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Are you sick of people telling you that you are too much? Or is there someone in your life that you feel is too much?  We as a society need to stop telling people that they are too much. Being told that you are too much is such a hurtful thing. Let me share with you my personal experience and what I’ve seen with my clients having other people tell them they were too much, whether it be:
It's really sad because how long have these women worked to feel like they are enough? In a lot of the work that I do, the number one limiting belief I hear from my clients, and audience members is “I am not enough”. It then moves into them feeling, “I'm not worthy”. The result is:
Then we have this issue that when they finally come to that place of feeling confident and getting into their skills and their talents and really living fully as who they are, being truly themselves and other people come across and say, “You're wrong. Who you are is absolutely too much. Therefore, you are wrong.” As a person, it truly sucks. I'm really annoyed about it. I've interviewed women in leadership roles, women who are successful in their business, and some of them say,
It's sad. Why are we telling the people who are being truly themselves that they need to change? Brene Brown has done so much research in finding out that “I'm not enough” is truly the number one limiting belief. It drives me crazy that we are doing things as a society, telling people that they're wrong for who they are being. My Experiences I've had experiences as a child being told I have too much charisma, excitement and energy for things at school and for sports. People told me to settle down, calm down or talked about me behind my back. This was hard because I didn't always want to do things and didn't always want to be there, but I always did my best. As an adult, I've had this happen in business settings. It's so confusing when I have some people telling me that I'm amazing and they love these things about me then I have others saying the opposite. I even had this happen at a church retreat I was at. Someone who I thought I could trust and I had been vulnerable with ended up telling a group of strangers… women that I hadn't met yet… that I was too much, too confident, and too dynamic. It hurt me to the core. It made me feel like I was wrong for being me. And the worst part is that I was sitting at the table when she did it and I had to suppress my true reaction:
Very stealthily I guess, I hid the hurt and left. This happened over dinner, and I felt like I didn’t want to go back to the events in the evening. I didn't want to face everybody. I was so embarrassed, mad and upset. The leaders and women I work with also have faced this. They have people who adore them, are fans of them, and love them as their true selves. Then there are other people that say they're too much. It sometimes comes up when we do the 360-feedback survey with them. When I go through this with clients through a 360 survey, we can survey their friends, employees, people on their team, colleagues, peers, coaches, other mentors, bosses, etc. Sometimes the feedback is that they're too much for some reason or another. It's heartbreaking to have to be the one to tell them because the reason why they are too much in someone’s eyes is often the reason they have been so successful. But we spend the time deciphering if there is truth in that. At the retreat, I had to do the same, but I had to figure it out on my own. So I’m back in the room (that we were sharing), I'm crying. I'm alone. I'm questioning myself… Was she right? Was this true about me? I said “No, I've done the work. I am authentically myself. If someone else can't handle it, it's not about me anymore.” You see, I have spent so many years working on myself. So many years clearing up my flaws, my weaknesses, and toning down who I am so other people would feel “comfortable”. When you tone down who you are, your people can't find you. Your people don't know where you are. Your people need you; especially if the work you do makes you their solution. But if they can't find you because you're dulling yourself, we have a problem. The world already has enough problems and you not being yourself shouldn’t be one of them. I knew I had to talk to her and fix it (we were staying in the same room and I was driving her home), so a few hours later we had a chat. I was so surprised when she said to me, “Diane, I don’t like myself. I don’t understand why you would be my friend and why you have been so kind to me.” She didn't understand how I could be her friend because I’m so confident and successful. That just broke my heart and had me understand why she said what she said and why she did what she did. There are too many people out there telling others that they're too much, but since there's no opportunity for conversation, there's no opportunity to repair the relationship.  It's heartbreaking when someone is shining brightly in what they are meant to do, shining brightly like a lighthouse. And you know why a lighthouse shines… so others can see them and get to shore safely. It’s the same with people when they are in their own storm and in the craziness of the water, they need to know who to go to solve their problem and get them safely to shore again. If I toned down my personality, if I wasn't who I was, I wouldn't have been able to help the tens of thousands who have looked to me for coaching, guidance, and support to be able to have their own clarity, increased confidence and be following an action plan. Why do the people who are shining brightly have to change? Instead, society needs to change. The people who are telling them that they're too much need to change. There are some moments and people who aren't considerate of others and are taking the spotlight and are shining so brightly all the time and it's tiring to be around them. I get that. I'm very energetically