This has been something on my mind recently. I feel like we live in a world where people are glorified for “doing it all.” I mean, I think we have all been guilty of either glorifying it in others or trying to do everything ourselves. In reality though, is this really the best approach to how we live our day to day? When we “do it all” that means that inevitably everything becomes a priority to us (which is kind of an oxymoron). Whether it’s from working out, to raising a family, being intentional with our partner, hanging out with friends, running a business, going to church, giving back to our community/philanthropic work, etc. I’d argue that people who are doing it all either have a ton of help behind the scenes and actually aren’t doing it all, or they are attempting to do everything and are stretched really thin. The result is they are doing it all, but aren’t doing any of it well.

I listen to a lot of Bethenny Frankel’s podcast episodes and this was topic she was talking about (I think it was this episode with the CMO from Cadillac). In this episode she specifically, she was saying that working out just isn’t a priority for her right now because she has other areas that she is choosing to focus on. She was explaining how she has other areas that she would rather focus her time to so she is able to commit 100%. Bethenny talks about this ability to 100% commit through the concept of “buckets” and I think it’s a great way to look at it. She says she would rather have 6 full buckets, than 12 buckets that are half filled. So sure, working out could be a bucket in her life, but then it would take away from another bucket that is more important to her right now.

This was such a good reminder for me. So often, I feel like I’m failing if I’m not able to juggle everything. Like if I’m not able to have a successful business, spend time with friends, spend time with Stephen, workout, take time for self-care, etc. then I’m either not managing my time well or just not doing enough. When in actuality, I shouldn’t be trying to do all those things because at the end of the day, we only have so much time and can only do so much. If we tried to do everything, we would be “half-assing” a lot of things.

I recently made the decision to put something on pause that I’ve been working towards for a long time for this very reason. At first, I felt like I was letting myself down — if I couldn’t also commit to this does that mean I’m not working hard enough? Does it mean that I just need to manage my time better? But the reality is none of those things. In reality, I made the decision that there are other areas of my life that I want to be able to fully commit to in order for those things to be successful. It would be a shame to look back and think that I could have been successful or happy spending time pursuing XYZ but ended up failing because I was spreading myself too thin and didn’t have the time or energy to fully commit.

Anyway! Just some food for thought today. It was super helpful for me to hear that on Bethenny’s podcast because sometimes you need that reassurance from someone who is really successful and look like they are “doing all the things” when actually they are being very particular about what they spend their time on and then just fully execute. I hope this post gives you the permission to realize that you shouldn’t be trying to do it all and is actually better to get more granular and focus on the main areas that matter the most in this current season of your life. Thoughts on this?