Trying to be Everything to Everybody
A major cause of stress for me is trying to do everything for everybody. If an instructor is absent I am often asked to cover for them. If a student group needs mentoring I volunteer. If a coworker needs help with putting together a lesson plan I am there to help them. This module will instrumental in helping me to prioritize which tasks and requests are most important and doable according to the time that I have available.
Priotizing does help--but doing so much can be "burnout". I have done something like this in the past--it was great to help others especially no one was offering to assist--so I would do it. but later I was getting tired, and I had to learn to say 'no" but doing it politely versus getting angry or stressed.
People tend to take advantage--and I felt that--so I had to learn to cut back. I was wondering was I beingappreciated for helping out--I want to believe I was-but one never knows.
I practice saying NO, because I was getting stressed out by helping everyone. And, yet no one would help me out when I was in a bind. People do take advantage and you have to learn to cut back.
Donna, Sometimes it is important to push back. We can't possibly accept all tasks, especially when they come in all at once. I recommend delegating tasks too - passing them through you and on to others who may have more bandwidth.
Dr. Melissa Read
Patricia, You bring up a really great point. We've got to make sure we are balanced in work and life so that we don't burn out in the end. Pacing yourself is the key to long term contributions.
Dr. Melissa Read
I have met other instructors who have hit the "burn out" and I am waiting for mine to hit. We currently have no other instructors teaching in my department so I teach all the classes - meaning the day class AND the night class. I also have an 8-year-old, a 6-year-old, and a 2-year-old AND my husband is deployed to Afghanistan......yes I am waiting for the eruption any day now....
Oh my!!! With young children and a husband in the armed forces--God Bless you! Your doing so much. I wish you well and try to take it easy--its easy to "say" but "doing" is another word. I work 4 days till 10pm and friday just 4 hours, but when the weekend comes-family don't understand how tired I am and I don't want to be in my car at all...But I am sure your family is helping you in this time of being both mom and dad.
My hats off to you! With a household, a child and a full career (2 jobs), I know the feeling, especially how my daughter doesn't understand how tired mom is, and it's not her fault at her age to demand her needs be met. Hang in there. There are many of us that are keeping the world spinning! Stressful yes, but someone's gotta make up for all the slackers!
By trying to be a teacher, an advisor, a loving parent, a faiithful friend and a devoted spouse all at the same time, an individual sets himself up to becoming totally stressed, and even possibly physically sick and totally ineffective at whatever goals they are trying to accomplish. There are only so many hours in each day and in order to be most effective and efficient, we need to take time for ourselves first and learn to prioritize everything else.
I agree that you can not be every thing to every body.
There is nothing wrong with helping people, but when you start to harm your own health. that's when it's time to stop. Personally, I have a rule that I use for several things.. If taking on an additional task is something that may keep me up at night, then I don't do it!
A major stress for me is to also try to please everyone. I often put people before my thoughts.I want all of my students to be a success so it is very hard when I have students who dont care or they are in the werong field.
Doing things for Everybody is Me!! I have many responsibilities to family including children, husband and parents. I also find that I am asked by many students that are not even in my class for help with things. I also find that sometimes there are students with more needs then others and therefore I am very busy during classtime. I feel the need ot teach things in different ways to better help the students which also gives me more stress and work. When this is happening I try to keep a few things in mind. First is priority- what needs to be done now and what I can wait on a little. I also know that I need a little time sometimes to hangout with my kids, family, husband, etc. at least once a week. I also keep in mind the quarter is only 12 weeks and there will be a break coming soon....lol
Trying to be everything to everybody will and can stress you out. The only thing that you can do for everybody is love them and be honest.
I agree, we cannot be everything to everyone and the sooner we realize this the better off we are. If you always have been there and then cannot people tend to get upset and resentful. I have learned not to take on other people work and their stress. if I can assist I do, if I cannot I say no and let it be. If someone is going to get upset I cannot help that, I can only help myself by not creating extra stress in my life.
I am often the one to volunteer for just about every thing. I need to learn that it is ok to just simply do my job and only my job once in a while.
I have been told that I need to learn to say no to additional tasks. I am a person that tries to help in any way possible, with the belief that it comes back to me in many ways.
I have slowly learned how to say no, but not every time. It is crucial to learn how to let people know you are unable to assist them every time they need help. Some people are quicker than others to learn to do this as well as the person asking learning to do things for themselves.
Sharon, Saying 'No' can be tough, and stressful in itself. Many of us are 'yes people.' We try to take on everything in both our work and personal lives. The challenge is that each time we say 'Yes' to a new task, we limit the amount of time we have to spend on all those we've taken on. Sometimes we are more effective when we turn down some tasks to do a better job on others.
Dr. Melissa Read
