When it comes to being an entrepreneurial woman, it can be easy to fall into the trap of doing all the things. Handling sales, talking to prospective clients, overseeing new projects and marketing, coming up with the next big thing, managing schedules, and taking care of finances — and that’s just in business!
In our personal lives, we’re often still responsible for picking up the kids from school, running errands, cooking dinner, planning the next vacation, scheduling self-care, and making time to be a wife and mother.
Here’s a truth many of us choose to overlook: When you do everything, you don’t do anything well. You don’t have the time or mental energy to bring your best. And after a while, it shows.
Why we overcommit
It will come as no surprise that overcommitment is a one-way ticket to burnout. Many of the women I work with have experienced this in the past, or they’re currently struggling to find their way out of the endless cycle of overcommitment and burnout that’s zapping all their energy.
When you’re overcommitted and burnt out, your thoughts are always spinning, and you have no place to park them. Nor do you know where to direct our energy and efforts.
So, how do we get to this place where we’re overcommitted? Here are three common reasons we fall into this trap:
- We allow fear to drive our actions.
- We logically believe we should.
- We confused being interested with being committed.
This last point is where I see most women struggling when we’re working together in 1:1 coaching or in a group setting, which is why I think it’s so important to really break down this topic to get to the root of the problem. To do that, we first need to define what we mean when we say we’re interested or committed.
What is the difference between interest and commitment?
There is a HUGE difference between being committed versus just being interested.
When you’re interested in something, you like the idea of the thing. You’re curious about it. You want to explore it and learn about it, but you’re not necessarily ready to give it your whole attention. It hasn’t yet convinced you it’s important enough to take over a large part of your resources.
When you’re really, truly committed, you’re ready to do whatever it takes to achieve the result. Whether or not you love the activity you’re doing to achieve it doesn’t matter. When you’re committed, your desire for the result, not your love for the activity, drives you to do the activity.
Four questions to determine your commitment level
As a multi-passionate entrepreneur, it can be hard to sort through all of your passions and priorities to determine where you need to let go and where you need to double down. Here is a four-question self-assessment you can use to determine whether you’re truly committed to your projects.
1. Do I tend to focus on all the obstacles to doing this activity, or am I focused on achieving the result?
If you’re focused on obstacles, you’re looking for reasons not to do the activity. You may need to do some other mindset work to uncover fears or other things hampering your commitment, and you may want to see if you can do something different to solve the problem this activity is meant to solve.
2. How do I feel when I can’t get to this activity?
Do I feel anxious and seek to get back on track, or do I easily set it aside for tomorrow? If you feel anxious about not doing the activity, it’s probably a higher priority.
Want more tips? Download the FREE resources available in the Think Big Toolkit!
3. When someone asks me why I haven’t done it, what do I tell them?
The answers you give show what you’re prioritizing over this activity. These are the things you’re choosing to do rather than the thing you say you want to do — this is a clear sign you’re not committed.
4. Am I waiting to be motivated to do this activity?
If you’re not motivated, you’re not committed. However, if you expect to enjoy every part of this activity, that’s a false assumption. You may not like going to the gym and sweating on the elliptical, but if you’re committed to the results, you’ll still be there every day.
Extraordinary commitment fuels big results
Imagine what your life would be like if you actually lived up to your commitments.
ALL of them.
What kind of relationship would you have with your significant other? What kind of relationship would you have with the people you serve? What kind of opportunities would you create for yourself? How would that make you feel about yourself?
I’d venture to say the answers to those questions will be, “Awesome.”
“But Andrea,” you might say. “I’m already overcommitted. Now you’re asking me to be extraordinarily committed? That would be exhausting!”
That’s a limiting belief based on assumptions — and ironically, those assumptions are why you’re currently overcommitted and exhausted. What I mean by extraordinary commitment is the ability to commit to achieving extraordinary results — which means being smart about your commitments in the first place.
It’s time to Think Big
Anything can move from feeling impossible or out of reach to feeling inevitable and your reality. It’s a matter of changing your thinking and shifting from the “no way” constricting/restricting to the “of course” curious/freeing approach in life.
This transformation is exactly what I teach you how to achieve in my book, She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman’s Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and into the Extraordinary.
Invest in the Future You and start embodying a Big Thinking mindset so you can implement a whole-life approach to growing your business while finding more peace in your personal life!
For MUST-HAVE planning tools that work seamlessly with the book to help you stop overthinking and make confident, quick decisions to get what you want — every single time, download my Think Big Toolkit. (I couldn’t fit everything in the book!)
