You Really Should Be A Quitter
I remember a time in my life when anyone asked me how I was doing, I would simply reply “my word is ‘overwhelmed.’” Between working 50 or so hours a week, raising a 2 year old by myself, managing my household (bills, laundry, groceries, making healthy school lunches, doing the dishes, vacuuming, hell - even taking a shower) - I could barely make it from day to day. Overwhelmed. Over. Whelmed. If I didn’t slow down, I was going to crash. Similar to a race car speeding away at high speeds and suddenly losing control, I would crash, I would burn, and there would be casualties. Luckily, I was self-aware enough to know that I was reaching a breaking point and I needed to slow down. I resigned from a Board that I loved serving on. I quit my volunteer position that I adored. And I stopped leading a group of women that are some of the most amazing women I’ve ever met. All of those things fed me, they fed my heart and my soul. But they also drained me. Prepping for Board meetings, and walking in knowing that I wasn’t contributing to my potential and my own expectations. Volunteering on my only weekends off and literally not having a day to sleep in for years (not that my kid allowed that anyways, let’s be honest). And for the women’s group, sometimes I was barely scraping through lesson prep right before we met. You know what I realized? I sucked at giving what I needed to give. Why give a really poor quality 10% of myself to something I loved, to walk away feeling shitty about myself? Even though those things lit my fire, I left feeling even worse when I knew I wasn’t bringing to the table what I needed to bring.
So what did I do to change my “overwhelmed” to “fulfilled”? I quit. Not like I gave up, but I quit. I quit trying to be all things to all people, all the damn time! And you know what? It felt soooooo good. Not like selfish good. But good for my heart. Good for my soul. Good for the rest my body needed. And, it freed up the space I needed in my life to think about what was really important, and what I really could do to make my life peaceful, calm, and fulfilled. I am still busy, I still occasionally feel overwhelmed. But it’s not my norm anymore, and I’m going to be intentional in making sure I don’t get there again. My name is Amy and I’m a quitter.
