Episode Description
In this episode of What If? For Authors, Claire explains the deeper patterns behind chronic overcommitment, and the internal wounds that drive us to take on more than we realistically can.
Claire breaks down the distinction between having too much to do (often due to systemic pressures) and taking on too much (a pattern driven by fear and unconscious beliefs). Using the Enneagram, she explores how each type overextends themselves, and why letting go can feel unsafe.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn
The difference between systemic overload vs. self-driven overcommitment
How overworking can be a form of emotional overcompensation
The concept of antisocial vs. pro-social effort in your author life
How guilt can show up when you start breaking old patterns
Why disappointing others can be necessary for growth
Resources Mentioned
Write Iconic Characters
books2read.com/WICLiberated Writer (Coaching & Courses)
liberatedwriter.com
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Happy writing!
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of "What If for Authors?" I'm glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor, and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer. Go poke around at all the services I offer at liberatedwriter.com if you're curious about how you can build a more sustainable author career in uncertain times.
I have books, courses, individual coaching. I've been at this a while, so there's a whole treasure trove of resources for you there. Today's episode is going to ask the question: what if I keep taking on too much? And thank you to Felicity for the topic suggestion. So this topic is more of a 201 Enneagram concern than a 101 Enneagram concern, meaning it's usually something that my clients don't ask until we have a few sessions together, and that's because it can take a session or two to realize that you're even taking on too much in your author [00:01:00] career and life in the first place.
It's so, so common for clients to say, "I have a lot on my plate, but it's all absolutely necessary," when it is not, in fact necessary. So the core fear has told them that it's logical to do exactly how much they're doing, and they don't yet see other options that feel safe enough to try. And sometimes we just don't pause long enough to take stock of everything we're doing, so we're one more step away from being able to even say or even ask the question: what if I keep taking on too much?
That might be where you are in listening to this. You either haven't realized how much you're doing, but you feel exhausted all the time, or you see that you're doing a lot, but you assume that there isn't an option to do less. If either of these sound like you, I invite you to just take a moment to take stock and start to question those [00:02:00] assumptions.
But if you already are well aware that you're taking on too much, then this is the episode for you. It's gonna be a lot. I wanna start by addressing a couple important distinctions here. This is what I think of as the difference between having too much to do and taking on too much. So having too much to do is often a symptom of our failing capitalist systems.
It's gotten worse under the Trump administration as everything gets more expensive, fewer jobs are being created each month, there's economic uncertainty, social safety nets have been demolished, and so on and so forth, right? Also, in the US, the idea of community has been hacked to bits, so that means that the burden of, like, raising children is much less shared among many and generally falls on one or two caretakers.
And then this particular problem, yeah, it seems to get worse every generation. So I [00:03:00] grew up in a community where the moms would send all of their kids to one person's house for a while so they could all have some time away to do other things, right? Sort of sharing that over multiple people rather than just one or two.
But now there's less of that. Childcare is criminally expensive, and so the story goes, right? All this to say that economic pressure or insecurity instantly adds burdens to people that those who live in economic security do not carry
So if I were a billionaire who wanted to make sure the underclass never rose up against me, I would make sure everyone was too damn busy and overwhelmed to do it. And I'd probably give them lots of distractions to keep them from initiating revolutionary action, like, I don't know, maybe social media, AI, endless streaming options, that sort of thing.
Anyway, when I'm talking about taking on too much, I don't mean the things that economics force us to take on right [00:04:00] now. Having too many of those things is a systemic failure, not so much a result of personal decisions. Though there may be some wiggle room here, such as a woman in a heterosexual relationship taking on unfair amount of domestic work because her partner isn't stepping up. In this case, there are options the individual woman can take, like asking for more help, simply declining to continue doing as much as she has, or ending the relationship and finding someone who doesn't think of her as free labor.
So I do want to clarify that because I think it deserves the distinction. People under more economic pressure end up with more things to do, often at no fault of their own and without options to do less without very serious consequences. So I'm not talking about that sort of a situation in this episode.
