I’m Not a Workaholic and I Don’t Do “Too Much”

The most common thing about me that people comment on is how many things I do.
A lot of people talk about it positively, impressed that I’m able to get so many things done.
And that’s why I talk a lot about productivity, as many people come to me for tips on how to get so much done.
However, most of the time it’s actually more of a negative thing, the classic being you do too much.
Now many of them don’t come from a place of pure criticism, but it’s positioned as care that they’re concerned I’m going to burn out and I’m not looking after myself.
And I’m constantly told that I need to slow down, that I’m taking on too much and stuff like that.
So I’ve constantly got this narrative in my head that maybe I am burning myself out.
So I then end up blaming myself every time I get sick and I start to question things I’m doing and de prioritize things that I like doing because I’m worrying I’m overloading myself too much.
But very recently I was asked to come on this podcast to talk about my many passions and it was framed as a totally positive thing.
So it made me go back and reflect.
Have I been letting the opinions of others affect my decisions and how I see myself?
Because I’ve always enjoyed doing multiple things.
So what’s really wrong with it?
So I’m going to let you in on all the things I’ve recently discovered in myself reflection session.
And I just hope that it helps those who are also multi hyphenates and multi passionates too, feel that they can also get to the bottom of who they really are and do what’s truly right for them.

Hello and welcome to Sniffing Out the Bullshit, a podcast for ambitious entrepreneurs who want help wading their way through the bullshit jungle of entrepreneurship and then the tools, skills, and mindsets that are actually required for success.
I’m your host, Sabrina Chevannes-Denman, the no bullshit entrepreneur.
So first of all, I want to give a big shout out to Adama Lorna as she’s the one that helps me unpack all of the feelings in my head.
So Adama is actually an engineer slash content creator.
Yeah, you heard that right, Engineer slash content creator.
It’s so cool.
And so she’s a multi hype for herself.
She’s been creating content on YouTube for six years.
And so she started doing content on what it’s like as a multi hype film.
And so she’s just launched joint podcast.
And so she got in touch with me to be a guest and she explicitly wanted to discuss the fact that I do so many things and how great it was.
And I’d never had someone come to me with this before to highlight that it’s actually a fantastic thing that I do so many things and even want me to help inspire others to do it.
So it totally made me think, is this not a bad thing?
Like I’ve always been told I do too much.
But then it made me kind of think, well, too much for whom?

So when I think back to being a kid, I was always doing something.
Like I’d have some sort of Sports Club after school each day of the week, and then on the weekends I was usually traveling to a random city for a weekend away, playing chess.
There was rarely a day when I wasn’t doing something.
And then of course, I also played the piano and the violin.
I went to Namda and then when I hit 16, I decided to get a job.
Actually. In fact, I had two jobs and then I was also lifeguarding on top of that.
So I was always doing stuff.
And listening to this, you’re probably thinking, man, this girl did not have much of A social life, but I totally did too.
Because not only were these activities all social for me, because I’ve got to do them with my friends, I was literally just going away with friends every single weekend, doing stuff with friends every single night.
So it’s like a play date every single night or you know, play dates for two kids, but you know what I mean?
Like I was doing something social.
And then on top of that, I was also out every single weekend when I wasn’t playing chess.
And I did tonnes of social dates with friends.
And plus, I had boyfriends in high school, so I had pretty Pat’s teenage life and no one told me back then that I was doing too much in in fact, it was usually seen as a good thing that I kept myself so busy and I wasn’t just like watching TV all day and hanging out in park smoking weed like other teenage do.
So, you know, it’s it’s kind of weird that because also, it’s not like when I was doing all these things, it distracted me from my studies.
I was a straight A student and I got into medical school and I was never sick or overwhelmed.
And in fact, I really thought I would have done a lot more than I did if I could.

So the question is, when did it all become too much like in other people’s opinion?
Well, obviously things are very different now compared to when we were kids, right?
But I really do think it all depends on person to person because like I said, when people keep saying I do too much, I have to ask them too much for whom?
Because if I start to unpack that statement a little bit, I don’t think they actually mean you are objectively doing too much.
I think what they usually mean is I can live like that or that would overwhelm me.
And you know what?
That’s absolutely fine.
But it doesn’t make it universal.
Like, some people thrive on focus and depth in one lane.
Some people thrive on variety, momentum, and synthesis.
But neither is better.
But somehow only one of those things gets constantly questioned, and I guess that’s because it’s the one that doesn’t fit neatly into a box.

With so much focus these days on hustle culture, burnout and overwhelm, it’s no wonder people are now looking at my life in this negative lens.
Slow living is all the rage now and less is more is certainly the motto of our time.
But I think burnout is an overused word.
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s incredibly real.
I’ve definitely suffered from it.
So I know there are times I’m doing too much for real.
But that’s actually usually because of over demanding clients and my somewhat compulsive needs of people please and over deliver.
But you know, most of the time these days burnout is just used as a word when people feel a bit tired.
And so we’re forgetting the actual meaning of burnout because we’ve got to remember that burnout is recognized by the World Health Organisation as an occupational phenomenon.
That means it’s usually connected to the workplace and it’s not considered a medical or mental health condition, but it’s been classified as a syndrome, which means it’s a collection of symptoms or signs associated with a specific health related cause.
And so Burnab is a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion.
And so it can occur when you experience long term stress and feel constantly under pressure.
Which means burnout doesn’t usually come from doing lots of things you love doing.
It usually comes from friction.
It comes from the lack of control, lack of systems, the constant emotional labour and doing work that drains you rather than feeds you.
And so I don’t burnout regularly because I design my life properly.
I have systems, I understand my energy, and I don’t glorify chaos.
So volume is not the issue here.
Friction is.
And so once you remove friction, a lot becomes possible.

