Are You Burnt Out From Role Overload?
Happy magical Monday to everyone reading this today.
People often ask me how I come up with the topics for the show every week.
Here’s my process, I reflect upon the things I’ve heard and learned throughout the week and then I pray on them. During that quiet time, it becomes clear to me the topic I need to discuss with you.
Well, this week’s topic came up so many times from all the superwomen I know and all the superwomen they know that I knew this was our topic.
All the Superwomen were wondering how they could stop wearing so many hats or playing so many roles since that often leaves them feeling overwhelmed and robs them from self-love and self-care time.
So, let’s start with a simple self-awareness exercise I want you to either think about or, better yet, if you have a piece of paper, write out all the roles you play during the month. I had 13 in my typical month.
Now, look at your list of roles and ask yourself if one or two of those can be eliminated or outsourced especially when you move into busy seasons with your children, your business, your parents, your spouse and anything that requires extra time.
In my typical list, I identified one or two roles I could cut time from.
I can cut back on some of my volunteer time in my Church and community. I can say no to taking on additional clients and, I can practice saying no to additional things at this point since there is no space for it right now (I'll speak more about why later in this post).
One of the other important things to look at while you are looking at your list is to see if there are any roles you are taking on to find your true identity or purpose.
The irony of that is we need fewer roles and more quiet time so we can learn what our identity and purpose is.
I learned in mid-life that my identity is truly anchored in God first and now I get to walk that out. And the more I did that, the more His calling for me became abundantly clear. This blog you are reading is part of that calling.
And because of clarity on these two things, during this season of overwhelm I have entered, I’m cutting back, saying no, outsourcing what I can and doing something I’m still not great at –asking for help.
What happens during our seasons of overwhelm is that you think you have the many roles you identified under control which already is such a balancing act and then that unexpected event or time demand gets added to your plate.
As an example, my season of overwhelm happened as a confluence of things happened in the month of March -in addition to the roles I mentioned, I am getting my home ready for sale, preparing taxes both personally and professionally and I have a surgery on the 31st. So, before my recalibration, how did this affect me before I made some changes? I had extreme headaches and stomach aches (two things I don’t get) and I had to take additional quiet time to take care of myself.
I wrote out my calendar from the two weeks prior to surgery to the 3 weeks after surgery so I could see where I could ask for help.
While you may not be getting a surgery or moving, you may have a large time demand or responsibility that requires you to wear more hats as you play these roles. For instance, you may have to take your teenager on campus tours, you may have had another child, you may be taking on a new client or suddenly must take care of an aging parent.
Your recalibration would be the same. Look at roles you can cut back on or cut out. Look for ways to ask for help. Can a friend have your children over for a weekend while you spend time with your parents? Can your husband take off from work to be home with one of your kids while you do your campus tours. What can you plan for in advance? Get as many of those things out of the way so you can have peace of mind and a schedule adjustment.
The next exercise I want you to do is equally as important as the first. Take a deep breath in. Release the tension in your neck and shoulders and allow some space to come into your life. Breathe out and release your troubles and time demands even if only for this short time and feel a sense of peace.
I know how hard it is to sit still, release my thoughts and breathe so, I tell all the squirrels running around in my head that they can come back later if they leave me alone now.
During role overload, it is important to add a small block of quiet time during the day. I’ve added a 10-minute block of time to do a guided meditation to get to a temporary state of peace and recalibrate for the rest of the day.
As most of you know who’ve listened to this show, I start my morning (ahead of my day) in quiet time. Mine comes in the form of a cappuccino with God. I meditate on scripture; I journal about it and then I pray.
In this way, I remain in a silent space and listen intently for God’s voice and ask Him to guide my day.
For those of you who have a different spiritual practice, this is your time to hear your inner voice or guidance from your Higher Power.
I’ve come to learn that true happiness lies in peace. Internal peace and peace with those around me.
Because, it is in this place of peace, we get to hear what is knocking loudest on our hearts and what we need to be focusing on.
And from there, we can reprioritize things and right-size the many roles we have taken on in our lives. Some are mandatory but others are self-induced.
We’ll always be superwomen wearing many hats for the many roles we play but, like all superheroes, we need to recharge, and we do that by keeping our identity rooted in faith and pruning back the number of roles we have in our lives depending upon the season we are in.
I hope this blog has brought you some peace and a right-sizing role plan.
I would love it if you would share a role or roles you’ve shed and how you feel because of it in our private FB Community.
You can join by going to: My Magnus Opus Community on Facebook.
And until next time, I’m sending you so much light and love,