I'm talking more about the process of taking on additional tasks and projects that you do not need to be taking on for [00:05:00] economic reasons, and that are simply a result of your core fear steering your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. And one more distinction here. There are forms of free labor that are pro-social and forms that are antisocial. So we're looking at the antisocial ones and trying to pick those apart. The ones that drive a wedge into your connections, whether knowingly or unknowingly, rather than the ones that are building community.
So yes, we need an example for this. Okay, so let's say you're part of an author community and someone says, "Hey, does anyone know how to switch my domain from Gmail to Proton Email?" Let's say that this is a community that you've gotten a lot from, and you finally see an opportunity to give back by offering to show this person how to do it, maybe hopping on a half-hour call and walking them through it.
That seems pretty pro-social to me. So here's an example of an antisocial motivation that may be dressed up as pro-social. Someone you don't know [00:06:00] pops into a large Facebook group and offers up a sob story about their life and how they don't have enough money to hire a virtual assistant. Because you know there are some heavy hitters in this group who regularly check in, you offer to do some VA services for this person for free until they can afford to hire someone else.
You want to be seen offering help, in other words. But you don't actually know this person that you're helping. You don't actually know if your support would help them get on their feet or just enable them to keep leeching off others and revisiting their sob story over and over. Okay. Yes, I have seen something, um, almost identical to that last example happen, um, not just once, but frequently in these large groups.
I, I don't know that I would call them communities. They're just groups. And wow, there are some folks out there who are so absorbed in their own pain that they really do believe that the world owes them something. Hoo boy. If you're not careful and [00:07:00] you don't address this tendency of taking on too much, you can put all your energy into that and then get nothing back. So those are the two caveats I'll offer going into this episode. I'm not talking about the tasks that economic pressures and structural shortcomings require you to take on, and I'm not counting showing up for community in pro-social ways among the tasks that maybe you should cut out.
This is not an out-for-yourself kind of podcast, and I'm not an out-for-myself kind of gal. If I were, I probably would've found a way to monetize this shit already.
I have not. So who I'm talking about are the folks who take on more than they need, not because it's necessary or genuinely pro-social, like, you know, giving back to a community, but because they're scared of not doing it Essentially, there's a core wound that the overdoer is carrying that they [00:08:00] overcompensate for through taking on tasks that are not required.
If you imagine, like, a physical injury, let's say you roll your ankle, what happens next? Well, the body will send a bunch of blood there. We see swelling. Sometimes everything is fine in the ankle joint except, you know, maybe the swelling. That becomes the problem. Or if you have an autoimmune disease like I do, you might also be familiar with the process of a trigger sending your entire immune system into a flare-up.
Does the trigger require that much attention from the immune system? No. It's a disordered physical pattern. It's overcompensation. Will a bit of wheat, for instance, kill me? No, but my immune system might if it detects the wheat in my system. It'll make the next couple of weeks of my life hell in a way that is entirely disproportionate to the threat.
So our mind and our heart can work in this way, too. There's this wound, this internal wound, and we [00:09:00] overcompensate. We become the stiff, swollen ankle. It's kind of a fun visual, right? Even though this is gonna be some heavy lifting on my part, and it's probably gonna be hard to hear on your part, I think we should look at each of the types and what these patterns look like for them.
So listen for your type, but also listen for the types of your wings, your stress type, and maybe the type of your spouse or kids if you want to gain some insight and compassion for them. So we're gonna look at the wounds of each type that tend to lead to this pattern of taking on too much. Let's start with the ones.
So ones have this wound of, "I'm not good enough," and that haunts them. They often associate exertion with goodness. So if I'm exhausted enough, nobody can say that I didn't try my best. There's also the subconscious belief that 100% is the baseline. That is the bare minimum if you're a [00:10:00] one, 100%. Perfection is the finish line, and only once ones cross that finish line are they permitted to both rest and consider themselves a good person.
So that core wound also tells the one that they are not safe until they are above reproach. Whose reproach? Well, probably everyone's if this whole belief has not been deconstructed. The one wants to be above their mother's reproach, their bosses, their neighbors, the grocery store cashiers, everyone's. Add nebulous readers into the mix, and now there's a whole new layer of people to be perfect and good enough for.
