:
“I choose to.”
This refers to the fact that we choose how to spend our time and energy. Initially I pushed back on this idea. Especially during a season of moving, I don’t feel in control of how I spend my time.
The military dictates that our family will move. In response, I spend my time organizing our belongings, selling our house, prepping for our move, selling/donating things we don’t need, and managing all the details to coordinate our move. Once we move, I spend my time unpacking, finding new dentists and doctors and hair stylists, researching preschool options and trying to get us plugged in to a new community.
But moving is still a circumstance. My choice lies in my response to that circumstance.
I talked more about this idea in the 5 Questions to Help Us Thrive in Seasons of Chaos post.
Options/things/circumstances can be changed or taken away; our ability to choose our response cannot. Recognizing that we always have a choice is the starting point. When we surrender our right to choose, we give others the permission to choose our life for us.
“Only a few things really matter.”
If you’re a “list person” like me, you love to make lists so that you can get the satisfaction of checking things off your list. But what often happens is that I look at my list and choose the easiest or most exciting project on the list, because I want to be able to check something off.
It’s usually something that doesn’t really matter and doesn’t move the needle on what needs to get done. It just makes me happy to cross something off. And then I still wind up stressed because the things that really needed to get done (but aren’t as easy or fun to do) don’t get done.
To adopt the mindset of “less, but better,” we have to understand that not everything is important. Not everything moves the needle equally. And when it comes down to it, only a few things are exceptionally valuable.
As long as we think that everything is important, nothing is really important. Until we learn to start saying no to both time wasters AND good opportunities, we will never have the opportunity to say yes to truly great opportunities. We must first say no, to be able to say yes. Anytime we fail to say no, we say yes by default.
“I can do anything, but not everything.”
I still see my social media feed flooded with the idea that women can have it all! Yes, there are women out there who have created a lifestyle that allows them to be financially successful and still have the time freedom we all crave. But none of them do it alone. None of us can do all the things on our own. Rather than holding to the belief that we can have it all, the essentialist accepts the reality trade-offs.
The truth is we can’t have everything. There will always be a trade-off. You can have a fabulous job, but not enough time with your kids. You can pursue something that lights your heart on fire, but it won’t necessarily bring in good income.
We must accept trade-offs because, until we do, we will always be caught in the chaos of nonessentialism. This is something I am working on.
But as much as trade-offs can be painful, they also increase our chance of achieving the outcome we really want. Instead of asking “How can I do it all?,” the question we should be asking is “What do I want to go big on?”
IT IS A PROCESS
Once we have this foundation set, we can then begin the process of becoming an essentialist. Becoming an essentialist is a journey that involves developing three primary skill sets. Learning to EXPLORE, ELIMINATE & EXECUTE.
EXPLORE
Learning to evaluate options and discern the vital few from the trivial many
This isn’t a skill that is developed quickly, but something that we become better at with time and repetition. It involves both making intentional choices about our time and energy, as well as developing the healthy rhythms we need to make these decisions possible.
“To discern what is truly essential, we need space to think, time to look and listen, permission to play, wisdom to sleep, and the discipline to apply highly selective criteria to the choices that we make.”
Greg McKeown
It’s amazing to me how many books in different fields I’ve read that all point back to the very same principle – if you aren’t in a healthy space, it’s much more difficult to make smart decisions. We need healthy rhythms to revive our hearts, minds and souls, so that we have something to offer those around us.
ELIMINATE
Learning to cut out the trivial many
The next skill set to learn is that of elimination. We continue to pursue clarity of purpose and learn how to set healthy boundaries so we can say no to the things that distract us from what really matters.
A key point here is that without courage, essentialism is nothing more than lip service. It probably will cost us something to say no – whether that be social pressure, someone’s opinion of us, or a feeling of a missed opportunity (FOMO is real!), or a sense of guilt. But when we understand that saying yes also comes with a cost, it gives us the courage to give the right response.
EXECUTE
Learning to establish the habits that make the execution of pursuing what matters the easy choice
This is the skill set of optimization. Once we’ve figured out which activities to keep in our life, we need a system that makes execution of these activities routine & effortless. It is here that productivity systems and healthy habit formation matters.
Essentialism only scratches the surface of how to develop these habits. Click over to read this post on Three Keys to Developing Lasting Change where I share the best book to learn about building and optimizing healthy habits.
Doing less, but better begins with mindset. It is a continual process of exploring, eliminating and executing. And it ends with identity.
IT ENDS WITH IDENTITY
I say continual process because essentialism is either something you can sometimes do, or it can become a lifestyle – a part of who you become and how you show up in the world.
This is both encouraging and discouraging at the same time. It is discouraging to know that it is not something that happens quickly. It is not something we can simply check off a list. I know I am not where I want to be, and it is a long road to who I want to become. But at the same time, it is encouraging because I know that every time I choose to respond as an essentialist, I become better at it.
As an added bonus, the path to essentialism is one that brings greater clarity, greater control and, ultimately, a greater ability to be present in the moment and to experience joy in the journey.
For me that’s a journey worth taking.
Next week I’ll share five practical action steps you can take to begin a journey toward less, but better.
In the meantime, I’d love to know if over-committing is something you have struggled with.
Have you implemented any strategies that have helped you?
