136: Why I Overwork When I’m Stressed Out

Why I overwork when I’m stressed out

When I feel overwhelmed. When my schedule is already jam packed. When I feel like I'm barely handling it (and any little thing can push me over the edge to feeling totally stressed and constantly behind) my brain has a very counterintuitive response of taking on even more work.

Doesn’t super make sense on the surface right?

If I’m stretched thin, working all the time, not sure how I’m ever going to find the time to do everything that’s already on my to-do list. Why would I just create more work for myself by adding more stuff to the list?

For my high achiever, recovering perfectionist brain, this totally makes sense, at least in the short term.

Keep reading to learn why it’s common for us to end up burning ourselves out as high achievers by trying to control everything, and how I'm unlearning this exhausting habit.

3 Enemies of Productivity

Recently I had a lot on my plate.

I’ve shared on the show before how these are lifelong brain habits we’re trying to unlearn here. Beliefs and values about hard work, our value being tied to our productivity, and other hustle culture values we’ve been inundated with since we were kids.

And to cope with these values and expectations our brains get stuck in 3 enemies of productivity - perfectionism, people pleasing, and procrastination.

Even though our brains love learning, they don’t love change. It’s super common to notice these mental habits popping up in our daily lives.

For me that shows up as taking on too much. I over commit myself.

I have a lot of goals and things I love to do. Goals for my business, my health, my family, even my hobbies.

And I tend to get into that hustle culture system of packing my schedule to the max. I’m getting better at this, at least I’m better at noticing when things are out of control before I burnout, but I still catch myself replaying these patterns.

Sometimes, rather than using helpful strategies to rein in my over achieving brain, my brain goes in the opposite direction, and takes on even more in a misguided attempt to feel in control. Let me explain. Back to my story.

So I had a lot on my plate recently.

I was preparing for a 4-day Detox Your To-Do List Challenge.
I was busy in my private practice.
Allison had started kindergarten and we were busy with her school and various activities.
We had a set of foster kittens we were looking after.
And all of a sudden my to-do list was getting long. Like never going to finish it all long.

Thankfully one of the reasons I love talking about the overachiever burnout cycle on this show and in our group trainings is it’s a great reminder for my brain to check myself.

During the challenge I was mentioning above, one of the daily action items was to find one thing on your to-do list that was only there because you felt like you “should” be doing it.

You know those things that you feel guilty not doing, so you put them on the list even though you really don't want to do them.

The things you tend to procrastinate on because they’re not fun, or aren’t something you’re good at, but they stay on your list because you feel bad saying no? Yeah those tasks.

One of my shoulds was calling our internet provider. It had been on my list for a while (yep i was procrastinating, because something else always came up that seemed higher priority).

I needed to call to change my contact info, not a huge thing, but it was going to take time sitting on hold and I dind’ really want to do it. And then one of our bills was higher than usual so i really wanted to get it dealt with, but I had so many other things on my list that were higher priority.

It’s hard to delegate as high achievers when we’re overwhelmed

When I get overwhelmed or stressed it’s also really hard for my brain to delegate.

Because I'm a high achiever, or over achiever depending on how you look at it, my default is to want to do everything myself. Because what if someone else doesn't do it the right way, or what if it takes me more time in the long run because i have to teach that person how to do the task, and then follow up if they need help…it’s just easier (in the short term) for me to do it myself.

And our brains like that emotional reasoning.

It feels good in the short term to do it all myself. My brain doesn’t have to worry about the uncertainty of someone else messing up, or the extra work of explaining to someone else how to do it.

But the problem is this is a bad long term habit. It creates more work in the long run, and leads to us feeling totally overwhelmed, and even a bit resentful or mad that we have to do everything ourselves all the time…right

I had been holding off delegating this phone call to my husband for a couple reasons.

I’m usually the one that handles that kind of stuff. I knew what to say to explain my problem to the phone guy. I know what I needed him to change and why it wasn’t working, and it would take time for me to explain it to my husband. Plus he might still need to come ask me follow up questions, which would interrupt me and it would just be easier if i did it myself.

How to get more comfortable delegating as a high achiever

We talked a couple weeks ago on the podcast about how our brains focus on the short term.

How the short term benefits and consequences of an action take priority for your brain. Because that’s where the emotional centres of our brain focus.

Delegating this task in the short term is going to make me feel stressed, overwhelmed, like i have to do more work to delegate, and this doesn’t feel good for our brains.

But if we can shift that focus, get our brains to focus on the long term benefits, it can reverse our brain’s default responses of trying to do it all ourselves.

That’s where I needed to focus my brain so I could feel more comfortable taking that should off my list. So I could resist my default of just wanting to control everything and do it all myself.

Right now my brain was focused on the short term.

in the short term it was easier for my brain to do it myself. Just to make the call, even though it made me feel resentful and cranky, even though it meant giving up time I could have spent elsewhere, even though it meant in the long run I'm going to find myself in the same place next time something like this comes across my plate.

Instead I focused my brain on the long term benefits and consequences. Long term benefit of delegating this to my husband = next time he can do it himself! I save time for other things. I’m not the only person that can do this stuff.

Long term consequences of just doing it myself = I stay frustrated, my to-do list just grows, and i’m the only one who can deal with our utilities, which isn’t helpful for me or my family

Here’s what I did next - I took a couple minutes and wrote down simple instructions he’d need to make the call. Passwords and contact info he’d need. And clearly explained what I wanted as the outcome of the call.

We spent a couple minutes reviewing it, then he sat on hold for 2.5 hours with the phone company, not me.

I did still have to jump on at the end to fix the tech issue, but I saved myself at least two hours. And now he knows what to do next time (and I know he can totally handle it).

Plus I didn't have to sit and stew, or procrastinate more before I finally got it done.

Bonus episode resources

This episode is brought to you by my free workbook - Your Insider’s Guide to Stop Procrastinating. In this workbook I share 5 questions and 4 simple strategies you can start using today to get out of that cycle of waiting for the “perfect” time to start, and hesitating to take action towards your goal. Click here to get your copy

Episode takeaways

Our brains all have go to, default responses.

When we’re under stress or pressure - like when we have a packed schedule, when something unexpected comes up, or when we’re feeling pressured to squeeze it all in, that default is your brain’s first response.

And most of the go to responses our brains have learned were designed to help us in the short term. To make us feel more comfortable. To avoid the scary, or hard, or uncertain thing.

But in the long run in our modern world, when we’re stuck in those default responses like perfectionism, people pleasing, and procrastination, it takes a toll on our minds, our bodies, and our productivity.

To get out of this default, practice training your brain to focus on the long game. Not the immediate benefit you get from trying to do it all yourself, but the long term benefit for yourself, your team, your family, and your to-do list when you learn to take those shoulds off the to-do list

Show Highlights

[02:17] - Our brains get stuck in the three enemies of productivity.

[02:36] - A mental habit of mine is to take on too much.

[03:19] - I’ve been overwhelmed lately with so much going on.

[04:49] - When I’m overwhelmed, my brain isn’t good at delegating.

[05:41] - When we do everything ourselves, we risk becoming resentful.

[06:40] - We need to focus on the long-term.

[07:51] - What happened when I delegated a to-list item to someone else?

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