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Welcome back to Goals and Grace. I'm Rev. Dr. Juliet Spencer, and I'm known as the Decision Architect because I believe everyone deserves to make decisions their future self will thank them for. Here at Goals and Grace, we talk about what it means to pursue meaningful goals without losing yourself or the people and values that matter most.
We bring together the science of high performance habits with the grace and wisdom of faith so that you can lead, decide, and live with greater clarity, courage, and purpose. If you're someone who carries a lot of responsibility, has high expectations for yourself, and genuinely wants to do good work and love people well, today's conversation might just hit especially close to home. I'm going to talk about something I see over and over again in capable, conscientious, high-performing people, in people who have motivation, discipline, and who care about what they're doing.
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It's an issue that could very well shed light on why you don't seem ever to catch up, much less get ahead, and it's probably not what you think. The problem may be that you care about so many things that you're trying to give them all the same level of importance. Think about it.
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Work matters. Marriage matters. Children matter.
Parents, health, church, they all matter. Friends, finances, your home, and your future all matter. Your spiritual life, the people who depend on you.
None of these things are frivolous. That's what makes this so hard, because what happens when everything matters at the same time? Well, usually one of two things happen. Either we try to give our best to everything and eventually exhaust ourselves, or we spread ourselves so thin that nothing actually gets our best, and then we feel guilty about that, too.
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So today, I want to give you a different way to think about priorities. Maturity isn't simply learning what matters. Most of us already know what matters.
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Maturity is learning that not everything that matters can matter equally in every season. And let me just say that again, because it took me a long time to figure this one out. Maturity is learning that not everything that matters can matter equally in every season.
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Let me give you a phrase today. Responsibility creep. Isn't that a great phrase? I wish I'd thought of it, but honestly, I can't remember where I heard it.
But it certainly fits. Responsibility creep. You may have heard of scope creep.
That's what happens when a project starts out as one thing, but little by little, more gets added. Another task, or more expectation, another deliverable, until suddenly the project is twice the size it's supposed to be. Well, I think the same thing happens in our lives, especially if you're capable.
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People discover that you can handle things, so they give you things to handle. You're dependable and competent. You figure things out and you show up, which is way more than what the average person does.
You don't want to let people down. I get that. But somewhere along the way, a dangerous little equation begins forming in your mind.
I can do this, therefore I should do this. But those are two completely different statements. Just because you can do something doesn't mean it belongs to you.
Just because you could solve the problem doesn't mean you're supposed to solve the problem. Or just because you're capable of carrying something doesn't mean that you're the one who's been asked to carry it. That distinction is really important for high performers.
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One of the dangers of being capable is that eventually your capability can become the justification for your overload. And responsibility creep rarely happens dramatically. Nobody wakes up on Monday morning and says, you know what I'd like to do? Completely overwhelm myself.
It just happens one reasonable yes at a time. Could you help me with this? Sure. Could you take care of that for me? Sure.
Would you mind handling this? I just am swamped. Sure. Can we put you in charge? Sure.
And every individual yes seems manageable until you look at your life and realize that your calendar is full of things you agreed to because you could do them. Not necessarily because you were called to do them or because it makes sense for you to do them. That's when we need to stop asking only, can I do this? And begin asking, is this mine to do? Or is it mine to do right now? They're very different questions from whether or not you can.
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Here's another truth that we don't talk about enough. Every yes spends something. Every yes costs time and energy and attention.
Some yeses even cost money. Some cost emotional bandwidth. And sometimes the cost of a yes doesn't show up where we expected it to.
And in fact, we don't always get to decide or have any control over where it does show up. You say yes to one more responsibility at work and the cost may show up at home. You say yes to another volunteer commitment and the cost might show up in your sleep or lack of.
You say yes to helping someone else through another crisis and the cost might show up in your patience with the people you really love and spend the most time with. You say yes to keeping everything looking perfect. The cost? It might be that you've left nothing for yourself.
And this is where the work we did last season around decision fitness becomes so important. Decisions are not isolated events. Every decision creates a ripple.
When you say yes to something, you are not simply deciding whether that particular thing is worthwhile. You're deciding what portion of your finite life it will get. And there's a word for what I want you to notice there.
