When To Know Your Limits before You Realize You’re Too Tired
A few years ago, I felt very tired a lot. I didn’t know what caused why I felt so tired. I couldn’t get my hands on it. That frustrated me a lot.
For a few years on a row, I did a lot of voluntary work which I spend a lot of time. I was with a lot of organisations at that time. I think about five or six.
I wanted to volunteer, and it was not because I wanted attention (that is the last thing I want, but people thought I would go for that — which is not true at all). It was because I think it is important to do something for our society, to do something for someone else. To help one another. And that’s what I want to learn my children too: to do something for one another in the community, help each other when others need to. I love to do that and I love to get to know people a little bit more.
At a sudden moment, I realized I was volunteering a lot, maybe too much, and I realized that volunteering drained my energy too instead of giving me the energy you should get from the things you love to do. It took a lot of my time. The time I also wanted to spend with my family.
So, I had to make decisions. I had to cut off organizations to make time for every beloved one in my life. It was a tough decision to make, as I loved all the organizations — including the people I worked with, but it was the right decision I made. I also realized I spent too much time doing voluntary work to be distracted from anything else I was doing.
I wanted to feel busy, I think. Anyhow, I’ve learnt a lot of new skills while I was volunteering and I never thought I could do these skills. At the other side, I learned a lot about myself too while volunteering.
It was fun exploring my possibilities. The things I will never regret I ever did. There are moments I could do things differently, but I never regret I did them. Even it was of learning from the situations. That is always good for you: to learn from what went wrong.
Too tired of voluntary work
I became tired of all the time I spent on doing voluntary work that much. I got too tired. I had to find the balance between my own time, time with my children and spouse and time with doing voluntary work. I think, by cutting down the organization that I couldn’t do that much for, I was creating space for my own well-being. I wouldn’t say I was too tired of doing voluntary work, I was just too tired I was doing too much voluntary work. That drove me nuts somehow. I had to find out what worked for me and what I truly loved to do.
I believe I didn’t know my limits when I said yes on everything that had to be done. I loved being busy for the organizations I loved so much. In fact, I loved all the organizations I volunteered for, but it also is tie-consuming a lot. I also wanted to do it well as others told me to do without me even realizing what I want to do or how I want to do it.
Now I know my limits before saying yes to do tasks. It is difficult, but it is worth it, the effort you make to say no when you can’t do it when you really don’t have any time.
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Agnes Laurens is a writer. She writes for the local newspaper. Agnes lives in Bunnik, The Netherlands, with her husband and three daughters.
Writing is — aside from playing the violin — one of her passions since childhood. She is on Twitter and Instagram.
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