Relaxing Into The Reality That You Can’t Do It All

Relaxing Into The Reality That You Can’t Do It All

A month ago I launched a Mother's Day campaign offering free coaching to working mothers. I was fired up. I did my first ever Instagram video. I had follow-up posts planned. I was ready.

And then life happened, as it always does.

Work deadlines piled up. Home got busy and intense. My kids needed me more than usual, physically and emotionally. And just like that, every follow-up post disappeared. My capacity for creativity dried up. I went quiet on LinkedIn. I went quiet on Instagram. I had all but vanished.

And then came the voice. Who do you think you are, trying to support overwhelmed working mothers, when you can't even hold it together yourself?

I shared this with my good friend and colleague Carmel Brennan. I told her I felt like an imposter. She didn't let me stay there long. She said: "That's exactly why you can do this work. You're living it authentically. You get it."

That grounded me. It didn't magically free up my schedule or get the posts written, but it grounded me.

So I've spent the last few weeks reflecting. Here's where I've landed.

We live in a world that loves to measure things. Follower counts. Post engagement. Revenue. Productivity. But the things that actually matter? They don't come with a scorecard. Am I present for my kids when they need me? Is my relationship with my husband still in a good place? Is the work I'm doing meaningful? You won't find those metrics on any dashboard.

Here's what I kept coming back to: our capacity is finite. Our time, our energy, our attention, all of it, is limited. But the demands on that capacity? Infinite. Family. Work. Ambitions. Obligations. They keep expanding. We don't.

The problem was never that I didn't have enough time. It's that I kept believing I should be able to do more with the time I had, and it’s not humanly possible.

As a chronic list-maker and planner, I make the same mistake on repeat.  I genuinely believe I can fit more in than I can. And when I can't, the frustration kicks in. The feeling of spinning plates. Of not achieving. And underneath all of that? The quiet lie I kept telling myself, that with the right system, the right schedule, the right effort, I could do it all without dropping a single ball.

I couldn't. Nobody can.

The Reverse Golden Rule

This is the part where we talk about self-compassion. I know that many people struggle with this phrase and it makes a lot of people's eyes glaze over. So let me offer an alternative way to think about it that helped me.

The philosopher Iddo Landau calls it the Reverse Golden Rule. Instead of "treat others as you would like to be treated" - flip it: don't treat yourself worse than you would treat other people. Think about how you'd speak to a friend who was exhausted and overwhelmed and falling behind. You would never speak to her the way you speak to yourself.  

Self compassion gets all sorts of trigger responses from people, but framing it this way, all I'm asking of myself, and of you, is the same basic decency we already give freely to everyone else.

A Good Life Isn’t Measured by Productivity

The hard truth is that you will never get to do all the things. Not because you're failing. Not because you haven't found the right productivity hack. But because you are a human being with a finite life, and the things worth doing will always outrun the time you have. That's not a problem to solve. It's a reality to relax into.

I'm ambitious. There's still so much I want to build and create and do. But I'm learning, slowly and imperfectly, that I can be ambitious and present. What I can't do is fight my own humanity.

This past month I wasn't as "productive" as I'd planned. But I was present for my kids when they needed me. I did meaningful work. I started coaching some incredible women who are doing the hard thing every single day. And I stayed connected to the people who matter most to me.

When someone asks me how the business is going, my answer is: I'm exactly where I need to be.

A good life isn't measured by productivity. It's measured by presence, meaning, and connection.

You go through every day making choices, consciously or not. When you get clear on what you actually value, the weight of everything you're not doing gets a whole lot lighter.

I work with working parents who are doing it all and quietly running on empty. If that's you, or someone you know, reach out. No pitch, no pressure. Just a conversation. And if you'd like support but aren't sure where to start, sharing this post with someone in your life who needs to hear it today is a great place to begin.