Finite. Your time is finite as well as your energy and your attention. Now that doesn't mean that you're inadequate.
It just means you're human. And accepting our limitations may be one of the most spiritually mature things we can do. We sometimes live as though acknowledging our limits means we're not committed enough.
But limits are definitely not evidence of failure. They're part of being human. You only have 24 hours in the day.
So do I. No amount of ambition, responsibility, faithfulness, productivity, hacks, planners, apps, or color-coded calendars will magically turn 24 hours into 27. Which means every meaningful yes eventually requires a meaningful no. And here's where this gets uncomfortable.
Priorities require accepting disappointment. In other words, sometimes setting an appropriate boundary for yourself, setting an appropriate list of priorities, and refusing to get caught in the trap of trying to do it all. Sometimes when that happens, even when it's the right thing, it will disappoint somebody else.
Sometimes you'll be the one who's disappointed because you really wanted to add that whatever it is to your already overworked schedule. Sometimes other people might not like the boundary you set because they've been taking advantage of the fact that you haven't set one. And someone may think that you should have volunteered or someone could wish you had stayed longer.
And we all know there's going to be more than a few who think you should have answered more quickly. And we all know that there are probably going to be more than a few people who just simply cannot and will not understand why you're not available. Sometimes the disappointment is entirely internal.
You wanted to do all of it and you wanted to be excellent at all of it. You wanted the career and the perfectly organized house and the meaningful friendships and the wonderful marriage and the strong body and the thriving spiritual life and the perfectly prepared meals and the volunteer commitments and the handwritten beautiful birthday cards that somehow arrived three days early to all of your loved ones. And maybe you could pull that off for a week.
But that's not life. That's an event. There are seasons when something worthwhile has to remain undone.
There are seasons when something genuinely important gets less attention. And hallelujah, there are seasons when good enough really is good enough. That can be incredibly difficult for conscientious high performers, but trust me, when you discover that for certain seasons and certain activities good enough is good enough, it will set you free.
Now it's true that your willingness to go the extra mile helped you build your career and I suspect your character. It helped you earn people's trust and to accomplish important things. It might even be how you see a part of yourself.
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And there's nothing wrong with that. But excellence becomes destructive when we lose the ability to decide where excellence belongs, because not everything deserves your best. That sentence might take some getting used to, but excellence becomes destructive when we lose the ability to decide where excellence belongs, because not everything deserves your best.
If you give your best to every single thing, every single relationship, every single project, every single task, then eventually the things that matter most get somewhere that's left. I don't want the people I love most getting the leftovers of me, because I gave my best energy to things that only required competence. It's okay from time to time that dinner is sandwiches, and it's okay that the email can be three sentences instead of seven perfectly crafted paragraphs.
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And let me also say I am definitely speaking to myself on this one. Sometimes the house can look in, and you really can say this is good enough. My friend, this is not laziness.
It is stewardship, and that's a really important thing that Jesus taught us. You know, one of my favorite scriptures is when Elijah was so exhausted that even though he had done some incredible things, he ran away from God. Why? Well, turns out he was just depleted.
He was emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally exhausted. In contrast, Jesus models for us what it means to live a well-balanced life in which you take seriously that not everything deserves the same level of care. It's why I continue to mention throughout podcast episode after episode that Jesus consistently chose at times to turn away from people he could have helped because he knew that he had to take care of himself or he would be ultimately no good to anybody.
There were always going to be more sick people, more people who needed healing or feeding or had questions or needed to be taught. There were always, always people around him who wanted something and who would have genuinely benefited from his care, but he took the time to recognize responsibility creep. He knew that he had to say yes to the things in the season in which he should say yes, and even though it disappointed people around him when he needed to withdraw or he needed to move on to a different project or a different group of people, then that's what he did.
He moved on. He lived within human limitations without treating those limitations as failures. Maybe we can learn something from that.
This is why I talk so much also about decisions because we aren't simply managing calendars. We're architecting lives and an architect understands something important. You can't make every room the focal point and you can't make everything in the room a focal point.
Imagine walking into a house where every single architecture feature was screaming, look at me, look at me, where every wall is an accent wall and every fixture is ginormous. It would be exhausting and nothing would stand out. Our lives can become like that.
