If you take on too much at a time but don’t know how to stop doing it, you’re not alone. Being chronically overcommitted is not simply a time management issue. It can actually be more than one kind of roadblock. Today’s episode explores what’s really going on and what solution to focus on first.

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Are you someone who often finds yourself over committing and you

take on more than you can manage and wind up

overwhelmed and things start falling through the cracks.

So in an effort to change, you look at the advice

that helps you and it sounds something like this. Start saying

no more often or protect your boundaries

or you're afraid to say no, but every time you say yes

to one thing, it's actually you saying no to another.

Now, as an experienced over committer myself, that last

one always lands and it feels very strong,

but it doesn't always stick when I most need it.

And in fact there's a lot of really compelling

advice that resonates strongly, but it

doesn't necessarily lead to lasting change. And so today

that is what we're talking about. What is going on

with chronically over committing and what can you

actually do about it? Now, first, let's start with what

I mean when I talk about over committing. This is

taking on more than you can realistically handle.

And it's saying yes to things, whether that's to other people,

but also to yourself. Now, you may lean heavily

one way or another, maybe saying yes to other commitments and other people or.

Or maybe you lean in the other direction where you just take on a lot

yourself. But it's usually a combination of

both internal and external commitments that we're taking

on. So what is the common advice?

Usually it falls into two camps. The first I call

practical tips and the other is perspective shifts. And no,

that was not an intentional rhyming, but they just happen to rhyme.

So. So practical tips are usually for both decision

making, like don't commit until you check your

calendar or wait at least 24 hours before you

say yes to anything. Now there are also though practical tips

for saying no if you are going to say no. Like

here are 10 ways to say no with grace.

And these perspective shifts. The other category, they also

help with decision making. Like if it's not a hell yes,

then it's a no. Or what will you

think about making this choice a year from now or five years from

now? So these help with your decision making and help with your perspective,

but they can also help you say no. Like the one I shared

at the start of if you're afraid of saying no

and you say yes, you're actually still saying no to something else. So these are

about shifting our perspective, our mindset about either

deciding whether you can take something on and also when it's time to

say no, saying no, because that's actually those are two different parts

of the over Committing problem. Now for a

chronic over committer, I think it's really important to understand

that this is multi layered. It can

actually fall into all three types of roadblocks,

logical, biological and psychological.

So when we first look at the top level, this logical, it's when you maybe

say yes without knowing where your time is really going.

So this is really practical. There is a gap between

what you can do and what you say you can do

and how much time you actually have. And we could use a metaphor

like it's, it's like bringing new things into your home without checking to

see if they fit first. And then all of a sudden your house has too

much stuff and you can't move around and you're overwhelmed. If we take

a look next at biological. So for biological

challenges, this happens a lot depending on how you're wired, where maybe

you're someone who you are constantly seeking novelty, you

want to add new things to your plate, things that excite you.

There are also people who have time blindness where you

genuinely do not have a good sense of how long things take.

And so although this is a practical thing, it is really about how you're wired

in your brain and can make it challenging for you to truly make

decisions based on how long things take. And

then also there are tendencies and how we react to other people

asking things of us. For example, in the four tendencies

framework, there's the Obliger group, which is a really large group

who tend to say yes to external expectations

so they can honestly take on too much. Or often

they're the ones everyone goes to because they're probably going to say yes. And

that's just how we're wired is that if someone else asks us for

something, we might be more likely to say yes than someone else who maybe has

slightly just better boundaries naturally where they're not inclined

the same way. So it's all about how we're wired. Now on the third level,

this is psychological. This is a fear of what will

happen if you say no either to yourself

or to other people. So there's a true worry that

something bad might happen if I say no to this thing.

And so you end up saying yes and you take on more than you

should. Now normally when I am talking about

the three types of roadblocks I typically suggest

start with logical. First, just make sure that you've already addressed

those gaps because sometimes that's the true gap and once you

solve that you'll actually be fine. However, when it

comes to this being a pattern, if you are

finding Yourself over committing over and over and over again.

I actually think you should tackle the psychological roadblock first.

It takes the most work, but it's actually the most

enduring. And as long as you, if you only focus on logical

or even biological, you're still going to find yourself. If you haven't

shifted your mindset, you will keep falling into that same trap.

So how do you actually do that? Well, when

it comes to a psychological roadblock, it's about working on

your mindset and getting curious about why you are

hesitating. So instead of just looking at advice that's trying to shift your

percent, your perspective and other ways of seeing it, you actually

want to ask yourself questions about what's the fear? What is the

thing I'm trying to avoid? And so let's start with an example of

saying no to yourself. And this is something

I struggle with. So there is something that you

genuinely want to do, but you know that you risk over

committing yourself if you say yes to it. So asking

yourself the question, what are you worried will happen

if you say no to yourself? Will saying no mean

that you are stuck in a rut or that you are

boring? Or that you're trapped? Or maybe you're missing out? Or that.

