You may not even notice how your commitments keep growing, overburden you, and eventually leave you not getting much pleasure from your life, exhausted and feeling bad. You might go as far as to believe that you have lost your grip on things, you lack smartness and energy to live up to your own expectations of yourself. As a matter of fact, you may well be overcommitted and almost burned out.
Naturally, we have a lot of friends and acquaintances whom we want to do favors; but the point is, we shouldn’t do it to our own detriment. In a hurry to be good we can forget about our own goals as we rush about to see to others’ affairs. Then we have no strength left to do what we have to do for ourselves. It can become a vicious circle that must be broken. To keep your life well-balanced, content, and with healthy relationships, you should avoid overcommitting yourself.
What makes us overcommit
The most common reasons for overcommiting are:
You have good intentions
We can say that overcommitment equals good intentions. With so many people around who want decent service, a good listener or a reliable coworker no one would want to let people down. Yet our resources are not infinite and comes the time when we have to move away from the good work in order to ensure that our own affairs are running smoothly and that we are collected, efficient and energetic (but not available).
Of course the temptation to be a magician for all and sundry is strong, but it can result in overstepping the bounds of reality, health and peace of mind.
Launching new projects is fun, but completing them is not
For many there is something exhilarating in beginning a new thing. Planning, hopes and schemes require much less effort, but later all this can become a drag. If the end is not near, boredom and unwillingness can set in.
Managing projects until they are successfully completed takes out more, it is true, but the reward is going to be awesome, so it’s worth your while to see about developing that special habit to see things right to the end.
You have a feeling you could have achieved more
Sometimes when summing up your past week you can begin thinking on the lines: “I failed to do this and that; I should have tried more.” So it seems the more we do, the more feathers we can stick in our hat. We must exert every effort to achieve more because it will give us the reason to praise ourselves for sufficiently good results of our commitments.
The thing we don’t realize is that it will never happen: it is a trick of the mind that repeats itself until we get round to rectify it.
You can simply shun success
Have you considered putting all your eggs into one basket? How do you think you would feel if you diligently pursued just one goal in life?
This may well be a key to success, still there are plenty of people who are afraid of just that possibility. Somehow this notion seems scary to them, and they engage themselves in many commitments merely in order to escape this.
They won’t leave what they believe to be their zone of comfort, and things like focusing or success might well thrust them out of it. They resist that in any way they can.
If you have a lot of demands on your time, you can explain away your inability to concentrate on a single project; you don’t need to give yourself up to anything completely.
Therefore overcommitment, serving as an excuse, stems opportunities to develop and takes one away from a serious approach to one’s life.
Yet overcommitment doesn’t have to be an integral part of your life. If you decide to do away with it, with the guidance you will be able to do it.
What to do to dispose of overcommitting easily:
Stop believing that
– needs of other people override your own
– agreeing to all social obligations makes you a nice person
– you do yourself good by getting engaged with other people’s affairs
– you rest well when you just spend time in front of the screen mindlessly
– comparing yourself with someone else will ever do you any good
– you have to put yourself to shame over your setbacks
– you have any valid reasons for not doing what you really believe in doing
– you must needs to heed when detractors and doubters discourage you
Instead, do the following:
Stick to your own priorities and objectives
When setting a deadline, triple the time you need (consider unexpected things and emergencies). Staying within your limits will reduce or even prevent stress.
Take stock of all your ideas, brush away the bad ones, choose the best ones and concentrate on them only.
As you are landed with a fresh request, never give your answer mindlessly – pause and weigh your possibilities, how much your agreement could interfere with your own headway.
Don’t be a people pleaser, for pleasing everybody is impossible.
Learn to say no
Say “maybe” instead of “yes”: let others know you have to take a look at the other commitments you’ve made to be sure you have the time. You can always say no after it.
If necessary, at work, delegate, but delegate to the right people.
If you’re overloaded with commitments, renegotiate them as early as possible. Changing the deadline is better for your reputation than missing it.
By indulging in overcommitting, overpromising, and attempting to be everywhere at the same time you misbalance your life to a great extent. It should be stopped to make way to proper professional identification, a healthy way of life and peace of mind. Most people make this mistake only to regret it.
In order to lead a contented life and maintain a proper balance, you need to have well-fixed priorities and manage time to make progress with them. That would ensure you complete control of your life, enhanced productivity, a heightened reputation – as well as a deep feeling of satisfaction and pride.
