Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
The Durable Dad podcast gives men the skills and tools they need to be rock solid for their family, their work and their community.
Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
070: Confront your Exhaustion
One dad told me, “I wake up at 4:57 each morning, put on my pants, and go nonstop until 9pm when I watch 30 minutes of Netflix and crash. Then I wake up and do it again.”
And I think 99% of dads can relate.
The list of todos is exhausting. At least some days.
That feeling’s not going to go away unless we make a few changes.
The first is to take ownership of our situation. There is no “have to,” or “I got dragged into it.” We’re there by choice.
The second is to learn why we say yes to too many things.
This week’s episode will pose several powerful questions to help you uncover the root of your exhaustion so you can create more space in your life.
This is the Durable Dad Podcast. I'm your host, tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. All right, what's up? Episode number 69. What's happening today?
Speaker 1:You know some of the subjects that I talk about on here, the topics that I bring. It's just funny how I hear it in one place, maybe in a coaching session with a guy. Then I listen to a podcast and the same thing comes up. I think that men are all very similar to each other, maybe not externally, where we live, what we look like, but internally we operate very similarly and we have the same struggles and the same issues. And when I talk about this stuff on the podcast, I'm hoping that it relates to you because of that, because I hear the same thing over and over and just kind of distill it in a way that you can take something from, create some self-awareness inside of you and then change.
Speaker 1:And in this episode, what I want to talk about is being overwhelmed and being exhausted and planning too much and stressing yourself out. I was talking to a guy last week and he said he wanted more margin in his life and was just feeling really exhausted. He felt like he wakes up in the morning, puts his pants on and then just goes all day until nine o'clock. When he stops, he watches Netflix for a half hour and then passes out for the night, just to wake up and do it again the next morning. So when this happens to us, when we start filling our schedules and feel like we're just going bell to bell and not having that time for ourself to do what we want to do, to just recharge a little bit, the first thing we have to do is take ownership. I talked about this on a couple episodes ago.
Speaker 1:If you're super busy, you have chosen to be super busy. You have said yes to things, and this isn't to shame yourself, it's just to take ownership. Step out of the victim mode that I have too much to do. People need me all the time. There's always something happening at work. You have ownership over your life. You get to choose what you say yes to, what you say no to. So there's exploration in there and sometimes when we just ask that question how am I being complicit to this experience, the activity that I'm doing? I was about to say obligation, but it's not an obligation if you're saying yes to it. So how am I complicit to it? Let's say you're going to your in-laws or your brother-in-law and sister-in-law this is something that I was talking to someone about and you're there and you're just not wanting to be there and you wish you were doing something else and you got dragged there. Okay, pause, I chose to be here. I said yes, why? Why did I say yes to being here? And if you can find a reason that inspires you and find a reason that helps you see that you do really want to be there, then that creates a more enjoyable experience for you.
Speaker 1:So this guy that I was talking to, he was at his brother-in-law's place and he really didn't want to be there. And, as we're talking about it, he's like well, I do want to be there because it means a lot to my wife and maybe that's a little people pleasing, but there's some people in our life that we do want to please and in this case, he did. He wanted to be there because she's there for him at his family events as well, and his brother-in-law and his sister-in-law he really does care for them. They have awesome conversations and he likes spending time with them. He wants to know what's happening in their life. This get together was a little bigger so he couldn't have these one-on-one personal conversations and that's really why he didn't want to be there. But underneath he did. He cared about those people. He wanted to show up to show that he did care and it is important to him. So maybe that obligation doesn't feel like an obligation as much. And that's one trick right Find ownership why you're choosing to be there. And if you can't find a reason, if you really can't find that internal yes, I want to be there, then there's more exploration to do.
Speaker 1:And one reason we will get into this situation in life or we've been overwhelmed for a long time and our schedule is always packed and we're always running around doing something, getting something done is that we don't want to let other people down, or we want other people to accept us, to think highly of us and this is people pleasing and we want other people to like us. And we do this because we have this deep-seated fear in our DNA that we might not belong, or we have this deep-seated desire to belong, to belong to the pack, to have other people like us and enjoy us. So we have this tendency to say yes to a lot of things, to not let people down, to get people to think highly of us. But what ends up happening when we say yes to these things that we don't really want to say yes to is we have this huge to-do list, we have this huge calendar and we don't get everything done and we feel overwhelmed, we feel anxious most of the time. Then we actually do let someone else down, and if that person's going to talk shit about us or think differently of us, we can't help that. That's not something we can manage, but we're trying to manage that.
Speaker 1:And then the other person you start letting down is yourself. You put on all these things on your schedule and you don't get them all done. Usually, the last ones on the list to get done are the ones that are most important to you, are the ones to take care of your health or to just chill and hang out with your family. Usually those get put to the bottom and then you beat yourself up. You tell yourself that I'm not doing enough. I should be doing better, I should be doing more, I should be working out more, I should be spending more time with my family. So it's this cycle that perpetuates itself. All right, so that's a problem that we create. Let's take ownership.
Speaker 1:We're saying yes to these things and we want to get curious about why we're saying yes. And in order to get to the root cause, you've got to be curious about yourself. Some of the questions that you can start asking yourself when did you start feeling overwhelmed or exhausted? When did you start over planning things and overworking, and how long have you been doing it? For more tasks? Did you sign up for more things? Did you say yes to more things?
Speaker 1:Answering those questions will bring some self-awareness to how you're creating this in your life. And then a really interesting question to ask yourself is how does that feeling serve you, that feeling of overwhelm, that feeling of overworking? How does it serve you? And the answer to that question will definitely start creating that self-awareness. That's the first step to making change. But as you're asking yourself these questions, you'll start to embody what it feels like to feel overwhelmed, and by embody I mean feel Like overwhelm feels fast in your body, maybe anxious, nervous, tight in your chest, hard in your neck, your brain spinning. You'll start to become aware of that state and when you ask that question how does that feeling serve you? Usually you'll get to the emotion that's underneath. Serve you. Usually you'll get to the emotion that's underneath and that could be that fear of being lonely, that fear of being left out, that fear of letting people down.
Speaker 1:And I just said fear a bunch, because so many of the decisions we make are trying to avoid feeling afraid. So many of the decisions we make are based on fear, and that's probably another podcast. But what we want to do is, instead of thinking do I want to do this or not, is we want to feel, do I want to do this or not? Is my body saying yes to this or is my body putting up some defense, starting to already feel overwhelmed before I say yes, if my system is already being overloaded? That's not a full body. Yes, a full body, yes, feels like excitement, it feels like openness, some warmth, maybe momentum moving forward, not a wall.
Speaker 1:So, to wrap this up, if you're overstressed, if you're exhausted and it's a pattern in your life you got to ask yourself how am I being complicit to this? Take ownership and then get curious. Am I trying to avoid a certain emotion? Am I trying to please other people? How long has this been going on Create some self-awareness Do I continue taking on more things? That self-awareness will start to change your decision-making process and then maybe you create a filter what are the most important things in your life? And you run every decision through that filter. My immediate family, I want to have tighter relationships my physical health, my mental health, my finances those are the most important things. Run every decision through a filter.
Speaker 1:So if you want to get curious about how you're complicit in creating the stress and the exhaustion, set up a strategy session with me. They're free. They're 45 minutes. We have a conversation about getting over these obstacles we create in our life and start making time to hit the goals that really mean something to us. So go to the durable dadcom. You'll set up a time and we can dive a little deeper into this. All right, that's what I got. Have an awesome day and I'll catch you next time.
