Your overcommitment is costing you more than you think. 25 lessons from two recovering over-committers

Hi, we are Katie & Lynn and we are recovering over-committers.

We spent our entire adult life, and if we are being real honest as early as our teen years, overcommitting to things. We continually accepted more projects than we should. Our hobbies started as things we loved, but quickly turned into side hustles adding more commitments and eating up more unavailable time. We took on the "turn around" teams, even when we knew it wasn't a good fit. And we kept starting/taking on new corporate initiatives framed as "unique opportunities" thinking they would help us get ahead. We were master multitaskers and we did it all with a smile on our faces, even if our home life was filled with shit... literally. My boss was shocked the day I called to let him know I was working from home for an afternoon because I had an insurance inspector coming to the house. He had no idea that two weeks prior my finished basement had a city sewer backup into it and we had to essentially move a soggy basement apartment into our living room, rip up the saturated carpet and drywall, all in under 6 hours. Yet even in the middle of all the literal shit, we kept our commitments, we never called off work, we kept all our scheduled meetings and added more to our to-do list and never said a word, even when we were up to our ankles in sewage.

We used to wear it like a badge of honor, you could throw 17 crazy things at us all at once and we would figure out how to get it all done with a smile on our face and a skip in our step. We were praised & recognized over and over in our performance reviews that normal people would have a hard time dealing with even 1 maybe 2 of these issues at once and we could handle them all... or so we thought. It felt normal because that was just who we were. It was how we were raised. It was a sign of resilience. But it didn't mean it was healthy or productive. We thought we were the poster children for efficiency. But as the years wore on, we started to see how much it was taking a toll, we hit our breaking point.

Sure on the outside it was all still working, we were handling it all, but on the inside we were crumbling. We were exhausted, living in a heightened state of stress 100% of the time, experiencing adrenal fatigue, exhausted due to only 3-4 hours of sleep a night, always thinking we could "relax on the weekend", which became a bigger joke than a priest walking into a bar. What used to feel like "being helpful", was starting to feel obligatory and we were resentful. Something had to give.

So we started on a 10 year journey of recovery both mentally, physically and emotionally. We had to unlearn a lot that caused us to overcommit in the first place and in turn we learned some great things on our journey. We are going to share what took us a decade of seminars, hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless trips around the world to learn. Here are 25 lessons from two recovering overcommitment addicts, to help you unlearn a lot of what is keeping you on the commitment hamster wheel. In no particular order:

1. Your overcommitment is costing you more than you think
2. Your need to control is costing you time and money that are both spent better elsewhere
3. You are living your life based on someone else's definition of success
4. Stress is the new smoking. It may seem harmless now, but it will impact your health later
5. You are not giving yourself the credit you deserve, own your superpowers and align more with them
6. You will outgrow people, jobs, situations and friends. It is ok to be grateful for the part they played in your journey and still wish them well
7. Overcommitting is not gaining you favor at work or in your social circles, if you are suffering in silence, but still hoping someone hears you screaming
8. No is a full sentence, PERIOD
9. 9-5 is theirs, 5-9 is yours. Spend your evenings and mornings on what you want out of your life, not what someone else wants from you
10. Unexpressed expectations will lead to resentment on both sides, guaranteed
11. You are wasting money trying to do everything yourself (tbh we are still working on this one ourselves!)
12. Your overcommitment is preventing you from getting promoted
13. If you don't figure out what caused your situation/frustration etc in the first place, IT WILL REPEAT in a different situation with a different person. YOU are the common denominator
14. Release it, what no longer serves you, what you expected was going to happen, what you thought would turn out differently. Stop fighting reality and own your situation. Until you do this nothing will change
15. You don't know what you don't know. You can't fix what you don't see. But once you do see it, it is your responsibility to take ownership of your own circumstance
16. Self-care is not as expensive or time consuming as the retail complex wants you to believe it is. 5 minutes a day to breathe and reflect can literally change your life (we're not kidding)
17. Be selfish with your time and especially with your energy. You can make more money, you can buy more things, but you can never get time or energy back. Protect them like your life depends on it
18. Give away your kindness and compassion generously. Accept everyone is on their own journey and you have no idea where they are at or where they want to go
19. Stop comparing yourself to anyone else. You are jumping into the middle of the story when you thought you were starting at the beginning
20. Your to do list should be productive not depressing 
21. You don't have to believe your own thoughts 
22. Be your own hype girl. And if you can't do it yourself, find someone who can be that for you
23. Balance is not realistic. Some days will be weighted in one area of your life and others will be weighted in another. Give yourself grace to flow between all the areas when one needs more attention than the other
24. Guilt is a useless emotion. Get rid of it completely, it has no place in your life
25. Taking on that small task, when you are already over committed will be the straw that breaks the camels back. Honor yourself and say no. It could be what saves your relationship, job, friendship or even your own sanity
26. Bonus: Understanding how your energy works makes a world of difference. We did this by learning how our energy is resourced and our own unique Human design and started to live by it

If you want to find freedom and release your need to overcommit, check out our programs at www.believeblueprint.com or follow us on instagram @believeblueprint. If you want to learn more about your own human design, let us know. It is literally life changing!

Katie & Lynn

Founders of BELIEVE BLUEPRINT.COM