Tuesday Tidbits :: On Overachievers

I guess you could say I'm somewhat of an overachiever. I blame my mother for this.

When I was in high school, she encouraged me to go out for every club, write for every publication and enter every contest. All that while she would say, "Only a 98? What happened to the other two points?" She was teasing about that, of course. At least I think she was.

So, naturally, I continued overachieving in college. I was part of a Speaker's Bureau, two movie clubs and worked while going to school. And, still found time to attend classes and study. And, roller skate in the dance studio, but that's another story.

Fast forward many years later to today. Not much has changed as far as my desire to do too much. I seem to thrive on challenges. Not long ago, as if my schedule wasn't already busy enough, I took it upon myself to volunteer to host an Advance Screening for the movie "A Dog's Purpose". I suppose I can blame the author of the book the movie was based on and his screenwriter wife for putting me on this super-secret Facebook book club page. After all, I never would have known about the Advance Screening if it wasn't for that. But, I didn't stop there. Oh, no. I had a great idea to create the Bow Wow Bash...both events benefiting Special Pals Shelter. It sounded like a good idea and an awesome cause. Never mind that I had never planned an event like this before...let alone two simultaneously.

In order to do the best job I could on this, I did what any sane person would: I asked for help. I found several people as committed as I was to help put these things together and we ran with it.

The problem I've always had with being an overachiever is that I've never before asked for help. By taking on large challenges alone, I was over-stressing myself and probably wasn't as effective as I could have been had I learned this lesson back then.

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