How Risk-Taking Changed When I Stopped Overcommitting

What I want to talk about today is risky for me. It’s about going too far, something I am intimately familiar with.

What I mean by this is: the usual way I tend to overcommit is to promise or plan something without considering all the potential issues that may arise. I’d include many possibilities, but never also include a realistic timing.

It comes from 2 tendencies I have: my eternal optimism, and my overly favorable opinion of the abilities and resources.

I’m better at estimating realistically these days, but it took years of severely exhausting myself fulfilling my overly-optimistic commitments to get there. Those are the 2 things I mostly do. One other thing that often happened is that, once people knew this about me, they’d take advantage of it, asking me to accomplish something that nobody else was willing to do. My desire to please and prove myself made me a sucker for this almost every time … until I stopped that opening with repeated “no’s”.

There’s one more thing that contributed to my going too far, and that’s my tendency to take risks. Taking risks is exciting, even motivating. I’m not talking about gambling, but doing something that’s at my edge.

You know, I still do that. Without all the other problems of underestimation and poor boundaries, taking risks has become an even greater pleasure.

Quote of the Week

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out just how far one can go.

― T. S. Eliot

Forget the corporate ladder - winners take risks

Announcerments

Maryanne Nicholls is a Registered Psychotherapist.  To find out more, gain access to her weekly newsletter, meditations and programs, sign up at www.thejoyofliving.co . 

If you’re interested in the topic of avoiding burnout for people who do too much, you may be interested in checking out my youtube channel.