Busyness Isn’t a Badge–It’s a Warning

Ep: 269

Does “the most wonderful time of the year”  feel less like a holiday and more like overwhelm?

Feeling stressed or anxious during the holidays is unfortunately all too common.

But busyness isn’t a badge–It’s a warning that something needs to give. 

Today on The Bridge to Fulfillment Ⓡ, Blake shares the importance of recognizing that busyness is not a badge of honor but rather a warning sign that stress and overwhelm are taking over. By shifting existing belief systems, you can start to reduce stress and achieve personal growth.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to identify the sources of stress in your life and truly understand which systems are contributing to your overwhelm. You’ll learn how to overcome busyness through small, actionable steps and create necessary boundaries so that you can begin to prioritize what truly matters.

 

What You’ll Learn:

  • Challenging conventional wisdom by confronting busyness (0:33)
  • Why tactics and boundaries alone won’t create real change (4:16)
  • Identifying the core belief that’s holding you hostage (5:07)
  • Actionable steps to shift your behaviors (5:55)
  • A real-world example of how this works (9:09)

 

Favorite Quotes:

  1. “How you do one thing is how you do everything. Meaning whatever the belief systems are tied to some of the problems going on in your life, I can promise you that they’re tied to multiple problems going on in your life.”
  2. “Change happens through a series of small steps. But when you actually can address these things at a deeper root, change happens exponentially.”
  3. “Our fear is if we stop doing so much, we’ll be seen or judged as lazy. We won’t be able to produce the same types of results we’ve produced in our career… And it is those fears unexamined that steal our joy, that steal our impact, that steal our presence.”
  4. “When we can start to see that our view of things is limited, that we have blind spots, that maybe we’re creating our own stress and anxiety, that maybe the things that we really care about aren’t as critical for somebody else, the weight can begin to be lifted.”

 


Additional Resources: 

For programs and opportunities to work with Blake, go to www.BlakeSchofield.com

Transcript

Blake Schofield 0:05
Hi, I’m Blake Schofield, founder and CEO of The Bridge to Fulfillment. Mom to three, USA Today Top 10 Professional Coach, and former corporate executive who got tired of sacrificing my life for a comfortable paycheck. My mission is to expand perspectives to achieve greater impact at home and work without sacrifice. This is The Bridge to Fulfillment®.

If you feel stressed or anxious or overwhelmed this time of year, and no matter what you do, you just feel so busy, I want to share with you that busyness is not a badge of honor; it’s actually a warning sign. I know what I’m sharing with you today will likely seem counterintuitive to what everyone around you is saying, and yet I know it’s the key to freedom, the key to more peace of mind, more presence in your life, more joy, and greater impact. To be seen as a stronger leader and to lead a life of more fulfillment.

As a society, we’ve attached being busy to not being lazy, to being somebody who makes an impact, to success, to just a byproduct of what life looks like when you have an important job or family or you’re getting things done. Our society is conditioning us to believe that we should be busy and that busyness is good.

We grew up watching our parents work a lot and believed that that’s why they were successful. And to be honest, if you’re anything like me, you also maybe struggle with leaving a lot of space, or sitting in the quiet, or not having that to-do list run through your head. Thankfully, that’s not how I operate today, but that is how I operated for the vast majority of my life until I began to seek a better way—until I began to understand that I had belief systems and conditioning.

I had a lot of fear around other people’s judgment, around how not doing so much might negatively impact my relationships or my career, and around believing that the way I was approaching things was the best way to approach it. And all of those things kept me trapped in this constant cycle of being busy.

And listen, the busyness wasn’t consistent all the time, but the pattern kept existing. And then I would run across friends or colleagues that were also really busy. And so it seemed like, well, this is just the way life is.

But I can tell you, if you’re looking at your life and you’re saying, “I wish I had more time for me, for deeper relationships, for community, or I wish I felt more mentally, physically, and emotionally present with my family or my kids,” then this is a sign, right? An opportunity, a feedback loop that’s showing you that what you’re experiencing in your day-to-day life—what you’re creating—isn’t in alignment with who you are and who you want to be.

Our fear is that if we stop doing so much, we’ll be seen or judged as lazy. We won’t be able to produce the same types of results we produce in our career. Maybe we’ll upset or hurt people who are relying on us, or we’ll be judged. And it is those fears, unexamined, that steal our joy, our impact, our presence, and our health, peace of mind, and life.

