Somewhere between my late twenties and early thirties, it started to feel like everyone wanted a bigger piece of me—and more of my time.
Work got busier, and the responsibilities kept piling up. My relationships required more intention than they had in my twenties. I got married, started thinking about kids, finally had a little money to travel, and took on more personal projects.
Some of these opportunities were things I used to dream about. They were once on my vision board, which was exciting as hell—until I realized they took up far more space on my calendar than I had ever imagined.
Sometimes, it feels like the life I worked so hard to build just keeps asking more of me. Eventually, I reached a breaking point where “more” no longer felt like the obvious answer.
Now, I want less on my plate—but I want what remains to be the good stuff. Less “circling back” and more sitting on the front porch with my man, my man. More walking behind my daughter in her baby walker as she helps me discover all the things we still need to baby-proof around the house.
I don’t want less of a life. I want more of my life to actually feel like mine.
TL;DR 👀
When ambition starts taking up too much space
There was a time when being “booked and busy” was goals for me.
A full calendar meant things were happening, and people wanted my time. With all those opportunities coming in, I had places to be, people to see, and work to do.
I made it the center of my universe for well over a decade, to be honest.
There were seasons of my corporate career when my calendar was basically a game of Tetris, and I was living for it: multiple projects in the works, dinners & happy hours, meetings and conferences around the country (and even the world), and probably a few things I had already committed to for the following week.
And I didn’t see any of this as a problem — it was quite the opposite.
Being busy made me feel important. It made me feel like I was doing something with my career, that I was somebody people wanted in the room.
There was a little bit of status wrapped up in it, too.
If my week was packed, I must be needed. If I was flying somewhere for work, something important must be happening that needed my presence. If I barely had time to catch my breath between one commitment and the next, well...that was just the price of being ambitious.
For a long time, I wore that pace really well. (I think that a lot of us Millennials did.)
And then, at some point, I realized I had gotten so good at filling my calendar that I had stopped asking whether I actually wanted everything that was on it.
Then, I became an entrepreneur and content creator, which was supposed to give me more control over my time.
And technically, it did.
The problem was that there was always something new demanding a piece of it…and most of the time, I was the one deciding what made it onto my calendar. But after spending so many years being busy, it was hard to resist the urge to keep filling the space.
I might have a new brand partnership to work on, a speaking opportunity to prepare for, an app idea to explore, or another business idea I felt excited to bring to life — even if it wasn’t necessarily something pressing that I had to do right now.
And I think that is where a lot of ambitious people get stuck.
We spend years training ourselves to say yes when a good opportunity comes along. We say “yes” because we want the experience, the visibility, the promotion, the relationship, or whatever else might move us closer to the life we are trying to build.
And for a long time, that can work. What we don’t always do is revisit that approach once our lives start changing.
At some point, being ambitious has to become less about how much you can fit in and more about being selective with what actually deserves your time.
I think that is the shift I am in now. I still want the opportunities, and I still have ideas I’m excited about. I’m just much less interested in saying yes simply because I technically have room on the calendar.
And if you are experiencing the same — where life looks full on paper, but you still feel like you have no time for yourself — it might be worth asking: Am I choosing what belongs on my calendar, or am I still saying yes out of habit?
Soundtrack to this newsletter
Your time should still feel like yours
I used to think being able to handle a lot was something to be proud of. And maybe it was in my 20s and early 30s.
But these days, I care less about proving how much I can juggle. I want to focus on whether the life I am building actually leaves me enough room to enjoy it.
There will always be another opportunity, idea, or reason to squeeze something in. That does not mean I have to keep making myself available for all of it. And you shouldn’t feel that way, either.
You are allowed to want a big life without giving every part of yourself away to create it.
— Roxy
Yess! I felt important by being needed and I liked it!! Being called or texted while I was at a conference or even vacation meant I was needed and pivotal to the company and so much of my identity was wrapped up in that. Then I became a mom and there was a huge shift. I'm still ambitious but it looks very different then it did 10-15 years ago