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Commitments… we all have them.

We are all committed to things in our personal life, church life, work-life, and other areas of our life. Some commitments are much larger than others, but they all play a role in our life. Sometimes all of those commitments can become overwhelming and cause us to feel overburdened. In my personal life, my commitments were causing me to feel burned out, and I felt lost in the hustle and bustle of my life.

If you’re feeling the same way, overwhelmed and burned out on life, maybe it’s time to evaluate all the commitments that take up your precious time! If you’re looking for a more simple life, then you need to start with the steps below!

Grab a pen and some paper and make a list of all the commitments you have in your life. Below is a list of possible commitments to get your wheels turning!

Family

Family comes with many commitments. You may be a father, mother, husband, or wife. The commitments are numerous when it comes to family, and they are different for everyone. List all the roles you play and the commitments that come along with them.

Kids

Kids are a huge commitment! When you have kids, all of their commitments become yours as well List all of their school activities, extracurricular activities, sporting events, and any other commitments they may have. Where they go, you will usually be right there with them.

Work

Work includes plenty of commitments (or for me it does). It’s a commitment itself! List all of the commitments inside the office and outside (my job requires some extracurricular activities). This category also includes any side jobs or side hustles you may do from home. Second jobs, blogging, freelance writing, odd jobs, anything like that is included as a work commitment.

Civic Duties

Do you love to volunteer or do work to help the community? These are commitments that you will need to include!

Religious Duties

Some people are very involved with their churches and religious activities within their community. Do you love to attend services? Are you involved in community outreach programs? Take a look at all the activities you are involved in and put them down as commitments.

Home

We all have commitments at home like keeping it in order, keeping the laundry and dishes done, trash taken out, etc. There are plenty of commitments to add to your list now! I feel like home is my number one commitment.

Hobbies

I love hobbies! I have plenty of hobbies that I could stay busy for a while with them. Hobbies come with commitments so don’t leave these out!

Social

Most of us also have social commitments. Whether it’s a group you go out with regularly, social clubs you’re in, or even online social commitments you may have. List all of these as well.

“A minimalist by intent, I live a beautiful life with fewer things—simple, yet full.”

Laurie Buchanan, PhD

When I did this activity, I pulled out my planner. I list everything I have going on in my life in my planner and on my calendar. It’s an easy way to make sure you don’t forget any commitments you may not be thinking of.

Once you have completed your list, look it over and see all the commitments you have in your life. Is it a lot? For some, there will be more commitments than you realized! This activity really puts into perspective everything you devote your time to. Now you know why your life seems so hectic and overwhelming, and you know why you are getting burned out. 

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Now it’s time to evaluate those commitments.

What do they add to your life? Are they a priority? Do they add value? Do they add happiness? Is it something you would feel lost without? Take some time to really think about all the aspects of these commitments, and see if they add something to your life that you cannot live without.

It can be hard to decide which ones you may want to try and get rid of. Trust me, I know it can be hard to drop some of these commitments from your life, but honestly, you will feel so relieved when you begin to realize you don’t need them all to survive. Your life will go on without them (especially the ones that add little to no value to your life). I also want you to know that there are still some commitments I am holding onto in my life because I am not in a season where I can get rid of them yet. I know that one day, I want to be able to drop them from my life, but it isn’t time yet. You may feel the same way, and just know that it is normal to not be able to get rid of everything all at once. It is a process, and I promise you’ll get there one day!

I challenge you to start small.

Look over your list and get rid of one thing. Find one thing that doesn’t serve you! Something you give all your time and effort to, but you don’t get anything from it. That’s what I started with, and it felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders! Then I began to find other things here and there that I realized I could live without. Some of my commitments were more of a burden than I realized. I only began to realize this when I sat down and evaluated the commitments in my life.

Continue to come back to this list until you have cut out all the meaningless commitments in your life. The ones you can live without and give your life less of a purpose!

Eventually, you will start to find some free time that you will fill with other things that make you happy, or you’ll simply enjoy having some open spaces in your calendar to enjoy yourself and your family. Overall, you will not regret evaluating the commitments in your life to help simplify and make time for other things!

Please connect with me on social media to continue following my journey!

Do you have a success story with cutting out commitments? I would love to hear about it!

Until next time,

Catherine