Every commitment seems urgent or feels urgent and every relationship becomes equally demanding and then what do we end up doing? We end up short-changing the ones who will forgive us for not paying them enough attention. It's not lost on any of us, I'm sure, that those are the people who deserve our very best. When every task becomes something that deserves our highest standard, then eventually everything matters so much that nothing gets our best.
Maybe the question isn't how do I fit everything in? I think that's the wrong question. The question really should be what deserves my best in this season, in this day or week or month, in this season of my life. Seasons matter and priorities change.
There might be a season when your career genuinely needs more of you, but you need to be clear that this is not a pattern that you intend to set and keep for the rest of your life. There might be a season when your children are young or teenagers and they need you more, so you set aside time to make sure you're available to go to that ball game or to watch that movie on Friday night as a family. There might be a season when your health has to move to the top of the list and by that I don't mean to imply that our health should ever be anywhere except near the top of the list, because if you're not taking care of your health, well, there won't be a list for very long.
There are caregiving seasons and building, healing, grieving seasons. There's times when we launch something new or decide to step back. I like it when a friend of mine said, you know, I've discovered there's a season of saying yes to absolutely everything and see what happens.
But there's also a season of saying no to anything except the essentials. Wisdom isn't creating one perfect priority list and living by it forever. Instead, wisdom is recognizing the season you're actually in and choosing accordingly.
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So here's your architect's question for the week. What deserves my best this season and what only needs to be good enough? And by the way, sometimes even in the middle of a season, I'll ask myself that just about the day. What today deserves my best and what today can be just good enough? I want you to let that percolate in your mind and in your heart.
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You're wanting to know not what matters, because like we said, it all matters, but what deserves my best right now. And then you have to ask the harder question. What am I willing to allow to be good enough? And there's so many perfect examples.
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Maybe your family deserves your best. So the house kind of takes a pass for a while. Or maybe your spiritual life needs to move out of the leftovers.
And so you create time, even if it means saying no to something else. The point is, whatever it is that deserves your best right now, then figure out a way to let the rest of it get by with good enough. It might be you pay someone to come in and clean your house every week or once a month.
It might be that you make an arrangement with some friends who have children approximately the same age as yours. I'll babysit them this week if you'll babysit them next week. And that gives you and your spouse a perfect opportunity to have a one-on-one date night.
Whatever it is, figure out as best you can what deserves your best and what are the solutions that you can find to make everything else good enough. And I encourage you to ask other people, to go online and social media, see what other people are doing to solve the similar problems. I have every confidence that your life will improve considerably and the people around you will notice it and be grateful when you move from, I need to accomplish all of these things exceptionally well because that's just who I am and that's how we roll, to, hmm, there are a few things that deserve my best.
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Let's figure out how we can make the rest good enough. So for today's move, I'd like for you to choose three things that deserve your best in the season you're in right now. Three things that deserve your best energy, your best attention, your best mind, that deserve your best.
And then write them down. What are the three things that deserve the best of your attention, energy, and intentionality right now? And then I want you to identify one thing you're intentionally allowing to be good enough. Whatever it is, choose something.
And then, this is really important, don't apologize to yourself for it. And you certainly don't need to apologize to anybody else either. You aren't lowering your standards across your life.
You're just placing your standards where they belong. That's different. And if you feel a little uncomfortable doing this, remember, priority requires accepting disappointment.
There's no way around it. You are going to disappoint somebody. But in order to live the life in which the things that matter get the best of who you are, then somebody, maybe it's more than one somebody, is going to be disappointed.
And that's okay. Your goal isn't to give everything your best. It's to make sure the right things receive it.
Your best is valuable precisely because it's limited. You don't have an unlimited supply of attention or energy or time, so spend them deliberately. You are the architect of the decisions that are shaping your life.
And this week, I hope you'll make at least one decision your future self will thank you for. If this podcast episode is helpful, and you know somebody else who needs to make more strategic priorities, then I hope you'll share it with them. And if you're interested in some help on setting those priorities, don't forget you are welcome to a free coaching call.
Go on the link found in the show notes. Until next time, my friends, remember the quality of your decisions will never consistently rise above the clarity of your identity. And your identity begins with the love of God.
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And may God bless you with goals and grace.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
