You are only human…and that is okay.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to do stuff, that stuff can very quickly begin to feel like too much.  Your boss constantly piles assignments on your desk.  Your children always want your attention.  You need to get to working on your diet and exercise.  You have that annoying home project that you have been trying to get to for the last 6 months.  And, no matter hard you work, the list you have set before you seems to be never ending and constantly growing.  The mountain, ever higher, and impossible to overcome.

Slow down.

You are human, a strong and capable human, but human none the less.  As a human, you have limitations that must be recognized.  The more you push yourself, the more energy you use.  Which means you have less energy for tasks later on, unless you can afford yourself an appropriate amount of time to recoup energy by eating and resting.

You think to yourself, “Mr. Guthrie, but I see so many people who are capable of so much more than I am.  They accomplish great things all the time and I am barely keeping up!”

It may seem like others are accomplishing great things all the time, but the reality of the situation is that no one is as successful as you imagine they are.  At the end of the day, no one can function at 100% efficiency 100% of the time.  It is simply impossible.  Even the most successful people in the world do not do this.  They moderate their expectations and put most of their effort into very specific areas, looking to maximize outcomes in those areas while acknowledging that they will be sacrificing in other areas of their lives.

But it is about more than finding areas in which you want to sacrifice; it is about finding areas in which you can sacrifice.  You have things that you need to do to maintain function.  You must sleep, you must eat, and you must relax.  No matter what you might think, taking away from these things will dramatically decrease your effectiveness in other areas.  Think of yourself as a machine.  You can push the machine, but if you take away what the machine needs to function, it will not be able to do the job you set before it.  And the harder you push it without the necessary care, the more likely the machine is to fall apart.

Take your time.  Slow down and be realistic about what you want to accomplish, and more importantly what you can.  But remember, everyone is doing the same thing.  You are human, just like everyone else…which is okay.

-Ian Guthrie, LPC