Now there’s this quote that people love to throw around when they see that I do lots of things.
They say Jack of all trades, master of none.
And it’s ironic really because most of these people know I’m actually an international chess master.
So I literally have the title of a master already.
But then they use this quote anyway and they’re like, well, what are you the best at?
How will people know what you do?
And so yes, I do many things, but you know what?
That’s absolutely OK.
People will know what I do if they are interested in finding out.
And plus people don’t realize the full quote.
Yes, it’s Jack of all trades, master of none.
But the next line actually goes Jack of all trades, master of none.
And often times that’s better than being a master of 1.
So the full quote actually goes in my favour.
It’s the pro of the multi hyphenate.
It’s it thinks that actually if you’re a Jack of all trades, then you have options.
You’re not just relying on one lane because that’s actually risky.
And when you think about it, when you really think about it, there are actually plenty of crates out there that back up the multi haphenity.
And you know, let me for example, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Make sure you diversify your portfolio.
There’s loads of them.
Variety is the spice of life.
Cover all your bases and then people go on.
Make sure you have a Plan B and a plan C.
So it appears it’s actually universally known that having options is always better.

But somehow the Jack of all trades lot have got a bad rap and I think it’s because the world prefers boxes.
We like simple stories.
One job wide entity, one label.
Because boxes make people easier to understand, to sell and to categorize.
And This is why people always talk about leashing.
Like so many people say that leashing down is the best thing you could possibly do to improve sales.
But we all saw what happens, particularly industries, when COVID happened.
Those who were leashed in the unfortunate categories got destroyed overnight.
And the same thing could happen in the investment world when there’s one like, you know, diversity by your own own portfolio.
You know, if you put all your eggs in one basket and that turns to crap, you’re in serious trouble.
So the world loves boxes because it makes life easier, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s better.
And these boxes also don’t make people happier.
And now this kind of leads into another category that I’ve been having an issue with labelling.
And the world loves the label.
Now there seems to be a label for absolutely everything, a diagnosis for every little quirk.
So obviously when people see that I do so many things, they’re like, oh, it’s just classic ADHD.
And so they’re like, oh, well, you can do all that because you have ADHD.
And I can never do all that.
Like it’s some kind of superpower that’s enabled me to achieve so many things in my life like this unfair advantage.
But labels are a double edged sword in my opinion.
Like on the one hand, they can help people feel like they belong somewhere, like they’re understood finally.
And this definitely helps people who have felt different for several years, helps them finally get some answers and feel a sense of relief.
And I absolutely love that about labels, like finding your peeps, other people who are like you, so that you can discuss similarities and things that make you happy, Totally beautiful.
But on the other hand, I think they could be crippling.
I think they could hold you back.
But you can identify with a label and then take on all the traits of that label, good at and bad.
You make excuses for your bad behaviour, blaming it on the label instead of trying to improve.
Because you can make defensive claims like why do I need to change?
I’m proud to be XY or Z, and that’s fine.
You should be proud of who you are.
But if you also have a negative trait that you don’t like or that’s impacting your life, you may want to consider trying to improve yourself.
There’s nothing wrong with that.
It doesn’t mean that something’s wrong with you, it’s just part of self development and we should all be doing it.
So the Too Much crew who often use ADHD to explain my multiple passions away, it’s like it’s the only way to accept difference is for them to medicalize it, as if there must be something wrong to justify it, instead of just accepting that we’re all different people who like to do things in their own way.

So with or without a diagnosis, I’m just me doing things in the way that I’ve always done them.
And so that’s where I’ve landed with all of this.
I don’t do too much, I do what works for me and maybe it’s too much for you.
That’s fine.
I don’t want to live a smaller life just to make other people comfortable.
And honestly, I’d rather be too much than not enough for myself.
So if you’ve ever been told that you’re doing too much, please ask yourself this.
Is it actually too much or is it just unfamiliar to others?
Because I don’t think you need to be to justify being multidimensional.
You don’t need permission to be more than one thing, and you definitely don’t need to shrink to make other people feel more comfortable.
Like I actually really hate the phrase you do you because more often than not it’s extremely passive aggressive.
But please, you do absolutely need to do what you need to do and what you want to do and don’t listen to others.
I know I’d be super bored if I just picked one lane and I know I’d somehow find a way to carve out all these sub lanes somehow because that’s just who I am.
I can’t and I won’t change myself for other people.
I think that’s a great place to be because I’m now really glad that I finally made this realization about myself, because now I can continue doing all the things I want to do without any guilt or any pressure to slow down.
And it shows you that growth like this can come from really unexpected places.
A stranger reaching out on LinkedIn has really helped me take a huge step for myself and I will be forever grateful.
So I really hope you like this episode and I hope that this has helped other multi hyphenates.
I’d absolutely love to hear from you guys to hear the many things you’re currently working on.
So please do hit me up with the deets.
And until next week, please keep sniffing out the bullshit.