Are You A “Yes” Man?

by Dad of Divas on September 23, 2009

are you a yes man

Are you the type of person that will say “Yes” at the drop of the hat? Do you tend to over-commit yourself to things outside of your family? If so, you probably are a “Yes” man, and welcome to the club.

J-Mom and I have had many conversations about being over-committed, not only with work, but with outside activities. I fill my time outside of work not only with kids and family, but also with Rotary and church activities (I said yes to being on the church council).

So why do I have such a hard time saying no? I don’t exactly know why this is a problem. I think much of it goes down to being an experience junky. I love meeting new people and making a difference in the world around me. Now you may say that having my family and making a difference in their lives should be enough, and I know this, but I still find myself at times falling into this trap.

It also is not just in my out of work life where I do this. I also tend to over-commit in my work life as well. Now don’t get me wrong, I do accomplish my commitments, but I do tend to say yes more than I probably should!

So is there help for an over-commitment addict (as J-Mom would probably call me)? I did some research and found some great resources that I thought I would share with all of you (as I am not going to provide a top ten list of things you should do as I currently do not do them).

So do I think that I can change overnight? Not even slightly. Do I think that with hard work I could make this change? You bet I can. The biggest thing that I know I have to do is to actually do it… this will be the hardest thing for me. It is not that I do not want to be with my family…far from it. My family is my life, but also in my life as I have already mentioned, I crave interaction. I do not have a lot of friends that I do things with here where I live and these are ways for me to connect with people.

I also understand that I need to be fair to J-Mom to allow her to also have these opportunities and to do things for her as well so that she has an identity outside of being a mom. I think at times my over-commitment gets in the way of her ability to separate herself from her role as mom…which is not fair in the least.

So today I am looking for your advice

  • How do I get past this over-committed lifestyle with work and within my personal life?
  • How have you done it in your own life?
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tagged as: parenting, work life balance

About Dad of Divas

Chris Lewis (AKA - Dad of Divas) is a contributing writer to Building Camelot. He writes about his quest to regain control of his kingdom at Dad of Divas. Chris is a father of two divas. Each day he finds himself learning more and more of what it means to be both a father and a husband, and his writing is a tribute to this daily journey. Outside the divadom, Chris is a Student Affairs Administrator (College Administration), a field in which he has worked for the past 10 years with extensive experience in precollege planning, admission, advising, and other areas. Chris looks forward to sharing his experiences and thoughts with all of the readers of Building Camelot, and he welcomes and encourages feedback, questions and comments to his articles. You can check out his blog at: http://dadofdivas.blogspot.com or also follow Chris’ daily microblog updates on Twitter http://twitter.com/dadofdivas.

  • My current problem is having more ideas I want to try to execute on then available time. I'm trying to prioritize which projects have a fair chance of succeeding. It isn't easy, that is for sure.
  • Hi!

    Congratulations! Your readers have submitted and voted for your blog at The Daily Reviewer. We compiled an exclusive list of the Top 100 relationships Blogs, and we are glad to let you know that your blog was included! You can see it at http://thedailyreviewer.com/top/relationships

    You can claim your Top 100 Blogs Award here : http://thedailyreviewer.com/pages/badges/relati...

    P.S. This is a one-time notice to let you know your blog was included in one of our Top 100 Blog categories. You might get notices if you are listed in two or more categories.

    P.P.S. If for some reason you want your blog removed from our list, just send an email to angelina@thedailyreviewer.com with the subject line "REMOVE" and the link to your blog in the body of the message.

    Cheers!

    Angelina Mizaki
    Selection Committee President
    The Daily Reviewer
    http://thedailyreviewer.com
  • Dfiles
    I'm the same way, especially at work. And then I get all bent of out of shape when I feel like I'm shouldering too much, but it's my own fault.

    Sorry bud, no suggestions. I'm still struggling like you are.
  • jeffreylevine
    Thank you for bringing up this challenging problem. I'm sure most dads who also have careers are running into some version of this. What has worked for me is this metaphor: imagine your life is a vase that you are going to fill, with big rocks, little rocks, pebbles and sand. If you put the little rocks and sand in first, you wont have room for the big rocks. However, if you put the big rocks in first, you find that there are nooks and crannies that the little rocks, pebbles and sand can fit. So the trick is to determine the big rocks for you - mine were family time, wife time, being at my daughter's school events and helping with the homework. So I scheduled those times in my calendar and would never move them, unless absolutely necessary. From there, I could get an idea of what other items I could fit around them. In my work, I've found that this helps as well. Hope that's useful for you somehow, and good luck.
    Jeffrey
blog comments powered by Disqus

Previous post: Weekly Rountable: Your Manly Links for the Week

Next post: Plagiocephaly – The Case Of The Misshapen Head