I'm OVER overachieving

Today, I was nursing my baby to sleep. He’s 8 months old, and he needs me to help him fall asleep sometimes. Especially when I’ve been away for a couple of hours and he’s missed out on Mommy-time.

While I was rocking, I closed my eyes for a bit to relax since I’d already been up once in the night to feed him and then again early in the morning to start the day and see my husband and daughter off to work and school.

My brain was going a mile a minute — it’s rare that I can just sit and be still or quiet either physically or mentally — and I was thinking of my list of to-dos waiting for me at my desk.

I teach online high school English for my state’s virtual high school. I’m also getting ready to teach two Internet sections of freshman composition to students enrolled at one of my local community colleges. I have grading and syllabus creation waiting for me. I’m also planning my daughter’s 9th birthday, thinking of the observations I need to do for the teachers I supervise, figuring out how I’m going to eat my lunch while accomplishing at least one major task so that I make the most of my time, and worrying about blog posts that I still haven’t finished.

I start thinking about how cool it would be to become full time faculty at the community college. My brain starts moving in a million directions thinking about how I could maybe find an online PhD program. I start doing the math — when will our last baby (who doesn’t even exist yet) be old enough for me to be away from him or her? What time of day would be best for me to be gone? Who could I ask to watch the kids while I hurry between classes and office hours?

Then, my baby sighed. And that itty bitty little piece of my brain that knows better started screaming, “LYDIA — STOP IT!”

With every job that I’ve ever had, I have been an overachiever.

I don’t do well sitting idly by while others take care of business. I like to jump in, help out, get my hands dirty, and get the job done.

When I taught at the high school in a face-to-face environment, I advised several clubs. I was the department chair. I was the new teacher coordinator. I participated as a member of several committees.

Even when I was in college and working for the bank, I offered to do extra for the job because I just enjoyed staying busy. It’s like there’s some weird illness in me that pushes me to work harder, do more, keep striving to move up.

I’m an overachiever.

And when I continuously overachieve, other things go by the wayside.

My kitchen gets messy. My children get fussy because I’m not paying attention to them. My husband and I feel like we’ve never seen each other. My to-do list gets longer and longer. My health starts slipping.

As I rocked my baby and my brain started moving at its normal too-quick pace, I had an epiphany. I am OVER overachieving.

For too many years, I have worked so hard for everyone else. And now, I have two huge jobs that continue to be put on the back burner: wife and mother.

This is where I should be pushing myself to be the best. This is where I should be exponentially more awesome. Yet this is where I let things fall.

So, I’m OVER overachieving everywhere else. It’s time to put my extra time and energy where it belongs.

 

Tags: life, mother, overachieving, parenting, wife