Before Saying ‘Yes’ to Another Project...

Overcommitment is a persistent and frustrating problem many of us deal with. We take on more projects, bigger goals, or more aggressive timelines than we have the capacity for. We know overcommitment makes us stressed, tired, and often, emotionally depleted. We know we’re supposed to find some semblance of balance amidst our many responsibilities, paid or otherwise. We know that taking care of ourselves is the only way we can keep showing up.

And yet, for all that knowledge, many of us end up overcommitted again and again. In my book, I attribute this to a phenomenon I’ve dubbed the Validation Spiral.

The Validation Spiral begins early in life. We learn that certain behaviors result in praise—they make us feel useful and valuable. Maybe we ace a big test, hit a home run, take care of a younger sibling, or win a seat on the student council. Praise makes us feel good for a while, and then we return to baseline—eager to seek out more praise so we can return to the high of recognition.

Typically, that initial quest for validation is manageable. The next test or report card, game or meet, chore or responsibility is always around the corner. We take it in stride. But as we get older and life becomes less predictable, we start to seek out validation in less sustainable ways. We stack responsibility on top of responsibility, hoping that we'll be able to prove ourselves worthy—of praise, of success, of happiness.

In other words, we overcommit.

We say 'yes' too many times and fill our lives with the detritus of our validation-seeking.

Here is where our overcommitment becomes our undercommitment. When we're overcommitted, our resources are stretched too thin. I use the word “resources” to encompass anything we make use of in life and work, including time, money, emotional bandwidth, support, skills, etc. We simply don't have what we need to do everything we've said 'yes' to well. So we allocate our relatively meager resources to each responsibility and most, if not all, of those responsibilities don't receive their due.

As a result, we feel like we're always falling short. Like success is always just out of reach. As if the validation—internal or external—we seek remains inaccessible.

Or as Katie Hawkins-Gaar put it recently:

...overcommitting benefits no one. It leaves me stressed out and exhausted. Instead of pleasing everyone, I tend to disappoint the people closest to me.

When we disappoint ourselves and the people we're committed to, it certainly doesn't help our self-worth or desire for validation.

It's easy to interpret this as a personal deficiency. But there are many systemic and structural reasons we enter the Validation Spiral. “Validation-seeking" is certainly coded as a negative personality trait—but I see it more as a logical response to an uncertain and often hostile social and economic environment.

Instead of diving into the structural and systemic foundation of our tendency to overcommit today, I want to share two questions I've found effective in combatting this pattern. The first is, "But why?" And the second is, "Do I have what I need to do this well?" Both questions encourage us to hit pause on our reflex to pile on more and more commitments so we can fully evaluate whether saying 'yes' will serve us—and others.

But why?

A significant portion of the marketing we encounter daily is designed to convince us to take on a new goal. Most products no longer solve problems. Instead, they make it possible to raise our standards—do things faster, better, or cheaper than before. And encoded in the faster, better, cheaper paradigm are aspirations for our careers, identities, or lifestyles.

I'm using 'marketing' and 'products' loosely here. 'Marketing' can be anything from a sales email from a creator you respect to a commercial you see on YouTube to a memo from your boss. Persuasive messages are everywhere. And as far as 'products' go, whatever is on the other end of a persuasive message is a 'product.'

Without realizing it, these persuasive messages embed themselves in how we think and respond to the world. From there, they work themselves onto our to-do lists. They become our shoulds and supposed-tos. And that, of course, is when they contribute to our overcommitment.

Today, the shoulds might be things like “start a Substack," “write a book," “get on TikTok," “do a Kickstarter campaign," or “create a licensing program." But the specifics of the shoulds and supposed-tos change with the hype cycle. Whatever the particular should is, once I encounter it—either for myself or with a client—I try to ask, “But why?"

Why do I think this is the next move? Why is this consuming my attention? What purpose does it serve in my work, life, career, or advocacy? How will it contribute to my bigger aims? Why is this the right next move for me in particular?

Once I have some answers to those questions, I also have to evaluate whether those answers are objectively true (or as close to that as I can come). Marketing, after all, doesn't just give us ideas about what we want. It also supplies justification for those wants. So often the answer to "But why?" is part of the messaging. But unearthing it gives me something I can investigate.

