Why we are asking the wrong question

"You can have it all, you just can’t have it all at once."

This is something I have heard several times in my career as a female executive. It is meant to be assuring and meant to justify the glass ceiling and barriers we often face especially in our child-bearing years when we have both a career that is about to take off and the increase in family obligations, or when we are in the sandwich generation and have other care giving obligations towards elderly at home and young children at home.

However, I think this is disempowering.

I am only now realizing, that it is not about can we have it all, it is about do we want it all? As soon as I pivot to what I want out of life, what I have becomes a matter of the choices I make with my free will. The choices I make to live the life that is uniquely mine, that serves the needs of my unique self, and will leave a legacy that is uniquely mine. Isn’t that what will make the world a better place?

Hear me out.

A person walks into a restaurant and gets a menu. Can he have it all, absolutely. Should he? And does he want to? Absolutely not if he wants to avoid bad indigestion or other digestive system issues.

An executive sits in the board room weighing options for her company’s strategic moves. Can she do it all? Possibly. And should she do it all? Absolutely not if she wants to play where they can win. Being all things to all people is never “strategic” and having more initiatives than a company can execute on is a sheer recipe for fatigue and failure.

So we can reward healthy portions in diet and strategic choices in business. Then why is this such a novel concept for our personal lives? Why does our culture fall into this trap of having FOMO (fear of missing out) or resentment about what we have to say no to, to be able to say yes to what we want? Why are we always looking at what we had to give up (loss) versus the empowerment of choosing what we really want (gain)? Why does our culture not celebrate the courage it takes to be strategic and say no, but rather celebrates the rat race where we burn out in saying yes to everything?

I am so inspired by the PM of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern to set this powerful example of accomplishing so much at the age of 42, serving her country through some of the toughest challenges, and admitting to burning out and now wanting to focus on her health and family. That is not a sign of failure, as BBC's original article headline poorly claimed. This is true leadership, and taking control over one's life and legacy.

Let us talk more about these stories so it encourages others to not feel guilty for saying no to things they don’t want.

Growing up, it was hard to really answer what I wanted. It was all about pursuing what I thought the world expected of me, what I should “have”. However, as I chased those degrees and elite jobs working 100 hour weeks, I had plenty of times when I felt like I had to say no to certain foods, certain activities, certain travels, certain roles as they conflicted my spiritual values, my stage of life as a young mom, or my dietary restrictions as a vegetarian. My fear was I will be left behind or will have less. It was very tempting to just keep wanting what others had, or what I should have, versus really introspecting on what I wanted. But one day I heard this quote at a youth development spiritual conference from BAPS that I will never forget: “Good people don’t finish last, they just run a different race!”

So what race are you running?

Are you comparing yourself to a runner on a totally different track?

Are you content with the choices you make to say no to having it all, just so you can say yes to what you want??