So many of us, myself totally included, feel a need to be all things to all people, all of the time. I say that without judgment or emotion, as just an observation on how I operate. Maybe it is socialization, growing up in an era where we were taught, especially as women, that we could do it all and have it all and we set out to do that. Maybe it’s personality, being driven to achieve and compete and excel.

I don’t know that the roots matter as much as the behaviors and attitudes do. If something needs doing, we say “I can do it” and we pile it on the already heaping pile. Do we get it done? Of course we do and we push ourselves to whatever limit and beyond because that is what we have come to expect of ourselves. Again, not good or bad, just the truth.

We were watching a movie the other night and a character, a woman in her 40’s I would guess, discovered she was pregnant. She and her husband had several older children, a good relationship and stability and her career, after much effort, was on the rise. She was overwhelmed by the idea of another pregnancy and another newborn and what it would mean to her professional trajectory.

And the first thought, and I confess lingering thought, in my head was “Of course you can do it. Don’t be ridiculous.” And I thought about my own juggling of children and work and family.

But as I thought about both the situation, and my immediate reaction to it, I realized that maybe she was right and that I was wrong. Maybe setting the bar so high and giving everything we have to hit that bar, day after day, time after time, situation after situation, is not the right answer.

Maybe what we need to do is to do something we don’t often do—to think about what we want and what works for us. Maybe we need to decide what matters and focus on that and to hand off, and hand over, things that we don’t need to do, expectations that belong to someone else. Giving ourselves the freedom to say no—another way to fill our full hearts.