So one's perfection cannot be the bar. Honestly, even 90% cannot be the bar, not everywhere. You can't show up at 90% of your best everywhere. Some places you're gonna need to show up at 50% or not at all. Yes, that is going to be painful when you try it. You may even feel guilt. Feeling guilt isn't [00:11:00] necessarily an indicator that you've done anything wrong.
And I'm gonna say that again, not just for the ones, but for everyone. Feeling guilt about doing less isn't necessarily an indicator that you're doing anything wrong by doing less. Sometimes it's only an indicator that you're breaking a pattern or that someone else might be angry with you. That's not the same thing as doing something wrong
Okay, type two. Twos, y'all have a wound that tells you that you will never be wanted or loved, but people will keep you around if you're needed. The ego inflation that comes from this often takes the form of trying to make yourself irreplaceable to others and then reinforcing your belief that you are. That's your route to taking on too much, more than any individual could carry while also caring for their own basic needs.
And now I know what some of you twos are going to say to me, "Claire, I'm in a caretaker role. I have small [00:12:00] children, an aging parent." Okay. Sure. Got it. But within each of those situations, if you're a two, I guarantee that you're taking on too much to reinforce your belief that you're irreplaceable. I don't know how many times I've been talking to, like, a two who is caring for their elderly parent all on their own, only to find out that they have a sibling locally who could help out but just isn't.
So the odds are this two has been depriving that sibling of an opportunity to help or enabling them to lean into their own carefree tendencies, which plays into the two's need to believe that they are more helpful than others. So something to think about. And now this plays out in the author world in a lot of ways.
I've actually coached twos who are doing free labor for other authors, labor they themselves are going without, and they're not asking for anything in return for that labor. Like, what on earth? Catch yourself here and just see how ridiculous that sounds, right? You're not a [00:13:00] volunteer. You don't run a charity, twos.
Now threes. Threes have a wound that says you're worthless and you must fool others into believing otherwise if you ever wanna be valued by them. The ego inflation that forms around this wound tends to look like being the best, winning awards, accomplishing admirable goals, outward projections of the worth you feel you don't have.
You end up promising too much to others to perform superhuman value, but over time, your mortal self fails to deliver on many of these promises because of course it does. One person couldn't do all those things with any sort of quality. So maybe you cut corners to create the appearance of delivering, but eventually that will get found out.
It'll catch up to you, and then you just have to keep moving, keep achieving to keep people distracted. Doing [00:14:00] less runs the risk of damaging your reputation as a person who can do it all and do it effortlessly. That reputation becomes your prison, and you doom yourself to doing all the things in perpetuity or revealing to others that you're just like them, a messy individual with failures, disappointments, and fear.
So the deeper you go down this road of trying to outrun it, the more impossible it feels to break free. But the only way off the ride is to jump So fours. Fours have a wound that says you're missing something that everyone else has, and you have to prove that you're special and that any insult to that specialness comes from misunderstanding.
And there are a lot of things that fours may interpret as an insult to their specialness. The ego inflation that forms around this wound tends to look like being the most [00:15:00] interesting and the least ordinary. A typical approach to this is that fours will over-identify with their suffering. If they fall into, "I suffer, therefore I deserve special treatment," taking on too much can be that avenue for performing their suffering for both themselves and others.
The doing of the four tends to be more focused on doing for self than for others, which is where the two tends to focus on others instead of self. Subtypes play a big role in how this looks for the four. So the self-preservation four will want to be recognized and appreciated for their ability to suffer without complaining.
If you've ever tested to see how much you have to suffer before another person notices, it's quite a lot. Meanwhile, the social four is more inclined to talk a lot about their suffering in hopes of drawing attention to themselves through that. So both of these patterns can cause the four to not want to [00:16:00] decrease their suffering by offloading tasks to others or simply to stop doing those tasks.
Through their suffering is how they receive recognition for this wound
No suffering from taking on too much, no recognition. Or at least that's what the fear says
Fives have a wound that says they can't provide what they need for themselves, so they must store what they have for later. The ego inflation that forms around this wound looks like isolation and needing to be independently resourced. As Fives start to view others as a drain on their resources of energy, attention, money, or time, they overcompensate by proving to themselves that they don't need help.