Or maybe that you'll feel resentful if you say no? Now,

I know personally, for me, I hate the idea of

feeling trapped or restricted. I have a very

high value on freedom and I like to follow

my curiosity. I am also someone who is

impulsive and I get excited about new

opportunities. So whenever I feel like I can't

pursue a new interest, it's like my freedom is being

limited, or at least it feels that way. So I have this

sort of underlying assumption that not being able to do new things

means that I lack freedom. So I've made this connection

in my brain that if you have to say no, it

means you don't have freedom. And saying no to something that

I want to do is, it feels like I'm confined

or I am restrained. And I don't like that feeling. So I want

to avoid that feeling at all costs. Now, knowing

that I think this way helps me to see why I

hesitate to say no to something new, especially if it's exciting.

But uncovering why I do that is just the first step.

The next step is to actually challenge this assumption

that saying no means I don't have freedom. Because when I

really look at that statement, I start to see the

flaws. That being over committed, stressed,

and dropping the ball, that actually doesn't feel like freedom.

At all. And actually it feels like I am not

in control and I feel like I'm trapped by taking on more

than I can handle. I actually have

freedom to say yes to things, but I can't change how much

time is in the day. So freedom to say yes

means I also need to say no to something else to make room for

it. And I do have the freedom to do that. I just have to be

willing to make that trade off. That's a choice.

And making a choice is a form of freedom. And

as I start to poke holes in these assumptions, this initial

assumption that saying no means you don't have freedom, it means that

I can challenge it and I can challenge it in real life. So can I

say no to something? Either the new thing

or I could say no to an old thing to make room for this new

thing and just pay attention to how I really feel.

Do I honestly feel like I am trapped or confined or

restricted or not? Now I want to give a little shout out

that I've made progress on this area, this mindset,

especially with the help of Oliver Berkman. So he's an

author of the book 4000 meditation for mortals

and, and his work about the importance of accepting the

limits on our time has been extremely helpful for

me. And I know there might be other people you found helpful for kind of

embracing that we do have limits and that it's actually

freedom when you embrace it and say, you know what, I only have so many

hours in the day, I can't do everything I want to do. And if there's

someone else you recommend, I would love to know in the comments. Now

let's turn to an external example. So saying no

to someone else, what is the worry

that happens or that that comes up when you imagine saying

no? For example, maybe you're afraid that you will hurt someone's feelings,

that you might damage a relationship, that you might

risk your job or your future in a

job. You might be perceived as not being a team

player or not contributing as much as other people,

or you might feel like you are missing out on an

opportunity and you might regret it. So let's

take an example and imagine that you are invited to collaborate on

a project and it's an honor to be invited to this, even though

it would mean that saying yes overextends yourself.

When you imagine saying no and you notice

what worries emerge, you realize that you are concerned

that saying no means you might not be asked again

and that you have potentially ruined future chances

of collaborating. Now why might

you Think this. Maybe you have an assumption that you really only get one

chance like this, that saying no now means

that you won't ever be interested again, or that saying

no signals that you aren't a team player or don't

want to take on extra projects like this.

But we have to ask, is this true? And can

we think of other examples either in your life or other people

you know that contradict this assumption that you really

only get one chance? When you start to poke holes

in your assumptions, that's when you start to release

their hold over you and over your decision making. Now,

one of the tricks that I recommend for this is to think of someone

else that you know or know of who says no

comfortably in a situation like this and ask

yourself, what do they believe that's different from me?

How are they looking at the world where they don't see the same threats and

worries that I do? And then can

I try acting like them and see what happens?

This mindset work, it takes time, and it gets

better with experience. And it's good to start safely, like

maybe saying no to something, that there's lower risk

involved or the lower stakes that are involved. But the more that

you start to poke holes in your assumptions and start to prove them

wrong, then the less control they have over you,

because you're starting to realize that it's not a fact,

that if I do this, then this negative thing will happen.

And the mindset work itself actually looks like embracing

all of the practical advice about how to make decisions and how

to say no, you actually want to practice doing those things that people

advise. But in this case,

when you do it, you aren't just following the advice, you are

following the advice and paying attention to what happens

when you do. Do any of the things that you were worried

about happening actually happen?

And even if they do happen, are you

still okay at the end of it? And we can only do this through experience.

We can only learn if our assumptions are false through experience.

Because when you get free of these unhelpful assumptions

and you've actually seen in real life that these assumptions aren't

true, or at least they're not fully true, and these

fears, they'll stop holding you back in the same way. And once that

happens, that is when you'll find your momentum and

keep it.