sensitive and I feel that from others. I try to meet people with their energy, and if they have lower energy, I'm either going to try to pick them up, or I'm going to come back down to where they are. I watched an episode of American Idol and there was a guy auditioning who was singing very well, but also running around the stage. It was too much. It took away from his sheer talent. His skills and talents didn’t need all the flashiness. When he toned it down in later episodes, we heard him better. I get it that in certain situations that's how it needs to be. But it really sucks when you have goals, ambitions, and instead of putting your neck out to reach for them, you'd rather take the backstage. You push it aside for fear of what other people are going to say. Has this happened to you? We have to stop taking the wind out of these other people’s sails. We must consider that they have fought hard for where they're at. If we want to encourage women to move forward in leadership and encourage women to step into their full being, we need to stop cutting their legs off. We have to stop the whole tall poppy syndrome where people act on an often subconscious feeling of, “Oh, they're doing well up there, let's knock them down”. Or that idea of the crabs in a bucket where you can throw crabs in the bucket with no lid and none of them will get out because even if they climb to the top, others will grab them and pull them down. Men vs Women I haven’t done the research to know if women are doing this more to other women than men are. But in my experience, when I'm brought into corporate, I initially thought the men were holding the women back. But what I found in working with groups of women in corporate was that the women were afraid to step up, afraid to stand out, because if they stood out too much, others would take them down. And, often it was women who did it to women! If they were vulnerable, others would use that as ammo to take them out. It's sad. It's so sad. What You Can Do I encourage you, if somebody in your life is too much can we let them know nicely? (As I said, I get there are moments, situations and certain people who haven't done the work, they're inconsiderate, and so they're too much.) So instead of cutting them down and telling them they’re wrong for who they're being, can we change our choice of words to talk more about their behaviour? We can start off by telling them about the qualities we do like in them. We can praise, motivate, and encourage the good qualities they have.  Going back to the guy who auditioned on American Idol, we can take my previous suggestion to the next step by adding in compliments on something they improved, by saying things like:
Maybe you've seen a speaker who was moving all around the stage, someone on video or talking to you in person who is talking so quickly with too much energy or sound. You probably felt like saying, “Man, that's too much” or “This person is talking too loud or too fast.” Instead you can make a request, “Hey, do you mind just slowing down a little bit?” Instead of saying that someone's too much, how about you look instead to what it is about them that's too much for you and bring it back to yourself. Like that situation I was in where I was able to have the conversation, I realized it wasn't about me. Yes, what I did was triggering it, but it was her lack of love of self that caused her to say that about me. Let's be encouragers rather than discouragers. Because I'll tell you, with the women who didn’t love herself, she could have been lifted up with ten amazing compliments, but if even one person told her she was too much, it negates every positive thing that's been said. I know that sometimes in my life, when I've been low, I didn’t want to be around someone that was uber positive, loving life and successful. I get that. But that's on me. That’s my problem, not theirs. So, I focused on moving myself into a better position where I could work on me instead of cutting someone else down. I encourage you when you are looking at social media, meeting people, or there are other moments in your life when you hear others saying it, please call them out on it. Have you felt any of these:
If you said yes to any of them, then we can have a conversation. I want to be there to support you through it. It's not about you. If you've done the work, it's not about you. Schedule a call here. Shine like a lighthouse. You were meant to shine so your people can find you, whether it be your customers or your friends, or even a love interest. You deserve the ability to be yourself… your true self… your full self without anyone telling you that you're too much. Read my other blogs here:
1. How NOT to feel isolated 2. We are Starved for this - How to Deal with “I am NOT Enough” 3. D.R.I.V.E.: 5 Ways to Motivate Yourself
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Are you feeling overworked, overwhelmed, and spread too thin?  There are different ways you can spread yourself too thin and there are problems that come along with that. I want to focus on this idea of having too much on your plate or too many plates spinning at the same time. This can cause many negative outcomes…
What I saw in my client I've seen this in a few clients at different times. One client (who I will call Nadia) was sharing how mad she was that the sun was setting at 5:36pm. She was so angry about it, and I was shocked as it’s not common to be this mad about the sun setting at 5:30pm. What it meant for her was that she couldn't go out and run in the sunlight. It was changing the way she was living her life in the evenings, which was the only downtime she had. She was just flat-out working, so it wasn’t really the sunset she was mad at. Even when the sun was setting at seven, she was not getting home from work till after seven, close to eight. It meant that she didn't have time for herself. She was stressed and maybe you're feeling this as well.
