If you find yourself constantly griping about having too much to do and never enough hours in the day to do it all, you may be the cause of the problem.

As working mothers, we are used to taking charge and getting things done. For many of us, time is limited for decision-making and negotiation and it doesn’t take long to get to the point where we think, “It’s just easier to do everything myself.” But is it? At home and at work, we need to consider how much control is necessary and how much is unnecessary.

Even though you may complain about shouldering most of the responsibility, and want others to do more, do you have difficulty sharing tasks with your colleagues? Do you seek ultimate authority over everything that happens at the office? If you answered “yes,” you just might be a workplace control addict.

It often seems like the more control women demand over their careers, co-workers and workloads, the more insane their life feels. Trying to be in charge of everything often leads to bedlam. To gain balance in your life, you must be prepared to relinquish total control. (There’s a big difference, of course, between totally relinquishing control, and relinquishing total control!)

You may be in a situation where you are working long hours, juggling endless family responsibilities and finishing the night off with extra work you’ve brought home from the office. And on weekends, between soccer practice and ballet lessons, you might even find yourself back at the office “catching up” on the work that you were unable to complete during the week.

Inevitably, the need to be in control at work will leave you on the edge of burnout. Oftentimes, this type of burnout stems from a defeating belief that tells you that you are the only person who can do the job right and there is no point in delegating it to anyone else because you’ll just have to re-do it yourself anyway. In this situation, total control is on the way to total chaos. By being over-worked and over-stressed, mistakes happen and business can be lost… not to mention your sense of work-life balance.

It may be time to figure out how to let go and lighten up. Making an inventory of the clients and projects you have on the go, and determining which tasks you absolutely love to do, and which tasks you would be prepared to let go, is a great starting point.

It may be difficult at first to ask for support from your colleagues for fear that you may appear vulnerable or needy. Asking for help will also demand that you show a considerable amount of trust in others. But doing so will create a sense of teamwork, responsibility, and involvement. And by learning to lighten up, you may realize it is not as necessary to take everything as seriously as you may have in the past.

With more support on the work front, you can choose to gradually shed those weekend office hours and put more balance into your life. Ironically, by letting go of total control at the office you can gain more choice and ultimately more control in your life.
 
Lisa Martin is a certified coach, speaker and author of Briefcase Moms. That’s also the name of her company, which helps organizations hire and retain working mothers.

Copyright North Shore Magazine Issue Oct - Nov 07