Freedom Friday: If You're Committed to Everything, You're Committed to Nothing!

Transcript

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Hello everybody and welcome once again to the Unlearned Podcast.

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I'm your host, ruth Abigail, aka RA, and this is Freedom Friday, where I come and share something we've unlearned recently and how it makes us a little bit more free.

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All right?

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So I was talking to somebody earlier and we were talking about just changes that happen in seasons of your life and she was saying, at a particular decade I will not name said decade because I am actually in this season and, uh, it may or may not be something I'm, I'm uh, uh, in denial about, but in a particular decade, right, uh, there's just a, a, there's, there's a season where it's like you have to really choose.

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Life is, is, is at all, it's playing at all cylinders.

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Family, uh, you know your immediate family, your extended family parents might be aging, kids are young, career is at a certain level.

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You know, you've got all these moving parts, right, and it is overwhelming.

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It gets to be overwhelming when you start to say, hey, look, I can't continue to, I got to take some stuff away, I gotta clear my plate Because, as somebody who really seeks to thrive and grow and do things at a high level, naturally, right, you become overcommitted, we're overcommitted, right.

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I would argue that as a culture we're overcommitted, that many people are overcommitted, but particular people who are interested in growth which, if you're listening to this, you're probably interested in growth You're trying to say, like, what do I need to unlearn to become more free?

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I'm interested in growing and progressing and doing all those things.

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So at some point in your life you've probably been overcommitted because in our pursuit of growth, we grab at a bunch of stuff.

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We say, oh, I want to do this or I can do this, and people see things in you that could be helpful to them and so they're going to, they're going to pull you, and people like us like to be pulled.

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Let's be honest, we kind of like that.

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We like to be needed, we like to be in spaces where we can contribute, right.

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So we find ourselves overcommitted.

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But then you find yourself in a season whether it's a stage of life, whether it's an age, whatever it is you find yourself in a season where you're like, hey, this ain't going to work, right.

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But let's be honest, you spent a lot of your time over, over committed.

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You have already spent more of your life committing to too much than this life you're trying to pursue at a different level.

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So you're going to have to unlearn some things.

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There's going to be some things that are going to be different about your life now than it has been for most of your life.

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Right, like most of my life, I've had too many things I'm committed to, so now it's not realistic to think that I'm going to wake up and understand how to be committed to less just overnight.

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That's not going to work.

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I can't just flip the switch like that.

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It's a gradual process because undoubtedly, sooner rather than later, something else is going to come my that.

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It's a gradual process because undoubtedly, sooner rather than later, something else is going to come my way.

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It actually just happened to me not too long ago.

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I had actually made a mental commitment and a verbal one right To my family and to some friends and to some accountability partners, to some coaches like hey, I'm done with these things, I'm going to put these things aside, I'm going to exit from this, I'm going to close this chapter because I can only focus on a few things and in not honestly like in.

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In a training session I was in and we were actually going through the process of planning around that new commitment, the commitment to, to get rid of some commitments.

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I got a text message asking me to do something that would have required more of my time, and I looked at the person next to me.

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I was like you are not going to believe this.

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Like here, I am trying to get my life together and here this opportunity comes and y'all, let me be honest, it was.

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It was one of those things again, because I'm so used to committing and I'm used to taking the next thing or something that actually genuinely might interest me.

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It was difficult for me to say no.

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I knew I was going to say no, but I took a couple of days because I was like man, you know, if I'm honest, I kind of was trying to figure out is there a way for me to make this work?

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Ultimately, I decided no and I let it go and I did what I needed to do, but it was hard, like it's hard to do.

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That it's.

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It is a truly an unlearning process to shift my mindset, and it's going to be an unlearning process for you to shift your mindset If you have continued to go down the path of being committed, and now you're ready to shift.

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Continue to go down the path of being committed, and now you're ready to shift.

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And so what can we do to shift from being overcommitted to being properly committed, or committed to the things that we need to commit to?

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All right, so three things right you got.

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First, we got to accept that sameness and routine can be beneficial.

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That's really.

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That can be hard.

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I mean, some of us are great with routine and are cool with everything being the same.

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Personally, I like I like new challenges, I like new stuff, I like new ideas.

