I Overcommitted For 20 Years. Why I stopped.
I was in a wedding and didn’t know until I got to the church
Burnout is bad. Not realizing that you’re burned out is worse. Throughout the years, I’ve been a mentor, a wedding planner, an event coordinator, a hair stylist and makeup artist, a computer analyst, a floral designer, an office decorator, a babysitter, a face painter, a couch side therapist, a personal editor, and a chauffeur. In essence, I’ve been everything for everyone, except me. At the close of 2018 I realized that it didn’t make sense to be so busy taking care of everyone else, that I neglected my own dreams and needs. This isn’t a girl power fueled ‘self-love is the best love’ story. This is an ‘if you have time for everyone else, you have time to take care of yourself’ kind of story.
The year was 1992, Gary Chapman authored a book that would sell over 11 million copies and chart on the New York Times bestsellers list. The book, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. In 2015, a revised edition was published, leading to a resurgence of people eager to learn more about how they express and receive love to build stronger relationships.
Chapman’s book details the five ways to express love; receiving gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service, and physical touch. According to the online quiz, I express love through acts of service.
This fully explains my eagerness to volunteer to help plan events and my passion for helping people with no expectation of receiving anything in return. It’s how I operated for most of my life, and I still love helping people, but there came a time when people started to expect me to deliver, rather than ask.
The realization that I needed to reevaluate some things in my life, came in the form of a wedding.
I accepted an invitation to a friends wedding, only to be told upon arrival that I was actually in the ceremony. Queue the anxiety from having not met the groom before the wedding and not being entirely sure of how to pronounce his name. Queue the stress over not knowing exactly what my role in the ceremony was until minutes before it happened.
Toss in my last minute rescue act of decorating the church, after having a few choice words for the ridiculously late wedding coordinator who thought it would be a great idea to, “Let the bridesmaids decorate as they’re coming down the aisle… it will be beautiful”.
What I know for sure, is that my terse church appropriate words to her were life saving. Although I was able to step in as expected, it was all too much. But I took it on the chin, and delivered.
The wedding debacle is one example of the expectations that people have placed on me. There came a time when I started questioning the intentions behind some invitations I was receiving. Slowly realizing that my enthusiastic RSVP ‘Yes’, would sometimes result in me not being a guest, but the help.
This was never anything worthy of complaining about because acts of service is truly how I show the people I care about that I love them. In retrospect, there were times when I was absolutely being taken advantage of, but those moments were valuable life lessons for me.
Through this reevaluation of my life, I began to see what I was doing to myself. By over committing myself to others, I wasn’t taking good care of myself.
My personal goals were being shelved, along with dozens of other ideas and ventures that I dreamed up, while steadily volunteering my services, time, patience, and energy, wholeheartedly to someone else.
Why didn’t I pour into myself with the same love and commitment that I gave to everyone else? Shouldn’t I do “acts of service” for myself as a way to show myself love?
It’s taken decades to realize that I wasn’t pouring into myself enough. I was neglecting myself. Throughout life, I’ve poured into other’s in a way that I’ve never done for me.
My excuse for not working on personal projects was that ‘I didn’t have time’, but I found time to invest in bringing other people’s events and projects to fruition, so I have time to invest in Me.
My story isn’t unique. This is the case for a lot of people. In the name of love they invest their time and all their energy into good causes and for good people. Not realizing that they are neglecting their own dreams and needs.
Some will push their dreams and needs so far to the bottom of the stack of priorities that they forget what their dreams were. Some will reevaluate and redirect their energy.
This has been a tough journey for me, but sometimes tough is necessary. The best way to learn is through experience.
I hope this helps someone.
