I am forever and always juggling many balls. Work. Family. Volunteerism. Self-care. Hobbies. Living my convictions. Other pet projects.

And at any given time, I always feel like I’ve dropped at least one and temporarily forgotten about it (no matter how many balls I’m juggling.) And then I finally remember about the forgotten ball and think whoops!

In those moments, I remind myself I don’t have to be everything all at once, and I don’t have to be everything to everybody every second of every day.

I have always liked to keep busy and be involved, but as I know all too well, there is a fine line between being busy and drowning—a line I flirt with.

It has always been hard for me to say no, to not raise my hand and volunteer. But I also try not to raise my hand for more than I can put my whole heart and soul into. I don’t like to say yes to things where I know I can’t be fully committed or cannot give all my heart to. So I’ve learned and am learning to say no and not to raise my hand.

This feeling that I have to give 100% 100% of the time to everything I decide to engage and to everybody in is also not possible and leads to feelings of deep inadequacies.

I often feel I’ve let balls drop only to realize in actuality I’m still juggling them all and actually juggling them quite well. One ball might be close to falling, but upon closer inspection, I find it’s still there moving in time with the rest.

The feeling that I’ve completely dropped the ball is usually nothing more than my own flawed perception that I’ve failed or been found wanting. Best I can figure, it’s a lingering symptom of years of perfectionism.

On the one hand, it prevents me from saying yes to too many things (a good thing for me); on the other, it often leads me to feeling inadequate.

I suppose this will be my focus for the next decade (and it probably will take that long if not longer)—learning the happy medium of not saying yes to too many things and overcommitting while also realizing that good enough is good enough—that I don’t need to be 100% all the time to contribute.

Photo via Unsplash license and courtesy of Alexey Turenkov.