As we head towards the end of 2022, I found myself in a race against time to complete the commitments I had made myself – I wanted to finish a number of things before the end of the month.
But who am I really racing?
I’ve been hit by a cough doing the rounds, meaning I’ve generally felt more tired and lethargic. I’ve really noticed the difference between my flow state of doing a whole bunch of different things effortlessly compared to one where I’m feeling like everything is draining my limited energy.
Without realising it, I had committed myself to a whole bunch of smaller things which were not really realistic when put together as a whole. I had done this without really thinking, so here is my list: I wanted to start recording an audio version of my book, Make Diversity Matter to You. I wanted to sell 100 copies (I’ve sold around 70). I wanted to read the book, The Ultimate Coach in Spanish. I wanted to continue my yoga practice and intermittent fasting through the holiday period. I thought it would also be a good opportunity to start creating a video version of the book through an online course, as well as put together the building blocks for an online programme for 2023.
Somewhere within all these self-imposed commitments I had also forgotten that I wanted to use this time to do some tidying and refurnishing of my apartment, catch up on some broader reading, and at some point rest. It’s also worth saying that I’m not actually taking any annual leave this year around this period either, so most days I will also be working. It’s now 23rd December and I don’t think I’m going to get these things done!
I notice that I have a habit of creating smaller commitments for myself that when put together with all the other things I want to do become a gargantuan task. It’s also interesting at how I put a very short deadline. On the one hand these smaller goals feel more targeted than ones in the distant future. Yet they also give little flexibility – most of these commitments I had made to myself in the last few weeks, essentially giving myself little space to take a break. In hindsight, I gave myself little room for manoeuvre in case life hit (for example, with me getting ill).
Commitments are incredibly powerful. I had a clear commitment to finish my book by 20 November, so I did. But this commitment gave me a space of around half a year, which gave me more space to be flexible to the flow of life. There’s a middle ground between making commitments that feel like a noncommital pledge in the distant future, and those that are incredibly tight and stressful. Somewhere in the middle there is a sweet spot around having a fun challenge which gives a sufficient amount of time which also gives space for breaks. It’s this timeframe where the real magic happens.
Perhaps drunk on the power of commitment, I’ve set myself too many, and given myself too short a deadline for them. This has made me feel like I’m fighting against the passage of time. Implicitly, I am getting frustrated at my body for not ‘hurrying up’, and I’m also feeling stressed at not meeting the things I wanted to do.
The irony is that I don’t really care so much for new year’s resolutions. Dates don’t really mean a whole lot – they are social constructs. The world doesn’t suddenly change when the clock strikes midnight and we are in 2023. Despite this, I have fell into the trap of getting things ‘done’ by the end of the year. All the things I’ve listed that I wanted to do could wait till January. Hell, they could wait till January 2024 if I really wanted to.
The moment I realised that the pressure of these commitments was my own creation was the moment I realised I could let them go. I can chalk this up as a learning experience – I had overbalanced on wanting to do too many things, too soon. And that’s okay, this is part of my own learning.
I share my own experience because I recognise I am not the only one in this predicament. There are a whole lot of people feeling the pressure of Christmas shopping, final deadlines and things they wanted to do by the end of the year. My experience is that the additional stress we are putting on ourselves are not helping us. The world will go on even if we don’t do everything we wanted. Better yet, we can use this as a learning experience on how we make our commitments in future in a more kind and flexible way for ourselves.
My other observation is how little time we give ourselves to rest. I seemingly have given myself no time to do that this year, even though my body is crying out for it. The moment I pushed back my commitments was the moment I could finally breathe. I actually started feeling better almost immediately – the tension lifted.
Life is our own marathon, and we get to set the pace. We can choose to spend our time sprinting around in a state of exhaustion, or we can set ourselves a healthy pace with regular breaks. We don’t need to beat ourselves up if we overdo it, we can just learn from the experience and do it all a bit better next time.