Blake Schofield 7:34
That’s the easiest way to go if it’s just you. But if it’s not you, and maybe it’s your spouse or your kids that will be impacted, or maybe it’s your boss or your team, then it’s an opportunity to approach one or more of those people that would be involved or impacted by whatever it is that you’ve got going on, and just open the dialog. Share with them that you’re feeling overwhelmed. You’re looking to be able to prioritize and ask them what is their opinion, or how do they feel about whatever this thing is.

The important part as you go in there is: don’t go in and presume that they see it the same way that you do, that they have the same time urgency, that they have the same fears or concerns that you do, or that it can only be done in the way that you’re doing it. So you must suspend judgment and just go in, share, and seek feedback.

The beautiful thing about this is very often it will expose some of your own flaws in thinking, your own belief systems that are inaccurate, or different paths or considerations that you hadn’t even thought of. It is an amazing thing.

When we can start to see that our view of things is limited, that we have blind spots, that maybe we’re creating our own stress and anxiety, that maybe the things that we really care about aren’t as critical for somebody else, the weight can begin to be lifted.

It starts to open a door to how to view our perspective of overwhelm, our perspective of business, our perspective of what we have and what we need to do differently.

The very first time this door was opened for me was back at Target in 2010. I was going to meet my DMM. At the time, he was in charge of all of women’s apparel at Target. His name was Todd.

I was going to meet Todd for the first time, and my boss actually asked me, “What are you planning to present?” I went through everything I had thought about—all the things I wanted to share and how I wanted to show up—and I was really proud and excited about it. She looked at me and basically told me, “You don’t need to talk about any of these things. These are the three things you need to talk about.”

Honestly, in the moment, I was offended. Like, “What do you mean? That’s not enough. I want to share all of these things because I want to show up as my best self, and I don’t feel like that would be me showing up as my best self.” She gave me some feedback in terms of what my real outcome or goal was. Was it to meet Todd’s expectations and show up in a way that Todd could see my value? Or was it to meet my own expectations of what I thought was necessary?

It was a really large challenge for me, mentally and emotionally. But when I came back the next day, I began to understand that maybe the way I viewed things wasn’t the full picture, and that I was creating unnecessary stress, guidelines, and perspectives about how things had to be done that were unnecessary.

I ended up taking her advice, going into the conversation, and sharing things in the way that she had suggested. I had an amazing conversation, and it set the stage for a really fantastic relationship. That would have never happened if I had not had the dialog, if I had not been open to a different perspective, or if I had not seen that maybe—just maybe—there was another way to do it.

Blake Schofield 11:55
A couple of years ago, during the busy holiday season, I began to feel a lot of stress as a mom about the traditions I had built for the holidays and what I would do for the kids. I just didn’t feel like I was going to be able to accomplish it all, and I felt this internal stress, angst, and anxiety about it.

Rather than push through, try to get it all done, and be stressed, I chose to talk to my kids. I shared with them, “Hey, I’m feeling overwhelmed. I really want to make sure that you have a great Christmas and that this matters to you. Do all these things matter to you? Or what matters most for us to feel like we’re celebrating together and you get the best of the holiday?”

What I found was very surprising. This long list of things I thought I needed to do that mattered to my kids was actually a very, very short list. And that list was very different than what I had anticipated.

In my belief system—that I had to do all these things to create a meaningful outcome for my kids—I hadn’t really understood what they cared about. I would have done all this unnecessary work and still not gotten the outcome I was truly seeking.

Those two experiences—one professional and one personal—highlight the power of the exercise I’m giving you today: the ability to begin to see, challenge, and look at where you’re putting your time, energy, and state of mind. They also help you begin to see that there could be much better, very different, and far more efficient ways to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

Blake Schofield 15:12
So that’s my gift and my homework for you. There’s likely something—at least one thing—going on in your life right now that feels stressful or overwhelming or that you feel busy about. If you can just take and apply this exercise in such a small dose, it will begin to open the door for you. It will help you see it differently and help you understand what really is necessary to achieve the outcomes you want.

Ask yourself: Does this need to be achieved by me? Could it be delegated? Could it be done in a different way? Or is the timeframe I’ve placed on it not accurate?

There could be any number of outcomes, but I venture to bet that the outcome and the knowledge you’ll gain from doing this exercise will help give you a new doorway, new momentum, and a new perspective shift. It will create more space, more peace, and more of what you want in your life.

As always, thanks again for joining me. Until next time, have a great week.