The word “overachiever” is more than a noun, it is a way of life. We are the ones who have school in the morning—filled with AP and Honor classes that we’re acing— athletics or academic activities after classes—where we’re either leaders or rising leaders—work in the evening, and homework late at night. Of course, then we also have family responsibilities, our own responsibilities, and we attempt to maintain a social life.
If you’re anything like me, after a couple of years of a hectic schedule being the norm, once summer comes around and there are little to no deadlines or “free time” you find yourself at a loss of what to do. There are only 24 hours in a day, but that doesn’t mean we can’t fill them all up, right? As long as we forget about sleep, we can keep saying yes to classes, to work hours, to musicals, to social events and family gatherings, to activities that will build up our resume.
This past October I found myself drowning in responsibilities I had said yes to. And I use the word “responsibilities” because they were all things I had accepted to participate in. I was taking 22 credits, including a musical that lasted from September to November, working in between classes, was Editor in Chief of my Odyssey Community, and at the end of a long day I had to come home and complete chores before I spent one to three hours finishing homework to land in bed at 2 am on average.
I found that everything was piling up with bigger and bigger deadlines and my work was beginning to take a hit from the stress and little time available to me. I was forced to sit down and dissect what was going on with my schedule.
My classes were the biggest part of my stress because of how much I was getting. One class in particular had me watching seven hours of videos per week. Even though this was the more difficult part of my schedule, I couldn’t withdraw or choose not to do my homework as I still wanted the highest grade possible. After that, my biggest time commitment was the musical I was involved in because I had to practice outside of rehearsal. Again, this was not something I could stop because not only was I a lead but it was also an activity that helped me forget about the stress I had. The problem with my work was the hours, not the workload itself, but because it’s an office job and I had already chosen the best hours to fit my schedule it was a moot point.
After looking through the rest of my schedule, I found that the only responsibility that I could temporarily say no to was Odyssey. After contacting my team’s managing editor and discussing my schedule, I was fortunately given the chance to take a pause from Odyssey until my schedule worked out for me.
It had been really difficult to admit that I had taken on too much and that I couldn’t handle it. I assumed that the moment I said no or asked for help I would be thought as a failure. Luckily, that’s not how it went. There was no neon sign declaring I wouldn’t be able to handle any stressful situation after this, I just had a bit more time to breathe.
Hopefully by reading this it helps people understand that saying “no” to something is not the end of the world and more often than not does not have the repercussions we believe it will have. Saying no, or even, not now, can save you huge stress and allow you to breathe a little easier.
