Being Able To Keep Going Doesn't Mean You Should

Inside Nat's Notebook - Real Reflections for Real Change

How do you know when you’ve got too much on?

It sounds like an easy question until you think about how most of us answer it. Because if you’re still getting up, going to work, answering messages, remembering roughly where you need to be and keeping the important bits of life moving, it’s very tempting to conclude that you’re managing perfectly well.

Look at you. Managing.

But what does managing actually tell you?

You can do an extraordinary number of things while tired. You can sit through a meeting while mentally calculating how many hours there are until you can get back into bed. You can smile warmly at somebody while secretly hoping they don’t have a follow-up question. You can make dinner, answer an email, put a wash on and spend ten minutes looking for the glasses that are currently on your head.

Still functioning.

And I think that’s where capable humans can get themselves into a bit of trouble. Because when you’re good at getting things done, there is almost always another way to get something done.

No time today? Do it tonight. Tonight full? Get up earlier. Week packed? There’s always Saturday. Too tired? Coffee. Haven’t eaten? Grab something later. Desperately need an evening to yourself? Ah yes, but you said you’d go, didn’t you?

There always seems to be another tiny pocket of yourself you can raid.

And because you found it, you managed.

Except there’s an interesting difference between I managed it and it was manageable.

One tells you that you got through it. The other asks what getting through it required from you.

That second question is the one I think we’re much less inclined to ask.

What did this week actually cost you? Did you get everything done but spend Saturday incapable of doing anything except staring at the television? Did you make every meeting but cancel dinner with somebody you love because by Thursday you couldn’t face another human voice? Are you getting through your days perfectly well but arriving at bedtime absolutely exhausted with a mind that has apparently decided now would be an excellent time to discuss everything?

Maybe you’re still doing all the things you normally do, but they’re taking more out of you than they used to.

And sometimes your body has been telling you that for quite a while. The shoulders that seem permanently attached to your ears. The jaw you only realise you're clenching when you finally stop talking. The tiredness that sleep doesn't quite seem to touch. Little things you notice for a moment before getting on with whatever needs doing next.

That counts.

It’s funny how quickly humans can adjust to a new version of normal. The first time you have an absolutely ridiculous week, you know you’ve had an absolutely ridiculous week. Do it often enough and suddenly it’s just your diary.

The same thing can happen with tiredness. Or stress. Or never quite having enough time. Or spending Sunday thinking about Monday. Or permanently feeling as though there’s something you’ve forgotten even when, remarkably, there isn’t.

What once made you think, Good grief, I can’t keep doing this, can quietly become, Well, this is just what life is like.

Is it?

Or have you simply become extremely good at living with it?

That’s an uncomfortable little question, isn’t it?

Because capability can disguise quite a lot. If you’re the person who can handle things, people tend to let you handle things. If you’re good in a crisis, crises have an uncanny knack of finding their way to your desk. If you’re the reliable one, everybody relies on you. And if your response to “Can you just...?” is usually “Of course”, congratulations, you may eventually become the proud owner of everybody else’s just.

Workplaces are particularly good at this. The person who gets things done gets given more things to get done. The person who never misses a deadline gets another deadline. The person who says, “Leave it with me,” discovers that everyone does.

And often nobody, including that person, thinks there’s a problem because everything keeps getting done.

That’s the strange bit.

We use the result as evidence that the process must be working.

But what if the work is getting done and you’re disappearing underneath it?

What if everybody else is getting the version of you they need while you’re getting whatever happens to be left? What if you’re technically coping but increasingly finding ordinary things irritating, exhausting or just a bit too much?

And equally, what if you’re busy and absolutely loving it? What if you’ve got loads going on, but you feel energised, interested and excited by your life? What if Friday arrives and you’re tired in that satisfying goodness, that was a week sort of way rather than the please nobody speak to me until Monday sort of way?

There’s useful information in both.

Being busy isn’t automatically a problem. Neither is working hard, pushing yourself, having a demanding week or choosing to give something a great deal of your energy because it matters to you. Sometimes life asks a lot of us. Sometimes we willingly give it. Sometimes we even enjoy the glorious madness of it all.

The interesting part is whether you’re still noticing how it feels.

Because that gives you something more useful than simply asking, Can I keep going?

Of course you can probably keep going. Humans are astonishingly good at keeping going. We accommodate. We rearrange. We compensate. We lower our expectations in one place so we can meet them somewhere else. We become used to things that once felt difficult and stop noticing quite how much effort they require.

And then should turns up.

You’re tired, but you should finish this tonight. You really don’t fancy going, but you should make the effort. You’ve already got too much on, but you should be able to handle one more thing. You want to say no, but you should help because you’re the person who always helps.

Before long, you’re shoulding all over yourself, and the fact that you can do something has somehow become evidence that you ought to.

But those are different questions.

Can you do it?

Probably.

Do you choose to?

Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Because once choice comes back into the room, how you feel gets to be part of the conversation. Not the boss of the conversation. Not a set of instructions you must obey. Just useful information from the human being who will actually have to live with the decision.

Maybe you notice you’re tired and choose to carry on because this matters enormously to you. Maybe you notice you’re tired and decide tomorrow will do. Maybe you realise that the thing you keep calling “a busy patch” has been going on since approximately 2019 and it may be time to stop referring to it as a patch.

Maybe nothing needs to change today.

But surely noticing the cost gives you a better place from which to choose than simply waiting until you can’t do it anymore?

I know something about can’t. For a very long time before burnout, I could. I could work, lead, solve problems, carry responsibility and keep going. Then eventually I couldn’t, and eighteen months largely in bed gave me quite a lot of time to reconsider whether I can still do it had been a particularly sensible measure of how I was doing.

I wouldn’t recommend taking the research quite that far. Because maybe we don’t need to find out exactly how much we can carry. Maybe there’s something far more useful in noticing when the things we’re carrying start to feel heavier. When ordinary life begins requiring more effort. When the things that usually make us feel like ourselves quietly disappear because there never seems to be enough time or energy left for them.

Noticing doesn’t mean you have to put everything down. It simply means you get to decide what is worth continuing to carry. And that feels very different from carrying it simply because you can.

This is something we explore and practise together inside Little Soul Shack. Learning to recognise what your mind and body are telling you, finding ways to calm your mind, get stress out of your system and sleep properly, becoming someone who listens to themselves with the same care they so readily give everybody else. Because the more familiar you become with how you actually feel, the more choice you have in how you live. I'd love you to come and join us.

#Rebel Moment

Think about something in your life you keep describing as manageable because, technically, you are managing it. Then ask yourself a different question: What is managing this actually costing me?

Maybe the answer is very little. Brilliant. Maybe the cost feels completely worth it. Also brilliant. Or maybe you realise you’ve been paying rather more than you thought.

Whatever you find, don’t rush to fix it. Just let that information count when you decide what you choose to do next.  And if you'd like to explore what life could feel like when you start listening to yourself, come and join us inside Little Soul Shack. 

Stay Blessed!

LoveLove

Nat x

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