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I'm a new person and so it can be I things can get boring more quickly because sometimes I feel like I figure them out, Like once I figure something out, it's hard for me to not want to move on, and one of my challenges is the goal is not to figure it out, the goal is to be excellent at it.

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And that takes longer, that takes consistency, it takes focus right, and so one of the pivot points in our mindset that can help you to become more free from overcommitting is focus, which means that we're going to have to be okay with doing the same thing for a longer period of time, with not filling up our brains, our calendars, our you know filling up our conversations, filling up, filling ourselves up with all this other stuff.

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Stay on one or two things that is.

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That could be your job and your family.

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Maybe that's it right.

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Maybe that's one volunteer experience and, you know, a entrepreneurial venture you're trying, right.

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Maybe that is just a relationship that needs your attention.

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Could be a friendship, could be a marriage, whatever, plus one other commitment that you have, that is, we have to start to narrow that down and we have to say I'm going to focus my energy as opposed to taking on new things.

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In that same vein, we also have to know that commitment doesn't mean saying yes to everything.

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Commitment doesn't mean saying yes to everything.

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Really, commitments means saying yes to the right things.

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So when we are overly committed, it means we're saying yes to too many things.

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So, in the sense of being overly committed, you really are under committing yourself.

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If that makes sense, I'll say that again.

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And when you over commit, the truth is you're really not committed because you really aren't.

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You haven't set your mind on a thing to say this is it?

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Instead, we say this is it to 10 different things and it never.

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There's no one thing that that wins out over another and it just it serves our, our, our urge and itch right For um, for for being needed, for our validation, for being accepted, right, those are things that are that are, for being relevant.

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Those are things that we have to be honest about that.

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A lot of our overcommitment issues are stemming from insecurities, and we're trying to fix that, when really being committed means saying yes to the right things and being clear on what your no's are as well.

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And then the last thing is what we want to do is create a weekly strategy and involve others to lighten the load.

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In other words, stop doing so much yourself and start delegating.

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Delegating doesn't mean you tell the people what to do.

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It doesn't have to mean you just, okay, I can't do this, you go do this.

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It doesn't have to mean you're telling people what to do, but what it can mean is when somebody comes to you with an opportunity, maybe you then delegate that opportunity to somebody else, in other words, suggest that somebody else do it.

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Hey, I really don't have the time right now, but a way I can help is say I have this great, you know person that I've been, uh, that I've gotten to know another colleague, or maybe it's a younger leader, somebody who could really thrive in an opportunity that you give the suggestion, give their name, hand them off a vouch for them, right, and really release that to someone else who can benefit from the opportunity more than you, because you really don't need it.

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You don't need it.

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They might need you or may think they do, but you really don't need it, and what happens is we thrive off of people needing us, even though we don't currently need them, but we feel like we do because we have insecurities.

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And, instead of feeding into those insecurities, help to build somebody else up by giving them the opportunity that you really don't need right now.

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Those are ways that we can help to unlearn overcommitment.

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Right, we got to unlearn the overcommitment thing because you're going to come to a season in your life where everything's important, so nothing is important, and the things that you have said you wanted to commit to will ultimately end up getting dropped because your hands are not big enough to hold them all.

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Something's going to fall.

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So, instead of getting to that point, them all, something's going to fall.

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So, instead of getting to that point, start handing stuff over to other people to say, hey, I really can't do this, but I think you'd be great at it, and in that you are expanding your reach in a different way.

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It may not be you directly doing something, but you're indirectly influencing something being done by somebody else that you get to pour into or that you also trust.

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Let's unlearn over committing.

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It is something I'm constantly unlearning and have honestly committed in this season of my life to really put some energy into doing.

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All right, y'all, that's it.

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Thanks again for listening to the unlearn podcast.

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All right, y'all, that's it.

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Thanks again for listening to the Unlearned Podcast.

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Download the episode, share it with somebody else that you think also is somebody who wants to pursue growth, wants to be free, wants to begin to unlearn things because they're entering into a new season of their life.

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All right, that's it.

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Thanks again, and let's keep unlearning together so that we can experience more freedom, peace.

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Thank you once again for listening to the Unlearned Podcast.

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We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode.

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We're looking forward to the next time when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom.

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See you then.

Freedom Friday: If You're Committed to Everything, You're Committed to Nothing!

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