For instance, will starting a Substack help me create a more sustainable income stream? Or will writing a book bring me more clients or a higher profile in my field? Or would getting on TikTok help me reach the people I want to reach? These are questions that I can use to do research, talk with colleagues, or seek out data to back up what might feel like intuition (but is really just marketing).

If I find that my should is true and makes sense for what I'm trying to do, I can move forward. If it's not true or doesn't align with my bigger aim, I can let it go.

Finally, "But why?" also reminds us that we have bigger aims than whatever is taking up space on our to-do lists. A good idea or promising opportunity isn't good or promising if it eats up resources we could put to better use in our big-picture plans. That’s not to say that trying things just ‘cause isn’t valuable. But if we’re trying to solve our overcommitment problem, there’s a good chance it’s not the right time for just ‘cause projects.

Do I have what I need to do this well?

Earlier, I mentioned that overcommitment leads to undercommitment—that is, we spread out our resources trying to do all thing things which means no one thing gets resourced appropriately. Not only does this leave us feeling depleted (and even burnt out), but it also means we don't give ourselves the satisfaction of a job well done nearly often enough. Over time, this contributes to a lower perception of our self-efficacy, the perception of whether or not we can follow through on a course of action to achieve a particular aim.

A few years ago, having utterly depleted my own resources and ground my self-efficacy into dust, I stumbled on a gloriously clarifying question: "Do I have what I need to do this well?"

Imagine you've just opened your inbox, and there you find an email from a colleague inviting you to join a promising project. The project is compelling, the opportunity is apparent, and the work looks to be right in your wheelhouse. The only problem is that you've already committed to more than you'd like during the project's timeline. You think to yourself, "Hm, maybe I can squeeze this in, too..."

I mean, this is far from a hypothetical scenario, right? This scenario—or something close to it—has happened to all of us, probably in the quite recent past. How many times do we find ourselves "squeezing" in an appointment, favor, or project? "Squeezing," though, is a red flag. It alerts us to the fact that we don't have the free resources to do what's being asked of us (or what we're asking ourselves to do).

Squeezing something in always results in reallocating resources from elsewhere—leisure or family time, other projects, personal goals, etc. For this "promising project" scenario, we might imagine that joining on will mean we work an extra hour or two a day for a few months. It doesn't seem like much, and at first, it's not a big deal. But as time goes on, we start to realize that our leisure time feels squeezed and less than satisfying. We also start to feel like we're not giving as much to this project as we should be because we're not satisfied with our contribution or progress.

We end up back in that all-too-familiar situation: depleted and frustrated.

Now, consider this scenario differently. You open your inbox, discover an email about a promising project, and ask yourself, “Do I have what I need to do this well?" This question prompts you to check in on some mission-critical factors:

• At what level of my capacity am I currently working? What free resources do I have to devote to this project?

• What does "doing this well" look like for this specific project? What do others expect or need from my participation (if applicable)?

• Would doing this project well help me make progress toward my bigger aims? Would it be more effective than other projects I'm investing my resources in?

I'm under no illusions that there might be other factors at play in the decision to say 'yes' to a project or responsibility. The biggest of those might be money. But even still, considering these questions is a good way to check in with where you're at. What do you need to make this work?

Finally this question, "Do I have what I need to do this well?" helps us respond to any request. If it's a flat-out 'no,' we can say, "This sounds great. But I really value being able to contribute fully and do what I commit to well, and I don't have the resources for that right now." This is a version of relational refusal, which science journalist Shayla Love defines as, “a way of saying no that emphasises your connections or relations to others as the underlying reason why you can't help out this time.” Staying in a good relationship with yourself, your values and your own expectations is as good a reason as any to say “not this time.”

If it's still a maybe, we can say, “I'd love to. But I want to make sure that it fits into my capacity. For it to fit, I need..." And if it's a yes, we can give a hearty “Hell yes!" without reservation.

When we're upfront about both our desire to do good work and the resources we have available to do that work, other people tend to respect our boundaries.

The Ultimate Validation

It might sound cliche, but I believe that the ultimate personal validation is the feeling of a job well done. Even when things don't go exactly my way, I feel validated when I know I've given a project my best shot. I'm much more likely to look to external sources to affirm my worth when I can't give myself that sense of satisfaction.

These two questions have served me extremely well for the last few years. They've helped me from jumping back into the over-functioning cycle that leads me back to depression and burnout before I've even really healed from the last one. They've helped me turn down opportunities and give others my all.

I hope these questions help you as enter the next chapter.