“Doing our best has limits,” says Richard Swenson, author of Margins. “Our rush toward excellence in one quadrant of life must not be permitted to cause destruction in another.” Those who go “all out” for success in one area – even writing – risk failure in other important areas of life.

The tug of war happens when we are trying to be excellent in so many roles: writers, parenting children and grandchildren, caring for elderly parents, neighbors, church members, and more. It can be overwhelming!

From Stuck to Unstuck

The sense of being overwhelmed can quickly solidify into being stuck. We want to get off the merry-go-round, but we feel stymied in our attempts to do so. We often can’t see the forest for the trees. Enter a lovely little book called Simple Acts of Moving Forward: 60 Suggestions for Getting Unstuck by Vinita Hampton Wright. As she says, when you have too many things on your plate, “Sometimes you have to give yourself permission to just not care so much about how something will turn out.”

It’s all right to set your own priorities. It’s all right not to care about some things–no matter WHO thinks you should (including me). Why? Because if you care deeply about everything, you’ll burn out now and live an exhausted life.

And exhausted writers have a terrible time writing.

All on Your Shoulders?

Often we feel like everything is up to us. Sometimes, though, it really isn’t. Even with those projects or jobs that are totally up to you, they may not really need to be done (like kids’ big birthday parties.) Or they can be done with help (like moving it to a McDonalds Play Place). Only you can decide what things really matter to you.

As Ms. Wright says, “You can decide what is most important, what is next in importance, what you can take or leave, and what has nothing to do with you. Others may think you should care, but it’s not their job to decide what your priorities should be.” (This includes your writing! NO ONE else gets to decide where it belongs on your list of priorities!)

What To Do

What can you do if you’re sinking under responsibilities that choke out your writing time? Ms. Wright advises, “If you are overwhelmed, find one thing to stop caring about and stop caring right now.“

I have some things I need to stop caring about, and some things I can stop caring so much about. For example, this week I wrote up the minutes of a meeting at church, but there was no need to take 90 minutes to do it. Proofreading is one thing, but revising and rewording things several times was a waste of what could have been writing time.

A few years ago, I had to stop caring so much about family dinners for the holidays. Living on the farm in Iowa, everything was homemade from scratch, and much of what we ate was also homegrown. Moving to a city down south, and getting older, meant those cooked-from-scratch meals for the extended family were taking more time than I wanted to give at the holidays. The change was hard, but now I have no problem fixing huge frozen lasagnas from Costco’s!

Whatever!

Most of all, we probably need to stop caring so much what people think about us: about how we look, about our choices in life, about our political opinions, about what we want to write, and where we set our priorities. And we need to care a lot less about other people’s opinions and preferences, and learn to live and let live a bit more.

Certainly, you want to care deeply about certain things. But caring deeply about everything–about things that don’t warrant it–will rob you of precious energy needed for your true desires. And, hopefully, one of those desires is pursuing your writing dream.