What's more, Fives will often take on a few dependents to provide entirely for as well. This is the ego inflation to the nth degree if we're at this point. Being self-sufficient isn't [00:17:00] enough for these Fives. They need to be us-sufficient. Letting others do things for themselves then becomes a threat to the Five's overcompensation for this wound.
Taking on the work of competent individuals not only harms the connection, but it's yet another way that the Five isolates themself. The more isolated the Five becomes, the more difficult it is to break this pattern of overcompensation and truly attend to the wound that's causing it
Sixes have a wound that says you don't know how to protect yourself, and nobody is going to show up to protect you, so you must always be prepared for a threat. The ego inflation that results from this looks like believing they are the most vigilant and the most loyal to others. Everyone else is acting recklessly and cannot be trusted to show up or be consistent or be loyal to one another.
So the six must go overboard with those things. But nothing can [00:18:00] ever feel secure enough to a six like this, so they will end up taking on too much by planning for every contingency, even though only one ever really comes to pass, right? All the others disappear into the past once they don't happen.
The six also will perform loyalty, showing up for others who they may believe offer protection, even when those people have proven they will not show up the same way for the six. The sixes can become devotees to whoever or whatever they deem authority, a person, a belief system, a group, a readership, to the point where they stop checking in with themselves on whether they actually have the energy to keep showing up.
This performance becomes overblown and becomes exhausting. But doing less, planning for disaster less, asking for the kind of support from others that they readily offer, no longer showing up for the authority that isn't showing up for them, that feels like certain death because of [00:19:00] how it may expose that core wound.
But the six becomes frantic with all the directions they're running, and they may not actually be the responsible friend they believe themselves to be as a result of this split attention Sevens have a wound that says you lack the resources to manage pain, so you must avoid it at all costs through seeking pleasure.
The ego inflation that results from this wound looks like believing you are the most imaginative, optimistic, and just plain fun. This leads to quickly abandoning projects, plans, or even basic presence in the moment you sense it's becoming painful. Uh, you're afraid that you will be unable to free yourself from that pain ever.
Sevens have lost trust that what you have will stick around for any significant time, so you constantly look for new and novel to replace what you have before that thing can abandon you. This quickly turns into [00:20:00] hyperactivity, taking on too many projects that seem fun before actually vetting them, and carrying around a bunch of unfinished projects in your head that you abandoned once they became painful.
This can mean that your to-do list grows exponentially, and when you become overwhelmed by the size, your reaction is to add new items to it. You're not gonna stop taking on too much until you tend to that wound
Eights have a wound that says you're powerless in a hostile world, so you must do everything you can to close off your vulnerabilities and to avoid making yourself an easy target. The ego inflation that results from this wound is a lot of puffing up, acting tough, and proving you're the strongest in a given situation.
What's a good way to prove you're the strongest? Well, taking on more tasks, projects, and responsibilities than other people without showing any signs of exhaustion or [00:21:00] weakness. And what's the worst way to prove you're the strongest? Your ego will tell you that the worst way to prove you're the strongest is to do less, to rest, or to ask others for help.
When something touches that sensitive core wound, your instinct will be to push yourself harder, to do more, to do it more forcefully, and to demand the results that you're after. If an eight with a sensitive core wound is out on a hike and they run into a cliff, they may say, "How dare this cliff try to intimidate me?"
And start climbing up the cliff side. Never mind that there's another path just off to the left that winds right around that cliff. When you're always having to prove how indefatigable you are to others, but mostly yourself, it's gonna be fucking hard to stop taking on too much. Like, where is the incentive to stop?
Nines have a wound that says, "My wants and needs keep me [00:22:00] separate from others." To avoid being separate and alone, the nines will take on the will and the desire of others as a way to create connection. The ego inflation takes the shape of deferring to others and going along to get along. Nines don't usually think of themselves as taking on too many things, but I do see this a lot, and it's usually a result of seeing the overactive path as the one of least resistance or least conflict.
