Ask a Coach - Taking on Too Much
Neca shares a strategy for managing your workload, and striking a work-life balance that feels good for where you are right now.
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Most of life is not going to be 50/50, but what feels best for you in this moment and in this season? Because it may be something different in another season. Maybe you want to commit more later, but right now, it's just where you are. (bright music) Hey, I'm Neca, and welcome back to "Ask a Coach." Let's talk to Nate. Nate says, "I was curious if you had any advice regarding setting work life balance and boundaries between myself and my manager. I often overextend myself at work and therefore end up more stressed and burnt out in return. I want to be viewed as a top performer at work, reliable, dependable, et cetera, but not at the expense of my health and wellbeing. Any advice you can provide will be greatly appreciated." This idea of over-performing, or as we like to say, or the kids say, "Doing the most," can really burn us out and make us like hate what we do. You know? What are some of the things that you can take off your plate? It's very simple to say, not always easy to do. And so you wanna start with those things that are the least impactful. And when you take that first thing off your plate, I want you to check in with how you feel. What emotion is going on there? Is there some guilt? Is there some shame, embarrassment 'cause Nate can't do the job? And who's saying this to Nate? Nobody else probably is. This is stuff you're internalizing and probably saying to yourself. And then we might coach you around replacing and reframing that narrative and that conversation that you're having with yourself so that when we begin to take the next thing off of our plate, which is probably going to be a little bit more intense, more involved, we feel less guilty. So we wanna start small because we're eventually gonna get to some of the big things and we wanna get to what feels like balance, right? Most of life is not going to be 50/50, but what feels best for you in this moment and in this season? Because it may be something different in another season. Maybe you want to commit more later, but right now it's just where you are. So I would start in those places little by little, taking things off my plate and then checking in with how I feel, and then reframing some of those negative thoughts. Once you do that, check back in with yourself and let us know how you feel. And if you want help with that, go over to the Care tab and check out our Headspace coaches, 'cause we can help you as well. (light music)...
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