Trying to do it all
We know we can’t do everything, so why do we try?
More importantly, why do we constantly beat ourselves up for not being able to do it all? I know there are countless times a week when I mentally berate myself for not getting X, Y and Z done. Am I alone here or is this pretty typical?
It seems like guilt is just second nature for many of us, particularly females. For me personally though, I think guilt is, sadly, one of my closest companions. Am I taking on more than I can handle? Trying to do so many things that none of them gets done very well?
Probably.
So what, if anything, can I do about this? Cut some stuff out? Start saying “no” more often? Set alarms for myself?
I haven’t figured out the solution yet.
In the meantime, I would love to find just one woman who is happy with the way she balances her life and feels relatively no guilt or regret and learn her secret. Does such a person exist? Everyone I know is over-taxed, over-scheduled, over-worked and on their way to a slow burnout.
Juggling work, family, friends, leisure time and other commitments is exhausting. I realize it’s just part of life, but there’s got to be an easier way to balance everything. My life feels very out of balance right now.
I am responsible for four school-age children during the week, making sure that everyone gets on the bus in the morning, has their homework done, takes a shower, eats good food, gets to bed at a decent time, possesses clean clothing, gets delivered and picked up from their activities and receives some semblance of personal attention in the few hours we have between school and bed time. I’m also trying to grow a business during an extremely slow economic time, which sucks up most of my extra hours with all the marketing, writing and researching.
Along with that, I do book keeping for the family business, advertising and proofreading for a scholarly journal, blog most week days, and try to maintain a humongous old farm house with 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, as well as a several-acre yard. Between those things, my church activities, a bit of down time here and a couple tax-return activities, including an audit, I’m having a hard time pulling it all off. It seems like I’m working almost all the time, if I’m not making meals for the kids, helping them with their homework, going to volleyball games or running errands. Even on weekends, when the kids are often at their dad’s house, I am crazy-busy.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences on this as I’m sure the guilt-ridden juggling act is standard for many of us. How do you cope? Do you have any special tools (Merry Maids, a planner, a weekly baby-sitter)? When you feel your life becoming unbalanced, how do you take inventory and decide what has to go?
Discuss!
*** Cross-posted on Parenting By Trial and Error.
6. March 2010 at 6:01 pm :
Hi! Of everything you’re doing you can decide what to let go and what to hang onto. For your kids, you could hire another caregiver for them so you can do your other activities, but unless you’re willing to give up caring so much for the kids, then you’re pretty much stuck with all childcare. It’s whatever’s important to you and where your priorities are. You could cut out any of your commitments — you can be spiritual without going to church, you can downsize your house by moving to a much smaller home on less land, you can let the kids start making some of their own foods instead of cooking for them always. We had a bigger house/yard and I didn’t want to care for a house AND kids so we sold it and downsized. I also dropped several other activities. I also began saying no to some expectations from my own family of origin. I admit right now my life feels a little empty so now it’s time for me to add some things back in!! We can learn to say no if we’re not already. You can arrange your schedule how you want. You’re in charge and it’s this way because you’ve said yes to all of what you’re doing. A lot of people want to do it all. I enjoy the sentiment that we may be able to do it all, just not all at once!! Some of our other ambitions could wait until the kids are grown and moved out and able to care for themselves. You won’t get another chance to be part of your kid’s life while they’re growing. But that other stuff you want to do will always be there. It would be too bad if you spent your children’s life doing so many other things and then found them grown and gone and you couldn’t get that missed time back, and how terrible it may feel to spend the rest of one’s life regretting that! But again, it’s what your priorities really are and only you can determine that. Your kids would also benefit from someone caring for them with the basics and teaching them life skills to take care of themselves, because that’s what they’ll need when they leave the nest. If they don’t know those life skills, they could be having problems with taking care of themselves and maybe turning to you when they’re 50 years old! When a caregiver takes on the responsibility of caring for children, it’s a time and a half job. You could be just torturing yourself letting yourself be enticed by so many other distractions it seems like. No wonder you are frazzled. Again, if the other things are most important to you, then maybe having a nanny/caregiver raise or help raise your kids would work. Your inner wisdom is telling you you can’t do it all — and it’s right!! I wanted to emphasize there’s no right way to do your life. It’s just up to you and there are options. I wanted to suggest you looking at some Harriet Lerner books. Dr. Lerner is one of the world’s most respected voices in the psychology of women and family relationships. She also has a nice website http://www.harrietlerner.com. Right now you seem frustrated and stressed by all this, but if you do nothing about it that frustration/stress eventually turns into chronic anger and health problems. I hope I haven’t said things that are already obvious to you but it’s all I can think of. I hope you’ll be able to come up with something that works better for you and brings you some much needed peace! In fact I know you will because you already want some of that peace in your life. And remember your health is number one!! Best wishes!!