Social nines especially, who tend to merge with a group identity and group goals, they tend to be more active in service to the team and in service to keeping the peace within the team. It's important to ask the question of motivation behind the action here for the nine, because why a nine is taking a lot of action really matters.
The virtue of the nine is right action after all, so moving into action can be a positive step for the nine. The problem is when the nine is [00:23:00] taking action not because they sense internally that it's aligned with their values and the right thing to do according to them, but simply because not taking the action would lead to more conflict than taking the action.
This is how nines get committed to too many projects, too many communities, responsibilities, and so forth. They end up doing too much because it's the path of least resistance, or it seems so. But here's some tough love. Taking on too much is also a great way to slip into the comfortable autopilot that many nines seek to avoid connecting to their own will and perspective. All this to say that the reason you keep taking on too much, it goes pretty deep, and because it goes pretty deep, there's a good chance that you can't even imagine another way of functioning at this point.
Imagining that, that other way of being where you do less, it probably doesn't feel safe, so it won't happen [00:24:00] naturally. You're going to need to set aside some time to do the imagining, though. So first, I want you to ask yourself, what is lost when you keep taking on too much? What is lost? What thing that you value is lost? Is it peace, presence, quality time with your family or your friends? Time to read or play? Is it empathy?
What is lost? You won't automatically think in terms of what is lost because your fear will keep promising you what's to be gained or escaped through doing too much is, is much more important than what might be lost Your fear will steer your attention away from what is lost to look at what could possibly be gained or avoided instead. So really focus on what is lost. You may feel sadness, regret, anger, or some [00:25:00] other uncomfortable emotion when you realize what you've lost all this time, and it's important to feel that.
Don't let your mind skip over it this time like it has before. Recognize the loss. If you haven't done this before, give yourself time and space to keep returning to the loss. Maybe a couple hours, maybe a few days, but you must let the weight of the loss settle in you Then ask yourself, is the thing that you think you're gaining from taking on too much actually what you're getting?
I can almost guarantee that it's not. You're probably getting a hollow version of that thing that you, your fear is promising you. Maybe you're hoping for a sense of worth and you're getting praise. Those things are not the same. You're hoping for love and you're getting codependence. Those things are not the same, and [00:26:00] on and on.
So ask yourself honestly, is taking on too much doing the thing your brain is telling you it's doing?
And if it's creating a close enough approximation, one of these hollow approximations, how long are those results truly lasting? Or are they almost instantly fleeting Again, if you feel unpleasant emotions when confronting this reality head-on, don't run from them.
They are the fuel for the action you need to take. Now, if you feel shame, talk with someone you can trust to be compassionate about it. Shame does not survive daylight, so we hang it up in the sun. If you feel anger or resentment about how much you've lost for an empty promise that hasn't delivered what you'd hoped it, it would and has kept you hostage, great.
Anger can be alchemized into boundaries and into change. Set some boundaries for yourself moving forward that keep [00:27:00] you from taking on too much. Really just use that anger and that anger energy to say, "You shall not pass," to the tasks and the responsibilities that tend to creep back into your life. For instance, if you always end up in a leadership position in every group you join, say, "You shall not pass," to opportunities for leadership roles.
That's your rule. Hell, say it aloud when someone says you would make a great chair of the organization. "You shall not pass." No, blah, blah, blah. "You shall not pass." Will they be confused? Possibly, but they might get the point, and you'll be respecting your boundary. That's what matters. And then, you're not gonna like this, but if you currently have too much on your plate and you know some of these tasks don't need to be there, here's the real bullshit I'm gonna ask of you.
Allow [00:28:00] disappointing others to be an option. If this isn't an option for you, you will have no movement whatsoever. Responsibilities will not just evaporate from your plate over time. So when I work with clients on this particular problem, I always hear, "Well, it's only a year commitment, so I'm just gonna tough it out for the next 11 months."
Do you hear that? Do you hear the way the ego inflation is protecting itself there? Like, girl, no, you are not finishing this out when you're overwhelmed. You're going to experiment with what it's like to let something go and possibly disappoint another person. Take off the fucking cape before it cuts off your airflow completely, is what I'm saying.