Something might happen that becomes too much. Then if you get to the point of actually being sick, who's going to pick up all the things that you do? Now, I often see this in clients that I'm working with. Maybe you can relate in that you're:
The trouble is when you are this way and people find out, they come to you requesting you do more. Have you felt that? Have you felt that you’re always being asked to help?  The thing is you probably can get a lot done and that's why they come to you. Or you feel like you're volunteering for more things because you’re passionate about them and want to see change. The result is you end up with a lot on your schedule. This happened to Nadia. I understand that it's a privilege to be able to choose what your schedule is like. If you can’t, you may fall into one of these:
Even so, there are things you can do to stop yourself from being spread so thin that you're very frail and ready to break (or be mad at sunsets). I've seen a lot of people frail these days. A lot of people in lineups freaking out especially with customer service, being super rude to people. I've seen it in events and out when I’m driving. People are not able to handle things like they could before and their filter of respect, kindness and manners is becoming thin. But my bigger concern here is that you're depleting yourself to the point of anxiety, depression, and then stress-induced illnesses, adrenal fatigue, maybe the anxiety is revving up your blood pressure as well. I would hate for there to be longer-lasting ailments for you because of that stress. The 3 Solutions Let me go into three solutions that you can do. They don't cost you any money. They don't cost you any more time. There's no big process to doing them. 1. Listen to your gut When you get asked to do something or when there's an opportunity in a verbal invitation, or in an email, I want you to check in with your gut, your stomach, your intuition, that basically is going to tell you “Yes” or “No”. I get that sometimes it's a limiting belief voice that you're going to hear that says, “No, don't do that.” Because…
Of course, you're listening to make sure it's not your limiting beliefs. But a lot of times when I open my emails, and I get an invitation to come and speak at an event, do a collaboration with someone, or to have someone speak on my podcast, I look at it and I read it, and the best response is, “Hell yeah, let's do this. Let's make this happen. I'm excited.” The second response is it ends up making me say, “I need to think about this”, or “I need more information before I can decide, but I'm interested.” The last response is feeling a lack of energy, that void of excitement. This is telling you it’s not the right fit or that if you do do this, there is a chance it's going to deplete your energy. This is because if you're not in resonance (being in the energy and alignment), if you're not in that place, it's going to deplete your energy to do it. Have you ever said “Yes” to something, and then realized later that it was the wrong decision? You know that feeling that pops up to say, “I'm not liking this. This feels so hard. I don't want to do this.” Instead, if you trust your gut decision in the beginning, you can make a better decision on what you're putting on your plate. Think of your most favorite type of buffet (Chinese food, Mexican food, potluck, wedding, etc.) and then your favorite food there. For me, oftentimes I go for crab legs so I always make sure I have room for that on my plate. The thing is, you only have so much space on your plate just like you only have so much space in your life and you want everything on your plate to be a “Hell Yeah!” You don't want to put something on your plate from that buffet that you're like, “I don't really like that.” Personally, I’m not a parsley fan. If a salad is made with cilantro, I’d be all over it. But with parsley? Nah. Imagine if I was to get a massive scoop of salad with parsley and put it on my plate, it’s going to be hard to eat that. I’d become something you’d procrastinate on. It also takes space away from food that you actually like. Think about that. Everything you put in your calendar and your life should be a “Hell yeah”. Please know that it’s never too late to change your mind. Yes, you may have to finish your term, wind things down or find a replacement, but then