6. March 2010 at 10:07 pm :
Thanks for writing, I very much liked your newest post. I think you should post more frequently, you evidently have natural ability for blogging!
16. March 2010 at 2:26 pm :
Gosh, you have two places you blog, here and your site parentingbytrialanderror and you can make comments like it’s been awhile (blogging) but life is getting in the way? It’s just my opinion but it sounds to me like life ISN’T getting in the way enough! I am amazed! I hardly ever blog — this is rare, about my 4th time in 10 years. I can see avid bloggers — if people are spending this much time flapping their jaws verbally or on these computer blogs, what kind of life is that? Why don’t you get busy living instead of talking and posting pictures of such insignificant things like what your child doodled on his/her sketch toy? Spending so much time at the computer is not a life and leads to depression. You’ve complained you don’t have time for anything — it looks like you’d have a lot more time if you gave up your computer and blogging addiction and faced reality. Perhaps you’re escaping certain responsibilities and issues in your life that you don’t feel like facing by spending so much time computing. If you stopped with that, you may actually begin to enjoy being alive. It is CERTAIN that a sedentary life spent at the computer will leave one feeling “devoid of energy”, as you’ve said you feel. I’m also sure if you’re camped out at your computer constantly when your kids are home that they hardly appreciate it. In addition, you complain a lot and talk of negative things. Are you aware that continuing to talk too much of the negatives actually brings more of the same? You may think it’s venting but it makes things worse!! Sometimes we ourselves complain and can’t see where we’re going wrong but others can see where you are.
17. March 2010 at 5:13 pm :
For Sarah Ludwig on the topic of TRYING TO DO IT ALL, there is so, so much literature out there dealing with this problem you’re having of “doing too much.” There’s tons on the problem of specifically women doing too much. This is such an old problem. Fortunately, there are women and men who’ve found, or are finding, a way to better balance their lives. And you can too. It’s not luck. It’s within each person’s control to make their priorities and to take care of their life so that it’s more balanced. There are numerous books on boundary setting. Your question of “how do you take inventory and decide what has to go?” It’s just that YES you do take inventory and decide what needs to go. HOW? Just start doing it. It will take a lot of thinking of priorities and it can start with making a list. You may need to find out where you’re having trouble saying no to things. And it absolutely takes moving out of the victim mentality (acting as if everything is controlling you), and focusing instead on what you want and taking responsibility for yourself. You have to make the choice to move out of the victim role and into a role of being in charge of your life — it’s taking responsibility for your own life. Focusing on the negative by discussing it repeatedly, and focusing how everything is controlling you is defininitely the way to stay stuck and for nothing to improve. And it gives you the excuse to do nothing about your problems. Unfortunately, talking of your problems is focusing on your problems, and that will absolutely keep you mired in those problems. You have to let them go and take responsibility. Focus on what you WANT and discuss that, rather than focusing on what you DO NOT want because we get what we focus on, even if we don’t want it. Positive thinking (of what you do want) along with positive action has to replace the complaining. So again, focus on what you do want and take small concrete steps to get there. The biggest thing though is that shift in attitude that you’ll need to make; the one where you believe that you yourself are in charge of your schedule/life. It’s a conscious choice/shift, and then it just takes commitment and a lot of work to stick with it. Believe or not, your life is the way it is because you allow it to be. By that I mean you’ve said yes to things you may not be able to do, and perhaps failed to take action in other areas. You have a huge house because at some point you said “yes” to that house. Which is fine because at one point it did fit your needs. If it no longer serves you well, let it go and find one that better fits your needs. You’ve been in charge all along — you just need to realize that. It’s not always easy to take responsibility for your life but it’s worth it. A bonus is that your kids will learn to be positive and in charge of their lives from you modeling that. I’m getting a charge out of even sharing this with you because I’ve had the same dilemma and have been working on it, and as I share what I’ve learned it’s reinforcing what I need to keep doing. Try reading some of these self-help books that are on exactly this topic. You may even benefit greatly from just reading one or two. You’ll do fine!
17. March 2010 at 6:10 pm :
It’s totally up to you how you arrange your life, working within what you can and cannot change! Best wishes!!