Recently, I've had some hard days. Really hard. Tears-running-down-my-face, anxiety-waking-me-up-at-night, hungry-but-too-stressed-to-eat hard. If I'm honest with you and myself, these days are a SIGNAL.
A signal that I am usually doing too much.
As a driven, ambitious woman with two small kids—who are off for the summer, no less—I sometimes bite off more than I can chew.
I want to be all things to all people, all the time. But today, I want to go deeper with you. I want to peel back the onion and talk about why many women, myself included, feel the need to do all the things at the expense of our mental and physical health. And I want to talk about what we can do about it!
It starts with understanding that you are E.N.O.U.G.H.
Because this is a blog post, you can see how ENOUGH is actually an acronym for a process I work through when I'm feeling overwhelmed with all the things:
E is for Embrace Your Limits
N is for Nurture Your Well-being
O is for Optimize Your Priorities
U is for Understand Your Worth
G is for Grace Over Guilt
H is for Honor Your Progress
Just remember the word ENOUGH, and you will be able to take a breath, reset, and recognize that you don’t have to be all things to all people all the time. You are exactly where you are meant to be.
Embrace Your Limits
There are only 24 hours in a day. I need at least 8 for sleep, 8 for work, and then I have 8 hours to do all the other things. That includes chores, kid responsibilities, fixing dinner, working out, putting together edits for my upcoming book, this podcast, and the digital course. It's laundry, shopping, and walking the dog. As you can imagine, it feels like it's already over the 8-hour time limit I have.
When I embrace my limits and accept that I can't do everything, I can step away from the idea that I have to be all things to all people. I know that I cannot get up at 4:30 every morning—my best time of the day—and stay up until 10 PM watching TV with my husband. I have to pick one or the other. I love the quote from Steel Magnolias, "You can't ride two horses with one ass, sugar bean." While that quote is about making a decision and picking a course of action, it also serves as a reminder that I can't be in two places at once. I have to embrace my limits.
Nurture Your Well-being
In these moments where I am ping-ponging from activity to activity—from my work to my kids to my to-do list—it's easy to get overwhelmed and then burn out. But when you nurture your well-being, you can take the time you need to prioritize self-care. We all know the saying about the oxygen mask on airplanes—you have to put yours on first because your well-being is crucial for sustainable productivity.
Optimize Your Priorities
Focus on what truly matters. I tend to use the Eisenhower Matrix when I’m feeling overwhelmed and struggling with prioritization. What is urgent and important is done first, hard stop. Then we can move on to the important but not urgent. And, of course, use my 4P Principle to help you decide what you can perform, pause, pass, or purge. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it is in an earlier podcast episode!) Use that method to help you identify your core tasks and values, and let them guide your actions.
Understand Your Worth
This is a big one. HUGE. You must know that your value isn’t tied to your output. Your value isn’t tied to your weight, your looks, or how much you accomplish. It’s not tied to the size of your house or how many zeros you have in your bank account. You are worthy and enough just as you are. You are just as worthy on the day you lay in bed struggling with anxiety and depression as you are on the days you are rocking and rolling. You are worthy.
Grace Over Guilt
Be kind to yourself. This really ties in with perfectionism. Ambitious, driven women struggle with perfectionism. You will miss deadlines, forget a meeting, or submit a document with a typo. It is going to happen. We are human and we are faulty at our core! But you know what the good thing is about that? No one is perfect. And that means no one likes perfect because it's so freaking unattainable! So hold grace for yourself. Replace self-criticism with compassion and allow yourself to make mistakes and then learn from them.
Honor Your Progress
I am a productivity coach, and I over-schedule. I miss meetings and deadlines, and I mess up all the time. This is a lifelong journey, but what I can do is reflect on how far I have come. I can reflect on the growth. Years ago, a simple mistake could derail me. Now, I acknowledge the mistakes, see where I went wrong, so that I can grow and fix it. It is all about taking that miss and reframing it, taking it from the negative to the positive. Never skip this step of honoring your progress. Celebrate your achievements, no matter how small. Progress is progress, and every step forward counts.
Remember, you are E.N.O.U.G.H. Embrace your limits, nurture your well-being, optimize your priorities, understand your worth, give yourself grace, and honor your progress. You don't have to be all things to all people.
You are exactly where you are meant to be.
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