Saving Throws | The Myth of Doing it All

A former mentee reached out to me recently to ask for support in their new job hunt. I shared several resources I had created. And after getting all these, they responded with "How do you have time to do all this?"

It's a common comparison we make as humans. I'd argue that women tend to be the majority who are making this comparison because of societal pressure, the proverbial "How does she do it?" But I digress...

Today I thought I'd attempt to answer this question, but my answer may surprise you.

I have help.

Unlike many partners on TV (and likely real life), mine is extremely active in our household responsibilities. He takes our daughter to and from school. He takes care of groceries and makes all the meals (though sometimes poorly because it's a skill he's still learning). And he pays for the biweekly cleaning people to come out.

Even though I take care of the majority of our living expenses and have the highest salary between the two of us, I still feel lazy sometimes, like I should be doing more. But at the end of most days, my energy is pretty zapped. I'm working on feeling equal to him in my contributions (How strange is that? Our roles have flipped, yet I still feel like I'm not enough. Deprogramming one internalized sexism is a trip, y'all.)

I don't have young children.

Our daughter is a middle schooler. But she's also one of the most independent people I've ever met. I believe she's wired this way, but it helped that I kept to a simple parenting rule: when they can do it for themselves, stop doing it for them. So she makes her lunch, does the dishes and her laundry, cleans her room, etc. Yes, we still have disagreements about chores, and sometimes she forgets. But for the most part, she's pretty on it.

It's taken a while to get her to this stage. I've had to teach her how to do all those things, and be comfortable with her not doing a great job at times. When she was little, I didn't have a lot of time for external pursuits like having sustained writing practice, building a business, networking, expanding my career options, etc. I would have looked at present me and thought, "Damn, how is she doing it? I'm constantly exhausted." So if you have young kids, I'm giving you a pass. Please take it. You have other priorities right now.

I'm not in constant survival mode anymore.

When your nervous system is constantly burned out on surviving, you don't have time to think about your time. You think short-term because that's all you can focus on--literally, our brains are wired this way.

It was a slow process moving myself out of this constant state. I had to make choices that would expand my bandwidth. These choices can feel excruciatingly slow, especially when you're ready for massive change. For instance, I was ready for a 3-month Emergency Fund, and I was tired of being asked to donate to my own teacher appreciation week. So one choice I made was to refusing to engage with my school's fundraisers. The random $5 here and there for my Emergency Fund wasn't going to go very far very quickly. But it was what I could do at the time, and it helped me take power back in an abusive system. That power created room for me to find more boundaries to make for myself.

As these small choices added up, I slowly started having more bandwidth and could make progress toward a different life.

I've opted out of some things.

I'm not on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. My Netflix doesn't auto-play the next episode. I've turned off all the notifications on my phone because I automatically check my apps anyway. This started as a way to ease my sensory overwhelm as an autistic person, but it's also created more control over how I spend my time because I have to choose to engage with the app, watch the next episode, etc.

These are also choices I made in response to reading Stolen Focus (affiliate link). The book details how companies have literally designed their advertisements, products, etc. to steal our focus. Opting out has helped me a lot in being able to do the deep work I find truly engaging.

I am doing a lot, but not all at once.

Some days I write a lot for the newsletter. Other days, nada. On those other days, I might be having a 1:1 with a mentee or doing research into marketing strategies. Every day, I'm doing something toward my goals, but not everything. When my mentee reached out for support, I gave them a list of ID agencies, the interview prep/salary negotiation tool, and a few other resources. I made those across years of work with the bits of time I had here and there.

I working smart.

I've found ways to make the work do double-duty. For instance, all my 1:1 sessions include an AI notetaker. I go into this note-taker to write some of my articles. It already has the words I used, so it's already in my style and tone. And I'm just cleaning it up. I've also automated some things. If you're reading this, it's highly likely that this is not the first article you've read of mine. This is because I've used my newsletters to create automated sequences, meaning that new subscribers are reading articles I wrote months back. Only those who've been with me from the beginning are reading what I wrote that very week.

Will Smith has this thing about laying bricks as a kid for his father. His dad told him to focus not on building the wall, but on laying one brick at a time. And that's how I'm focusing on my life's work, one brick at a time. I'm practicing faith that I'll be able to stand back one day and see the progress.

I hope what I've shared here doesn't create some should-guilt-inducing-comparisons in you, reader. I'm writing this to highlight what you don't see: the support I get from others, the things I've given up, the life stage I'm in.... If you're comparing yourself to me and thinking "I should be where she is," know there's someone else looking at you right now thinking the same thing about you.

And the narrative created online is often curated. And it's often curated intentionally to seem like we're "doing it all." Don't fall for the myth. Let yourself take one step at a time.