Are you the type of person that will say “Yes” at the drop of the hat? Do you tend to over-commit yourself to things outside of your family? If so, you probably are a “Yes” man, and welcome to the club.

J-Mom and I have had many conversations about being over-committed, not only with work, but with outside activities. I fill my time outside of work not only with kids and family, but also with Rotary and church activities (I said yes to being on the church council).

So why do I have such a hard time saying no? I don’t exactly know why this is a problem. I think much of it goes down to being an experience junky. I love meeting new people and making a difference in the world around me. Now you may say that having my family and making a difference in their lives should be enough, and I know this, but I still find myself at times falling into this trap.

It also is not just in my out of work life where I do this. I also tend to over-commit in my work life as well. Now don’t get me wrong, I do accomplish my commitments, but I do tend to say yes more than I probably should!

So is there help for an over-commitment addict (as J-Mom would probably call me)? I did some research and found some great resources that I thought I would share with all of you (as I am not going to provide a top ten list of things you should do as I currently do not do them).

http://blogs.payscale.com/job_mom/2007/07/working-moms-an.html

http://www.mommd.com/avoidovercommitting.shtml
So do I think that I can change overnight? Not even slightly. Do I think that with hard work I could make this change? You bet I can. The biggest thing that I know I have to do is to actually do it… this will be the hardest thing for me. It is not that I do not want to be with my family…far from it. My family is my life, but also in my life as I have already mentioned, I crave interaction. I do not have a lot of friends that I do things with here where I live and these are ways for me to connect with people.

I also though understand that I need to be fair to J-Mom to allow her to also have these opportunities and to do things for her as well so that she has an identity outside of being a mom. I think at times my over-commitment gets in the way of her ability to separate herself from her role as mom…which is not fair in the least.

So today I am looking for your advice.

How do I get past this over-committed lifestyle with work and within my personal life?

How have you done it in your own life?