I fall prey to this one, and I don’t always catch it. I hear it from my clients – it slips out in moments of frustration and overwhelm. I see it at play in our overworked, oversaturated and under-resourced world.
I should be giving 100% to my work.
100% to my family.
100% to my community.
100% to my spiritual life.
Y’all – we don’t have that many 100 percents. I’m no mathematician but I know some great ones, and I’m pretty sure if I asked them, they’d agree.
Would you really want that anyway? Flip the tables and think about your favorite colleague or team member. Would you want them to give 100% – completely flame out in the moment and be reduced to a pile of ashes at your feet?
No. You’d want them to save something for themselves. You’d want to make sure they could show up as their full and capable selves – tomorrow, next week, three years from next week.
I invite you to think about what it would mean to not give 100% away. If you want to use this yardstick, then think of your whole life as 100%. First – how much are you carving out for you. It’s your life after all, and if you aren’t honoring it, then you can’t show up for the rest of it fully. The rest of your life needs to fit into what’s left over of 100%, after self-care (whether that means a day at the spa or #boringselfcare like dirty dishes in the sink while you get some extra sleep).
No one part of your life should get 100%. That’s not how balance works.