Sound crazy? Does this bring up in you an immediate sense of defence? Thanks so much to Tamara Levitt of Calm for bringing this idea into my consciousness this morning during my meditation. It made so much sense to me. And especially being an over achiever.

Is Busyness Really an Addiction?

I’m going to articulate my experience as I understand it in the hope that you will in some way be able to relate and then learn from it without making the same mistakes I have. Being an athlete at a very early age, it forged in me the over achiever mindset. I HATED losing. I had to always win. Not at everything though – only the things that mattered to me. By the time I started my first job, I worked myself inside out. I remember I began as a check out girl at my local Big W store. I was so committed and wanted to do my best that in training I was so exuberant that I forgot to log in to the register as a trainee and ended up putting through goods as sales. I will never forget the humiliation of the narcissistic Supervisor as she laughed and tormented me in front of the others. I just wanted to do a good job. I only lasted 10 days’ though – her bullying wore me down pretty quickly. I also remember visiting that same store 6 years’ later when I was the Assistant State Manager of an insurance company and she was still there in the same job. That was a gratifying moment – one I saw as a win. My second job after Big W was Secretary to the Executive Committee at the University of Adelaide and Assistant Secretary to the Discipline of Anthropology. And again, I worked myself inside out. Long hours, looking for what I could get into instead of out of. I earned good money. However I ended up leaving Anthropology as the senior staff saw me as something else than a Secretary. Again, I was gutted. So I returned to study. Again, I worked myself into an early grave and survived on around $10 a week living at home. I HAD to win. So these early beginnings forged in me to be an over achiever, to be rewarded, congratulated, to strive, to win.

Fast forward to now and I prior to my injury last year, my to do list was never ending. I ALWAYS had a list on my desk that I just never got to the end of. I can remember years’ ago my upline telling me that it probably wasn’t serving me to aim so high so soon as I soon found myself in a spiral of disappointment for not hitting my self-imposed high targets, then becoming despondent, depressed and ultimately inconsistent. I HAD to get so many things done. So many trainings to get through. So many books to read. So many e-mails to review. Paperwork to get to the bottom of. I had to get it all done and get it done NOW! My sense of satisfaction and achievement depended on it. But then I paid the ultimate price for the constant rushing around and striving to get so many things done in such small time frames. The Universe spoke to me very clearly in sidelining me with my knee injury. It forced to reconsider, re-evaluate my choices and rest and think about how I’ve been living my life.

When I heard Tamara Levitt talk about busyness being an addiction I absolutely could not have agreed with her more. That was me for sure. But I notice this constantly in others. It seems that particularly with women, it has become a competition in itself to see who is the most busy and it’s crazy. It’s all relative at the end of the day. What is considered ‘busy’ to one person, isn’t to another. One Mum may say they are flat out with their kids’ and have no time for anything else. But then we can look at Elon Musk Founder of Tesla and Space-X, is the CEO for another 3 more companies, who has five children, divorced and manages to juggle it all just fine. That to me is a busy guy up to something. But it should never be a comparison contest. We are all on our own journeys. If I tell someone I don’t have the time for it right now, I mean it. I don’t feel the need to justify with explanations of what is going on in my life right now. Being ‘busy’ is a choice as with any addiction. It can be overcome with firstly being aware of it and secondly getting help.

Time management is a fallacy. No-one can manage time, but we can manage ourselves and our use of time. Saying no can be a very empowering thing. And telling people you are ‘too busy’ for something is not only condescending, it belittles other people’s interpretation of what being busy is. As I said, it’s different for everyone. No-one is too busy to reply to a text message or phonecall or e-mail. What it really is, is a priority. Is it a priority or not? When you change your language to that instead of ‘I’m too busy for that’, it can quite literally shift your mindset.

Society is fast these days. Everyone wants what they want yesterday. Technology has certainly played its part in that. We see it out on the roads – people are more impatient now than ever! You can choose to be forever ‘busy’ and then wake up one day and suddenly your kids’ are moving out and you wonder where all the years’ went or you can purposefully and deliberately structure your day to fit in everything that is important to you. It is up to you. You can be the person who is addicted to being busy, or you can choose to live your live on purpose, creating it the way you want to live it rather than being at the effect of it. It is up to you. I’m going to be bold here and say that any addiction is exactly that. It is a choice and usually addictions are a mask for something else going on that we are trying to escape from. Take the time today to really understand if you are addicted to that endless to do list or necessity to get so much done every day or does it really matter? This will affect your life in a very profound way and your relationships and results will be impacted. What is more important after all?