you can let it go. 2. Say “No” and mean it When you listen to your gut and know the decision is no, then say “No” and mean it. If “No” is not a complete answer for you and you need to say more, don't apologize. It’s easier to say, “Yes” to something else, rather than say “No” to that. Let’s say you’re being asked to be on another board and you're already on some boards, you could say, “Thank you for inviting me. I'm already on two boards and that's my quota for boards this year.” Okay, easy. But maybe you’d rather say “Yes” to your family, your hobbies or just resting. If you want to keep it more generic, you could say, “I'm sorry it doesn't fit into my life right now. I really wish I could.” 3. Take some “Me” time What I've found in my life and over the past decade of serving my clients is that the start of the day is the perfect time for some time for yourself. For instance, first thing in the morning you can do:
 When you do that at the start of the day, it sets the foundation for the rest of the day, and helps you to handle the craziness of the day. Also, it then guarantees it won’t get pushed aside later in the day. If you have to take your “Me” time during your lunch hour or at the end of your day because you work a nine to five or have kids and you're crazy busy in the morning, that's fine!
It's a counterbalancing act. On one side, you work really hard, then you need to have a break to fill and recharge yourself. I hope you will stop spreading yourself so thin by listening to your gut, saying “No” and meaning it and then taking “Me” time. P.S. Join the Dynamic Women Global Community to come together to connect, share, grow, and be inspired by other female business leaders. Read more blogs here:
In my last blog, I shared with you the three problems you may be encountering in making your goals. Today, I will share with you the three solutions on how you can be confident in making them. Solution 1: Be proactive in planning your future Make sure that instead of being reactive to other people's agendas and goals, you're proactive in the planning of your own future.  Start by thinking about where you want to be. Then ask yourself, “What's the fastest way I can get there?” Not just what opportunities have come your way or what things have people suggested you do or what are other people doing. Instead, what’s the most direct path and the main goals that will help you to reach your dream future. You do that by implementing solution 2. Solution 2: Look at your ideal life and how you want things to be a year from now If you want a really clear picture of your future, then you need a proven process to follow in order to figure it out. Go through these questions:
The answers will help you to set the right goals to get you to that picture.  Solution 3: Have someone else work with you on this Solution 1 and 2 can be pretty intimidating so the key thing is to have someone else coach you through it. When you have someone else work with you, they not only can suss out when you have limiting beliefs, and expand what you think is possible, but they can bring in new ideas for you that you might not see. I say this Les Brown quote all the time, “You can't see the picture when you're in the frame.”  So there might be some really great opportunities staring you in the face, but you can't see them for some reason. You might have your blinders on, like the racehorses, or it could be that you didn't even know that it was possible. One of the things I love to do for my clients is showing them ways to reach more than 1 goal at the same time. When they say, “Oh, yeah, I want to do this.” Then I respond, “Awesome. Well, when you do that, think about this other piece to tag on.” I love efficiency and productivity and making things easier, especially in a lean type of business. When you have help to see what else is possible then you’ll know how to have your goals work for you in three, four other ways. This may mean you bring in multiple streams of income, or it's easier to achieve multiple goals at the same time or you do the work once but it feeds you, pays you, helps you out two to three times. Just make sure you are bringing someone else in who is ahead of you in your business growth or your life growth, so they can share best practices with you. These three solutions will increase your confidence in making your goals.
