The Guilt of Personal Priority

I have always firmly believed that when you say yes, you commit to something and you see it through.? The challenge of this is: when is it acceptable for you to cancel a commitment in order to prioritize yourself?? Burnout is very real, and some individuals carry the burden of guilt in falling further and further behind because they have taken on too much.? In these cases, you may feel guilty at putting yourself first, it can eat away at you, feeling like you’ve given less than your best.??

It is unfortunate that we’ve trained ourselves to think this way. That when no one is doing something it must be us (truly felt among many women engineers) it is our obligation to step up and be the rescuer.??

Inherently, we consistently fail to recognize when we’re doing too much. When it comes to our humanness, we are terrible at developing metrics because how we feel is variable, its not readily observable and often when it is, its too late. If we are fortunate, we have a partner or colleague or friend who will tell us we’re underwater but we often shrug it off saying we’re the only ones that can do the thing. This continues until a breaking point occurs.

If you are not prioritizing yourself, you are no good to anyone. It is your job to know where the line of too much is for you, and then move the line closer. We think we can do more than we actually can, pulling feats of heroics continuously until we leave ourselves broken beyond reconciliation.

Ultimately however, the decision to withdraw is fraught with guilt. You may feel you are letting people down. Sure, saying “I’m sorry, I can’t continue on this at this time” is perfectly fine and people will be left with questions. People will afford you more grace if you can be candid in why. You do not need to detail everything, but adding a clarification will go far in building trust -? “I’ve overcommitted to several projects and have reprioritized my engagements to ensure my lack of or limited involvement does not penalize the project and affords the opportunity to others.”

People will understand, it shows you are holding yourself accountable and responsible for the commitments you make. And if they don't, that is a problem for them to get over - not you. But this isn't limited to overcommitting on projects.?

You may have personal matters in your life that affect your ability to deliver 100%. For myself, when I overcommitted to give several talks less than a week apart in different locations, I failed to acknowledge the impact of so much travel on my health, even knowing full well my condition is negatively impacted by travel (among other things), I felt the career opportunity would never present itself again.

I made the difficult decision prior to the second talk to withdraw from the third. When sharing the reasoning of this with someone, they had mentioned the feeling of defeat I must have. I realize the lament of defeat may be prevalent for some, but to me I see it not as defeat but rather as a win for myself in a level of growth - awareness of my limitations.? We all have them, and while my true feeling is of letting others down, and disappointment for not realizing it sooner, it is still progress and education of a different sort. For this reason, I am satisfied with my decision, and happy I was able to recognize my need and create a personal priority - without a lot of guilt.

Being open about the reality we operate in, knowing we are ineffective when we are distracted, overburdened, and drowning in a sea of work, is perhaps more important than all the amazing work we do.? Once we make the decision and share it, it's no longer the gut-wrenching guilt of putting yourself first, rather it is the guilt of not doing it sooner. For which we only need to be attentive, forewarned is forearmed.