Undoing the overdoing

Last week I went to my physical therapist to get some help with some minor but persistent low-back, hip, tailbone pain.

She demoed a new core exercise that was basically like the tiniest bicycle twist you can imagine – and then had me try it.

She stopped me before I’d even made it through one rep.

“Not that much,” she said. “Do it half that amount. It’s like you’re smashing into a brick wall with all of your force and really what you need to do is take it brick by brick.”

“Yep,” I responded, “that’s pretty much been my approach to all of life.”

Here was my MO for years:

👉 If running three miles was good, then four was better.

👉 If one making one appetizer for a dinner party was good, then two was better.

👉 If taking on one big project was good, then taking on two big projects was better.

I believed that more effort and more time = more accomplishment and more impact.

I was wrong.

Let’s go back to my physical therapist. Once she showed me the correct way to do the core exercise, my abs SHOOK within 30 seconds. It was almost comical just how hard my entire midsection rattled while trying to do her exercises.

And just two days earlier I had spent ten minutes doing planks – and my abs never shook.

Because it wasn’t just about doing MORE – it was about doing what’s EFFICIENT, ALIGNED, and TRUE.

This goes for every area of your life.

It’s not about giving an A+ to everything – it’s about giving the effort required to make the impact you desire.

And sometimes that means giving LESS than everything you’ve got.

I’m curious – On a scale of 1-10, how uncomfortable does that make you?!?

How hard is it for you do LESS? How hard is it for you to SAY NO so you can focus on the BEST work – the work that gives you joy and makes the biggest difference?

Doing too much makes you exhausted. It takes away your joy. Over time it makes you achieve less and have a lower impact — the two things you trying to accomplish by always doing more.

And, maybe most importantly, the constant overdoing and saying yes to everyone takes you further away from YOU. It leads you down a path where you are pleasing everyone but yourself.

None of it is good.

If you want to stop slamming yourself into a brick wall with overdoing, I invite you to read my book, An Overachiever’s Guide To Breaking The Rules: How To Let Go Of Perfect and Live Your Truth.

You’ll get to the root causes of your overdoing so you can get off the hamster wheel and live YOUR truth.