But here's the thing. You may not actually be disappointing people where you're predicting you will. This could be just another trick in your ego's endless bag of tricks to keep you in a role [00:29:00] that keeps feeding you that hollow imitation of the thing you're truly seeking. That fear may be telling you it's not safe to give it up yet So many times when people brave the risk that they might disappoint someone else by offloading one of the projects they took on or dropping it completely, they're met with a reaction that they did not expect.
Sometimes the person or people they expected to be disappointed are actually totally apathetic. Sometimes the person or people are glad you're finally doing less because they were worried about you, but they didn't think you'd listen to them if they told you not to take on that project.
And sometimes they're only a little disappointed, but they get over it quickly. And yes, on rare occasions, you will deeply disappoint someone with your decision to do less. But guess what? They can deal with their own disappointment. It's not your responsibility. If they're an [00:30:00] adult, those feelings are their feelings to deal with, and trying to save them from their own adult feelings is part of why you keep taking on too much
So I will just remind you, feeling guilty doesn't mean you have to adjust your behavior until you stop feeling guilty. And now, yeah, this is tricky because the emotion of guilt is generally a tool for us to change behavior to align with values or norms or to repair harm. But if you learn that it's wrong or selfish or weak or whatever to not always live outside your realistic human capacity, then changing this pattern is likely going to make you feel guilty, like you've done something wrong.
You don't have to believe that feeling. Now, I'm not telling you to ignore every feeling of guilt that you have from now on, but I'm saying always allow yourself to question if that guilt is a result of doing something that sits wrong with you because it's actually wrong according to your [00:31:00] values, or if it's a sign that you're breaking a rule you learned at an early age, but a rule that might be something you don't want to follow anymore
So if you're wondering, what if I keep taking on too much? My answer is that you have some honest work to do in your near future. External barriers or systems or accountability won't be enough to break this pattern or keep you in check. You have to look inward and face the wound that keeps your ego overcompensating. Use the Enneagram as a map for that. Look for some specific examples of where this is showing up in your author career and your life as a whole.
Take an honest inventory of what is lost when you keep indulging this pattern. Don't skip over the unpleasant feelings that arise from seeing the enormity of what is lost. I'm especially talking to you sevens, no [00:32:00] sublimating. Until you can deeply register what has been lost, you will keep pretending that nothing is.
And then ask yourself how what you've been getting in return for this overworking is a hollow version of the thing you've actually been seeking, that thing that might finally heal that core wound. Speak any feelings of shame to others and use any anger you may feel to create rules with yourself around boundaries, boundaries for you.
Get clear on the no's you'll need moving forward, as well as the new options you'll try, like asking others for help. Then finally, take the brave step of risking that you'll disappoint some people as you remove existing responsibilities from your plate. Don't wait around hoping that the perfect conditions will materialize where you won't have to take a risk here.
Yes, I'm calling you out on that. [00:33:00] You have to practice taking the risk. The risk is an important component of this growth process. You become braver by doing brave things. And you may be surprised by the result. And if someone is disappointed by your decision to do less, remind yourself it's okay to disappoint people.
There may be consequences to it, but you're allowed to decide that those consequences are well within a tolerable amount and then just move on. Because here's a little secret. People who keep taking on too much and then hold onto it to avoid disappointing others, those people are disappointing others without even realizing it.
People who take on too much aren't as reliable or as invaluable as they wanna believe they are. Someone is disappointed. Maybe this whole time it's been you Registering the intensity and depth of pain around this pattern of taking on too much [00:34:00] is essential to breaking it, and it won't kill you. But you must stop pushing those emotions aside or underground if you truly want to see a change in yourself
So that's it for this episode of "What If for Authors?" Told you it might be a little painful. If you want someone to walk alongside you in this process, hey, that's what I'm here for. You can book a one-on-one session to talk more in depth about your struggles and gain the clarity and courage you need to move forward.
You can do that at liberatedwriter.com. Book an author alignment appointment with me, and we will dig in together. I'm Claire Taylor. Thanks so much for listening, and I hope you'll join me in the next episode. Happy writing