A friend recounted a story about a time when her mom snapped at her. The reason for the upset was silly, but clearly my friend's mom was stretched too thin at the time and snapped. It's too bad that happened because the incident left a troubling mark on my friend since the issue involved something that was a big deal at the time to my friend and an issue that had little, if any, negative impact on her mom. Essentially the event was the "straw that broke the camel's back," the last incident before her mom broke simply because her mom was stretched too thin--she had too much going on to keep up with. The mom was stressed out.
I can remember times in my own life when I was stretched too thin and made mistakes because of that. When we are stretched beyond what we can keep up with, we likely make errors by doing or saying things because of stress rather than good intent.
How can we we steer clear of being stretched too thin and/or how can we be wary of our behavior when we are stretched too thin. What can we do?
Sometimes we'll choose to stretch ourselves thin and work at our absolute max because we see an opportunity to do some very good work and we don't want to lose out on that opportunity. That happened to me this week--there was an opportunity to do a lot of really good work. I seized the opportunity, but then I was zapped of all energy. I had nothing left, yet I was glad I did get some really good work done.
When that happens, we have to guard ourselves from venting with action or words that are negative. We naturally want to let loose after stretching ourselves to our max. Similar to an elastic that's pulled as far it can go before snapping, our natural reaction is to snap, but we can't do that. Instead it's good to have some sayings or actions ready for times when we use up all our energy. For example, you can simply tell others, "I have nothing left, let's talk about that tomorrow," or you can have some actions on reserve such as a calming walk around the block, a swim, a good movie or book, and even a calming nap. The worst thing you can do is expect to keep on pushing as when you use up all your energy, it's gone, and to try to do more typically ends up in work gone wrong.
If you continually feel as if you have no energy, you're probably stretching yourself too thin all the time. That's when you have to recognize that no one is superhuman, and something has to give. As a parent, that may mean that you have to hire a babysitter to give yourself a break now and then, or perhaps you decide to order take-out once a week to give yourself a break on preparing meals. When you're making lots of mistakes because you have no energy, you have to deal with it realizing that no one can do it all, and you can do a lot of damage when you try to be superhuman.
I want to think more about those "stretched-too-thin" times in life and how I might deal with those times well. For those of us with big dreams, lots of goals, and high ideals, this is a regular part of the life journey. Onward.