I Was Stuck in ‘Striving’ Busy

Striving Busy comes from the idea that there is a ‘perfect’ way to do life. If we can just deliver, it will show that we measure up and will provide the best life for us and those we love.

It leads us to set impossible standards, rather than being able to relax, have flexible standards or let go of less important things.

Striving Busy has us pushing past our limits when we’re tired, and feeling a nagging frustration when things aren’t the way we think they need to be.

Striving Busy has been a big one for me for as long as I can remember, and this week I wanted to share with you my own story about Striving Busy.

Some of this stuff is hard to be honest about and gives me that uncomfortable 'What if it's just me?' feeling. But, I also know that we can only move past some of this stuff by sharing our experiences.

So, I'll go first and share with you part of my story as I've been writing it in my book about busyness. At the end there's a link you can click to answer some quick questions about your own story if you'd like to.

Striving Busy

It landed with an unexpected jolt - the combination of a blow to the stomach and a light switch turning on.

We were swimming at the local pool when my youngest daughter saw a sign for ‘Recreational Swimming’ and asked what ‘recreation’ was. 

I heard my older daughter answer, ‘Recreation is when you do something for no purpose other than to enjoy it.’ 

If that’s how you define recreation, where was mine?

I did a mental scan. When did I ever do anything just for the sake of it?

Painting Hobby. Purpose: Create artwork that will ‘look good’ and provide something to put on the walls at home.

Walking. Purpose: Health and manage stress and weight.

Reading. Purpose: Fiction to wind down, but mostly non-fiction to learn something to add to life/professional skills.

That moment in the pool I realised that I didn't do ‘recreation’. 

Even as I was enjoying some fun with my kids, I was treading water to tick exercise off my list for the day.

My first (and defensive) instinct was to think that recreation was optional. It was for other people. It was not how you got things done. It was for people who didn't have as much on their plate as I did, or who didn't want to be on top of things.

But my skewed view of recreation wasn't the least of my problems with Striving Busy. 

When you expect a lot of yourself you also tend to expect a lot of others as well. Sadly, I would sometimes sense that husband was more relaxed when I’m wasn’t there with my schedule, my to do list and my high expectations. I’m happy to say we’ve grown a lot in recent years, but our conversations used to sound like this -

“I’m going to tidy up the kitchen. Can you go and talk to the kids about their day?’ 

It would be framed as a question, but not really a question, and without regard for whether he needed a few minutes to himself before he would feel ready to engage with the kids.

My ‘plan’ was for the kids to have some one-on-one parent time before the TV went on. All good in theory (and hard to argue with), but didn’t leave any room for him to have needs, much less a different idea of what would be ‘best’.

I wanted to feel like Tom was my partner, but a lot of the time I would treat him like an extension of my ability to get things done, or to make things the way I thought they ‘should be’. 

For me, Striving Busy also involved an element of pride and led me to an on-going battle with the elusive ‘Gold Standard’. 

My pattern has always been that I would imagine the very best version of whatever I was doing and then that would become my standard. I couldn’t let go unless I could get to the outcome I had in my mind. I would be restless with anything less, and become focused on the frustrating gap between how things were and how I wanted them to be.

The Gold Standard is great, for some things. For important things. But, as a general standard for everything you do day in, day out, it’s a recipe for stress, exhaustion and tension. It creates an atmosphere of scarcity and depletion because the reality is that there just isn't enough time or energy to go for gold with everything.

These Gold Standards came at a cost. They required constant busyness, and created exhaustion, inflexibility and zero margin to cope with the unexpected things that would inevitably come up. 

Thankfully I don’t spend as much time in Striving Busy as I used to, but it’s amazing how quickly I can be drawn straight back into the Striving zone in the right (or wrong!) circumstances. I have to be really aware and manage how I think and what I choose to focus on. 

How about you?

Is Striving Busy a big one for you? If so, how does it show up? I'd love if you could click here and let me know (even if you don't struggle with Striving Busy). Your input will help me understand what's really going on for women as I write Chapter 2 of my book about the 6 Busy Types