The Simple But Unavoidable Truth: You Cannot Do It All, So Stop Trying

What happens when you keep telling yourself you can do it all? You say yes to everything and everything becomes as important as everything else.

Whether its from the Ideal Worker persona or the Perfect Mother persona, from Overwhelmed, (I’m sure you can figure out what those are all about), we all tell ourselves it’s possible. And then we try and before long we’re irritable, frustrated and exhausted.

Better to figure out what is worth doing and move those things to the top of the list.

Here’s an example from my life: I am committed to walking 10,000 steps a day. It’s important to me and I’ve been doing it for many years. So why do I sometimes find myself going for a walk at 11 o’clock at night? If this is important to me and I’ve made a commitment to it, I should be getting my steps in well before 11 pm. I don’t because there are so many things to do in a day that seem more urgent, so I happily go along crossing them off my list while I leave the thing that’s worth doing to the end.

I do this because somehow I believe I can do everything, which means I say yes to things just because they’re on the list, or because I added them without really deciding they are worth doing.

Try this ONE thing

What I’m now doing is asking myself throughout the day what’s the most important thing I need to be doing, and then I go do that before anything else.

Want to experience coaching? I like to start with a deep, get-to-know-you conversation to see if we are right for each other. Sometimes we talk for one or two hours at no charge. I have no goal except to bring about transformation. Together we work on the lies, the self-deception, and the fears of the power you perceive to be outside yourself. We work on your difficulties in making decisions and your inability thus far to make bold choices in life and to follow through and trust yourself completely to do so.

The irony for some people is that the very thing that they want the coaching for (an indecisive, half-hearted life) is what’s keeping them from deciding whether to get coaching.

When you’re ready, reach out @ karen.laidlaw.theONEthing@outlook.com. Meanwhile, enjoy the blog!