In the words of my LS: Can I be real with ya’ll for a minute?
In the past year, I have found myself more anxious, annoyed, irritated, and immensely stressed than normal. Between the constant domestic and international travels, my husband and I changing jobs in the same year, plus trying to fulfill obligations seamlessly, it has been a whirlwind of things going on. When I actually took time off during Christmas for a break, I filled every single day and minute awake with some type of work to do. Finally about two weeks ago, I found myself miserable and at my breaking point. I stepped back for a minute and told myself “Look chick, you’re doing wayyyy too much. Have a seat.”
This is not to complain; this is only to tell the truth. Don’t get me wrong: I love everything about my life to the fullest and while we all have obligations to fulfill in our roles, I’ve somehow signed myself up for more things than I can digest. There are 24 hours in a day and I was filling 19 of them up with things to do. I’m a woman, wife, daughter, sister, cousin, blogger, employee, business owner, Soror, homie, lover, friend…okay you get it. I wear a lot of hats already in each one of these roles and the fact I continue to sign myself up for things is beyond ridiculous. I have an hour commute to and from work (on a good day) all to come home to put time and effort into being all those other adjectives above, plus run a business, plus be a blogger. And OMG let’s not even fathom having children. OMG…how do you do it?! I had to finally put my own foot down for myself and give myself a quick “check ’em boo”.
It’s safe to say I’m very ambitious and if I want something, I make it happen. However, I’ve developed this spirit of immense guilt if I can’t seemingly be Superwoman and take care of it all. For some reason, I felt that I was a failure if I didn’t prove that I could handle it all. In reality, my over-achieving ways to over-commit was taking me away from the things I love to do and want to focus on. What made it even more real was a post written here by my one of my favorite Atlanta bloggers that explained my exact issue. I needed to take a step back and refocus where I’m spending my time.
In the past two weeks after realizing my issue, I’ve managed to thoroughly evaluate what I was doing and what I was I was really signing up to do when I committed to something. While I’m not perfect and I still have a ways to go, this practice has allowed me to learn to let stuff go and put some time and effort into myself! It’s okay if I can’t do everything, but as long as I put time and effort into what’s important. It’s fine if I decide to have a glass of wine and catch up on one episode of my favorite tv show. I’ve been so busy pouring everything in everyone’s lives that I’ve forgotten to pour into my own.
I’m making it my sole effort to work on this. Have any of you ever felt like this before? I’d love to hear how you worked through it.
