Biting off Too Much of the Opportunity Sandwich

Your Personal Prioritizing Wikihow

Jul 30, 2024

A blond curly haired woman with brown glasses, overwhelmed and frowning, surrounded by floating lists

Created with Night Cafe by Author

Picture this.

This last month you’ve smashed the threshold on your goals, going all out. You’ve made it two chapters into your book, you’ve gotten call backs at your local community theatre, and you’re being considered for promotion at your 9 to 5.

You’re on the up and up. It’s as if you’ve studied hard for life and you’ve received a shinty A++ back on your productivity test.

With all of your other goals going off without a hitch, adding one or two things won’t be an issue right?

Now, you’re going to the gym daily.

You paid $300 for an online masterclass. Nothing could go wrong with investing in yourself.

Before you even blinked, everyday you’re:

practicing your script for an hour the play is tomorrow, you haven’t memorized five scenes

writing chapter three just isn’t right, neither is chapter four

working out for two hours you aimlessly walk around the gym, confused on where to start

burning the midnight oil for that promotion at work easy projects have never taken so much energy

working for hours to get through your new class you can’t remember why you started but you have to finish

In stressing to keep up with your race of productivity you forget your running shoes and water. You forget to prepare for each activity, working out with no routine or change, never reflecting on the work you do for your class.

Your A++ in life is burning up with your smoking brain, everyday you wake up exhausted. Dreading the dreams you once loved.

I’ve been the person in this picture many many times. Surrounded by the ecstasy of opportunity, I reached and reached until I couldn’t pick anymore goals. After maybe a week I found myself on the fast track to burnout, unable to keep up with the demands of the activities I saddled myself with.

Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of self confidence and spite to go around, I’m sure that alone I would dedicate myself to the success of each of my goals. Yet together, it’s bitting off more than I can chew.

I fizzled out an exhaustion taking over the excitement I felt. Where’d it all go wrong?

Let’s talk about it.

Burnout: The One-Sided Scale

Burnout is a globally recognized medical term for occupational exhaustion, when cynicism replaces the value and motivation of one’s work in professional or personal spheres.

In the competitive race of life and work you can lose the meaning of what you’re working towards. Your dream tragically shifts into any other task.

Burnout is like a swarm of angry hornets swooping down at you. It causes many symptoms across mental, emotional, and physical spheres.

Motivation burns an all time low
Exhaustion takes hold
Isolation becomes enticing
The sick bug becomes a frequent visitor
And more

Your Personal Wiki-How on Prioritizing

STOP HERE! Take a minute.

Write down the activities you’ve been doing frequently on the top of a piece of paper.

Now on the other half, write down your goals. Using the goal-side as a guide (that rhymed!), circle the activities that coincide with each goals!

Like this:

Cross out any activities that aren’t circled. Here’s the last step:

Number those activities from 1-10 on how important they are to you, how much you value them.

This is one way to set priorities. Priorities are a great preventative, they keep you from getting overwhelmed. Say, Marco had to write a research paper.

He needed to write 10 pages, research his topic, pick a topic, come up with a thesis, and the list goes on. Thinking about all of that stuff at once is overwhelming and Marco gets stuck in decision paralysis. He doesn’t know where to start when everything needs to be done.

By ranking the tasks needed for his goal, Marco gives himself a starting point, and makes strides from there. Priorities align us with our short-term and long-term goals. They allow us to focus on the values, the mission, of our work and why it’s important.

It is the first defense against burnout, organizing tasks, aligning with our goals, and finding the beauty in the first simple step forward.

Let’s take steps toward our dreams and have fun while we’re doing it! The destination is that much more rewarding when we find joy in the journey.

What are your priorities? Let’s share together in the comments!

Resources to Learn More about Burn Out

I plan to do a far more in-depth look at burn out and my personal story with it. I’ll come back here to link it once it’s posted :)

Conquering Burnout by
Jani Konjedic
dic is dedicated to the study of well-being and burnout awareness. He has an extensive 3-year archive of well-written information and updates frequently. Highly recommend checking him out!
How Social Media Ruins Your Mental Health is a post by
Sophie S.
, a friend of mine here on Substack and the author of This is Sophie Today. Sophie relates her experiences with Social Media and how it has affected her and how it affects you. Amazing read about mental well-being. Check it out!

Thanks for reading today everyone! I hope this post was helpful. I plan to go more in-depth in the future, but here’s the information I had the chance to learn about now. As always, reach out if you have feedback and comment to start conversation around burnout and mental well-being. I love reading and replying to every reply!

See you on Sunday for Sunday Spotlight!

Until next teatime,

Kate