I have a problem with overcommitment.
I take on too many responsibilities. And I handle my responsibilities reasonably well and receive praise for doing so.
Right now, I am working through my Master’s Degree, running over 60 miles a week as a long-distance runner, writing as a freelancer, all while maintaining my full-time job as a special education teacher.
And that’s not enough. I keep taking on more. I keep taking on extra responsibility at work. I volunteer to lead a new initiative. There seems to be no end because I believe I can handle it all.
Somehow, I internalized the fact that whatever I do will never be enough.
It’s like a hole of quicksand. I keep adding new commitments and responsibilities to my daily life. I fail to set boundaries between my commitments and my personal life, my personal needs versus my personal obligations.
I complain about burnout, and yet a lot of my burnout is my fault for failing to say no, failing to say “this is enough and I don’t need to add any more to my plate.”
If you’re reading this, you might resonate with knowing someone who overcommits, or you might overcommit yourself.
The worst thing that can happen when you overcommit
Overcommitting is an incredibly dangerous thing, but not for the reason you think.
Sometimes, I wait for the moment where I crack under all the stress. I secretly wait for the moment when I crash and burn and can’t do it anymore.
Maybe it’s just the way I was raised and programmed to never be satisfied with my accomplishments and always push for better, for more, but it’s like my body and mind are moving with no agency of my own to keep pushing, no matter what.
Most of the time, the extra commitment works out. I’m happy and proud of myself — for a moment. I proved my inner critic and anyone who said “you’re taking on too much” wrong.
The worst thing that can happen when you overcommit is when you’re successful. It’s when you prove to yourself you can keep adding tasks and responsibilities to your plate and do them well, just because you can.
Why it’s so dangerous
You dig a deeper hole for yourself. You test your limits. You test whether you’re invincible, whether you’re actually a human being, how much you can really optimize your production like a machine.
I don’t mean for this to sound like “woe is me” when my life is going quite well. Ostensibly, my productivity, ability to meet my obligations and work-related expectations and life are going well.
Internally, I sometimes feel like I’m drowning in stress, but I do a good job of outwardly keeping my composure. Occasionally, a friend or colleague will tell me “I don’t know how you do it all,” and I’ll be honest and say it doesn’t feel like I’m doing a good job.
Above all, when overcommitment works, you don’t learn your lesson.
If you’re anything like me, you might be wondering: how do you stop? How do you protect your boundaries?
Why we overcommit
According to Demir Bentley at Forbes, we often overcommit because we love to start new projects but we do not enjoy finishing them. We think of starting something new as exciting — it’s only human nature, after all. But we tend to give up before we see results and when the work gets tough.
In my case, I am able to stick things through enough and take care of myself to the point where I do get results.
However, the fact is starting something new is a lot sexier than continuing the status quo and maintaining the same routine every single day. I’m 24 years old. I’m a bit of a thrill-seeker. The thrill of a new obligation almost always supersedes the predictability of an old one.
People-pleasing and never feeling like we’re good enough
Bentley says we fall into starting new projects so often because it’s so much harder to say no than yes. Starting something is always more appealing than finishing it. Finishing is hard work — starting is often not.
We also overcommit because we feel like we’re not doing enough. Some of us, especially those of us raised in high-pressure environments where no accomplishment was ever enough, always feel the need to keep pushing for more.
Once an old project is finished and the fruits of your labor are realized, you’re satisfied for an hour, maybe a day if you’re lucky. Then the anxiety and trepidation of needing to accomplish more comes yet again.
Sometimes, you think trepidation is a good thing — after all, that trepidation and intense self-pressure is one reason why you’ve come so far, right?
Well, I grew up in an immigrant, traditional Asian household and culture where I internalized the fact that nothing I accomplished would ever be good enough. My brother was taught the same lessons. We would get past the next hurdle, then realize there was a higher one once the goalposts were moved higher.
These lessons got results, for sure, but they weren’t exactly healthy or conducive to our mental health. At some point, we would crash and burn. We would realize we were living someone else’s dreams and expectations, not our own.
And at the end of the day, that overcommitment would always, always, make us feel hollow and empty.
Takeaways
Well, for some of us, it will never be enough. Perhaps that’s comforting or depressing. But taking on that new task, doing more of it, and feeling the same sense of emptiness is disheartening.
No accomplishment will ever fix you. That next commitment that you crush will not fix you and reframe your self-image. Your career success will not fix you.
There has to be more to life than success.
I don’t know what will fix you. Therapy might help. If you’re spiritual or religious, your faith might help. Strong relationships with family and friends will make you feel more whole than any accomplishment at work ever will.
But the answer isn’t so clear-cut. And the answer is different for everyone. I personally need to spend more time with my family, fianceé, and friends.
In summary, we overcommit because some of us are people-pleasers and some of us never feel like we’re doing enough.
Sometimes I know my habit of overcommitment is not sustainable. I know there will be a moment where everything might crash and burn. I know at the end of this, even when I reach the mountaintop, I’ll ask “is this all there is to life?”
Still, as human beings, we can know these truths. But we can still program ourselves and behave in a way that runs contrary to what we know is best.
Overcommitment is dangerous especially when it works out. It’s dangerous when you’re successful as someone who overcommits, you still feel like it will never be enough, only drowning in more stress.
You gradually start sending the message that you’re invincible, that you can do anything, that no one in the world is going to stop you from achieving your version of conquering the world.
At the end of the day, you’re only human.
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This post was previously published on Ryan Fan’s blog.
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