run my business successfully, to practice my religion, to care of my family and to take care of myself and I just can’t get it all done.”

It was very painful for him and difficult to admit it in public, but clearly this dominated his self-esteem. His obvious success in each of those areas was completely diminished and he had stopped trusting his own word.

He could quic

During my years as a radical I used to say (cynically) that what we really learned in elementary school was Fire Drill. We learned to stand quietly in line and walk in an orderly way (or else) and I always viewed this as teaching social conformity, as fitting in. Despite my mellowing, I still think this. And recently I’ve started looking at some other things we were taught in school other than the things we thought we were learning and how these things have translated into our adult behavior.

We were taught that we always have to finish things and that they always can be finished. We were taught that problems always have solutions. Starting in middle school, we were taught that we had to change our focus every hour and often several times within each hour. In high school we began to be taught that having our own thoughts or methods was deeply frowned upon.

Then we went out into the world to live our own lives and we discovered that things can’t always be finished, that most problems don’t have solutions, that we had to maintain our focus for long periods of time, that we had to think for ourselves. And because we were taught otherwise, we frequently don’t know how to relate to these circumstances. Then we blame ourselves and we think there’s something wrong with us.

I was recently leading a workshop on coaching with some other coaches and one of the participants said, “I don’t know how coaching can help this, but I don’t know how to get it all done. I try to do everything I have to do to run my business successfully, to practice my religion, to care of my family and to take care of myself and I just can’t get it all done.”

It was very painful for him and difficult to admit it in public, but clearly this dominated his self-esteem. His obvious success in each of those areas was completely diminished and he had stopped trusting his own word.

He could quick

ool other than the things we thought we were learning and how these things have translated into our adult behavior.

We were taught that we always have to finish things and that they always can be finished. We were taught that problems always have solutions. Starting in middle school, we were taught that we had to change our focus every hour and often several times within each hour. In high school we began to be taught that having our own thoughts or methods was deeply frowned upon.

Then we went out into the world to live our own lives and we discovered that things can’t always be finished, that most problems don’t have solutions, that we had to maintain our focus for long periods of time, that we had to think for ourselves. And because we were taught otherwise, we frequently don’t know how to relate to these circumstances. Then we blame ourselves and we think there’s something wrong with us.

I was recently leading a workshop on coaching with some other coaches and one of the participants said, “I don’t know how coaching can help this, but I don’t know how to get it all done. I try to do everything I have to do to run my business successfully, to practice my religion, to care of my family and to take care of myself and I just can’t get it all done.”

It was very painful for him and difficult to admit it in public, but clearly this dominated his self-esteem. His obvious success in each of those areas was completely diminished and he had stopped trusting his own word.

He could quic

h hour. In high school we began to be taught that having our own thoughts or methods was deeply frowned upon.

Then we went out into the world to live our own lives and we discovered that things can’t always be finished, that most problems don’t have solutions, that we had to maintain our focus for long periods of time, that we had to think for ourselves. And because we were taught otherwise, we frequently don’t know how to relate to these circumstances. Then we blame ourselves and we think there’s something wrong with us.

I was recently leading a workshop on coaching with some other coaches and one of the participants said, “I don’t know how coaching can help this, but I don’t know how to get it all done. I try to do everything I have to do to run my business successfully, to practice my religion, to care of my family and to take care of myself and I just can’t get it all done.”

It was very painful for him and difficult to admit it in public, but clearly this dominated his self-esteem. His obvious success in each of those areas was completely diminished and he had stopped trusting his own word.

He could quic

taught otherwise, we frequently don’t know how to relate to these circumstances. Then we blame ourselves and we think there’s something wrong with us.

I was recently leading a workshop on coaching with some other coaches and one of the participants said, “I don’t know how coaching can help this, but I don’t know how to get it all done. I try to do everything I have to do to run my business successfully, to practice my religion, to care of my family and to take care of myself and I just can’t get it all done.”

It was very painful for him and difficult to admit it in public, but clearly this dominated his self-esteem. His obvious success in each of those areas was completely diminished and he had stopped trusting his own word.

He could quic

run my business successfully, to practice my religion, to care of my family and to take care of myself and I just can’t get it all done.”

It was very painful for him and difficult to admit it in public, but clearly this dominated his self-esteem. His obvious success in each of those areas was completely diminished and he had stopped trusting his own word.

He could quickly see that the time he spent being concerned about loose ends actually robbed him of his ability to get some things done! Then I said that I was going to tell him something that would sound like bad news, but if he really thought about it, would give him tremendous freedom in living his life. I said, “You’ll never get it all done. In fact, when you die, your inbox will be full.”

When you can see that you will never get it all done, you can relax to the way it is. You can think about things differently, plan differently and enjoy life more.