Celebrating All That We Don’t Do On International Women’s Day

Using intention to get more done without doing it all.

It has been almost a month since my last Substack publication and this was on purpose. My word of the year for 2025 is ‘intention’ and I am proud to say I have been true to it. I use it as my North Star to guide me to do only what aligns with my values. Things that were important to me but were still lingering from last year have been prioritized and goals for this year have been set. This first quarter has been a success, but I intentionally did not ‘handle it all’.

For generations, women have been praised for being able to handle it all. When we are recognized for it, that reward often comes with mixed emotions of pride and grief. We are grateful that our accomplishments have been noticed but grieve all that we have given up in order to achieve those goals. Being able to ‘handle it all’ is not sustainable though and comes at a cost to our well being. We suffer from fatigue and burnout and we tend to hide it so we do not tarnish our polished reputation of being strong women.

In my married life I fell into a role of doing it all as a result of letting him decide what tasks he wanted to take. Then, I’d pick up the slack. (He did the laundry and washed our cars to give some insight as to what was left on our weekly To Do List) I don’t recall making a conscious choice to be the one who would run the household – it just happened. Without even realizing it, I was overextending myself and enabling co-dependency. I was juggling many balls in the air without dropping any. I was everything to everybody, but I was abandoning myself in the process. My busyness became my blind spot.

My therapist Diane encouraged me to put on the oxygen mask. She reminded me that I must take care of myself before I can take care of anyone else, just like the oxygen mask on an aircraft. I was forced to take note of where I had failed to honour myself and where I was not meeting my own needs. This list was incredibly painful to make. I had to stop and start this daunting task over several months. I’d walk away from it, then come back to it. Repeatedly. Looking at the gaps in list form was like looking in a mirror.

Right there staring back at me was the description of the women I was born to be.

I felt apologetic to her for not fulfilling her needs over the years. She wanted to take courses. She wanted to feel more aligned with her feminine energy. She wanted to free herself of the narcissitic abuse her mother inflicted upon her. She wanted to heal from loss. She wanted to read more. She wanted to write. But she felt like a caged animal, adapting to her environment and co-exisitng with a partner, without a partnership. I also learned in that exercise that my over generosity in some situations was controlling what people thought of me, thus making others responsible for my self worth. Mind. Altering. I realized I was seeking validation from external sources and had muted my ability to stay in my heart. When I allow my generosity to come from love, it aligns with my core values. (and it feels like yellow!) I have since reclaimed my energy by creating healthy boundaries and setting powerful intentions.

I didn’t do it all but I did enough and I completed tasks that were of importance to me. I am finishing up a course to support in furthering my career, I created some home renovations plans for the summer and went into high focus mode with work the last few months. I feel good about all that has been done, but I do not feel burned out because I went into this with intent. That being said though, this next quarter is going to be about rest and play. I am turning fifty in April and will be celebrating with my childhood girlfriends in the Domincan in May – I cannot WAIT for that trip. I have a few weekend getaways planned, some catch ups scheduled with people I was unable to see lately, a “To Be Read” book pile awaits me on my nightstand and there are a few topic ideas orbiting around me for future Substack posts. I will be as intentional about that list as I have been about the tasks I have accomplished so far this year. This concentration of energy does not mean I am ‘doing it all’ though. I will focus on all that aligns with my true self and give myself permission to stop over committing. I have the power to do more by doing less and although I still struggle with limiting beliefs, I have been able to reign in my over generosities. I am definitely juggling less these days.

On this International Women’s Day, I applaud everyone who is no longer ‘doing it all’. To those who are, I see you. I encourage you to take Diane’s advice and put on the oxygen mask. Go ahead and set some of the balls down. Or let them drop. Intend to pick them back up later - or not. We can delegate then celebrate!

Celebrating us all. Cheers, ladies. xo

Photo by Antonino Visalli on Unsplash