Are we doing ourselves a disservice?

Are we setting ourselves up to fail?

Now I’m ambitious, always have been and I love these I quotes;

Set your goals high and don’t stop till you get there – Bo Jackson
Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible – Tony Robbins
You should set goals beyond your reach, so you always have something to live for – Ted Turner

But when I read these, I have to check myself and instead ask:

What’s going on for me right now? Do I really have the capacity to do something new? Can I take on another challenge or realistically help the person or people asking for my support? I’d encourage you to ask these too and recognise that you can’t or don’t have to do it all and that’s not a weakness.

Do we have unrealistic expectations from ourselves and others?

You may like to answer that for yourself. But you will need to sit down, breathe, and give yourself some time to do it. Remember the woman I spoke of:

She’d never acknowledged that she needed to or could even take time out for herself.

If we don’t take the time to ask ourselves the important questions, then we’ll be perpetually driven by an old narrative.

Covid has changed things for sure and we need to acknowledge that. Maybe it’s changed our working environment, maybe it’s changed the activities that we used to do, maybe it’s simply tiring hearing about it.

Is there an alternative?

I’d say yes, I’d say that the alternative to burnout is self-care. I know self-care can seem confusing when you have so much to do.

For me, it’ simply about checking in with myself regularly to assess how I’m really feeling and what I need. I may discover that it’s time, space, activity (or non-activity), quiet, stimulation or something else. The main thing is that I check-in and that I allow myself that time.

People often say ‘you make it sound so easy, but you don’t know what I have to deal with’ and yes, they’re absolutely right. But I do know this, whenever I speak to someone who’s reached breaking point, they tell me that they knew things weren’t quite right (to some extent) before they crashed but they simply kept on going.

Now, checking in doesn’t mean that you’ll have immediate answers and that everything will turn out the way that you want it to, but at least you’re giving yourself a chance. You’re not doing yourself a disservice.