Feeling too busy all the time? Explore how to scale back and still feel like you’re doing enough.

If you called a family meeting together tomorrow and announced: I want to be less vital at work, less invested in the kids’ academic success, and have less-ambitious goals, they’d probably think you’d officially lost your mind.

Because in our always-striving culture, to not-strive resembles complacency. 

The problem is: the striving is killing us.

Enough is never enough. We sit through the classes, champion the projects, maybe even earn ourselves a spot at the table. But before we’ve even had a moment to enjoy our accomplishment, we’re pushed toward the next goal. Rewarded for efficiency, achievement takes over everything, including leisure.

My kids have a scratch-off National Parks poster in their bedrooms where they check off the parks as they visit them. Though well-intentioned, the underlying message is that the individual visit itself isn’t enough unless the entire list is completed in totality. The not-so-hidden meaning here is that the wonder of Yellowstone is short-lived because, so help us, our sights are on the whole goal.

This kind of endless striving is exhaustion masked as goal-setting. The world has convinced us that unless we pack our schedules, set big goals, and knock the far reaches of the world off our bucket lists, we are wasting our one and precious life. We buy into the notion that feeling stretched is just part of this season of life. That we’re supposed to feel this way or we aren’t doing enough.

What would enough look like in your life? 

For me, enough looks like: 

• Saying no to a job opportunity that doesn’t align with the family schedule I want, even if it would boost my bank account.

• Delaying kitchen and bathroom remodels in order to allocate those funds to a vacation budget.

• Choosing a less-expensive house because financial flexibility matters more than square footage.

• Declining three-night-a-week sports programs because family dinners together are the highest priority.

• Taking a year to travel in between jobs because experiencing the world means more than a perfectly-polished resume.

When you define what enough is, it’s easier to feel good striving less.

This doesn’t mean you lose your sense of ambition. Goal-setting itself isn’t the problem. It just means that you measure your achievement by something more meaningful than a packed calendar.