If you need more help on how to be more confident with your goals, book a call with me: https://dianerolston.youcanbook.me/. When you make goals, it is absolutely critical that you feel confident about being able to achieve them. But the problem often starts in the making of the goals. There could be three problems in making your goals that are really killing your confidence. These are the problems I often see in my clients.  Reason 1: You Set Reactive Goals You look at what's happening in your world and react, “Oh my gosh, I'm going to have to do this, and I have to do that.” Let's say you see someone on social media doing videos with multiple angle shots. So all of a sudden, the goal is to invest in another camera and learn how to edit cool videos even though you don’t have a Facebook strategy. Or you jump into action after receiving an email sharing how someone is looking for a speaker in a few months and you think, “Oh I better make a presentation so I can tell them I could speak for them.” Even though it’s not your area of expertise. Oftentimes, there are many problems when we pursue goals that were made by being reactive:
 We’re missing an important question for confidence, “What's my big plan?” Reason 2: When You Set Your Goals, You're Not Thinking about Designing Your Life Now, what do I mean by this? Well, I'm a trained and certified life coach. We look at designing the whole life, all 10 areas. If you design the whole life first, then you can fit your goals in. But what often happens is we make goals out of ambition, pressure, ego or because it’s a shiny object. The trouble is it's a surface level goal that doesn’t go deeper into what we really want and the goal ends up negatively affecting our life. When you realize how a goal takes you away from other things you want, it’s easy to put it off or sabotage it. This leads me to number three. Reason 3: The Goals are Created on our Own Hey, all the power to you if you want to make your goals on your own. But the problem with that is it carries with it limiting beliefs.  Imagine horses with blinders on. If you are creating your own goals with no outside support, you could be held back by your limiting beliefs. You'll also be limited in your awareness of what opportunities and what possibilities are out there. I had a conversation with a friend of mine after church. She's restarting her business. She was sharing with me a few changes she was making and a few goals she had to make more money. I shared with two product packaging companies she could maybe switch over to to make her packaging cheaper. I also gave her a couple of ideas she could do when she goes to markets to enhance the number of people who are going to be learning about her products. She replied, “Oh, I didn't think about all that, I'm so glad we talked”. This shows how a conversation with the right person can help you choose the right goals for your life and business. When you make goals on your own, they're based on your own reality. Either limited by your lack of self-belief or lack of knowledge. In my next blog, I will share with you three solutions that you can easily implement so you can be confident with your goals. P.S. If you want to be a more balanced leader, I encourage you to download the Balance Leader Cheatsheet.
Are you wondering what you want in life or where to set your goals? Not knowing what you want can be frustrating and annoying. This will cause you to not know where to focus your time and energy. Maybe you want to know what you want in your business, life, and/or in your relationships. A question I get asked a lot is, “Diane, how do I figure out what I want?”  Or when I start working with clients, I ask them what it is that they want. People are like, “Man, I'm not sure. Can you help me figure that out?” Well, yes, I can. So today, I'm going to go through that with you in a very simple way that you can even do it on the back of a napkin in a coffee shop. I'm also going to give you the option of going through it as an action guide with my Three Simple Steps to Figure Out What You Want. Let me take you through some of the simplified versions of it. First of all, are these all the areas in your life which you’d like to get clarity on?
Once you go through and you figure out all the areas of your life, ask yourself, “How satisfied do I want to be in each of these areas?” By satisfied, I mean content and happy. (Usually, when I go through this with a client, we are looking at the wheel, and we score where they are right now. If you want to go through that process, you can. Schedule your call here.) If we looked at it on a scale of one to ten (one being not very happy and ten being very happy or satisfied in that area), how do you want it to be six months from now? How do you want it to be one year from now? Then you take that number. Let me illustrate that for you. Let's focus on career. You're currently at a six, and you want it to be an eight or you've only scored where you want to be, and you score it at the eight. So then paint that picture. What does it look like in your career at an eight? How does it feel? What’s happening? What does it look like for your health at a nine? And so on? Not just what does it look like? But what does it feel like? If it's around your health, it looks like me going to the gym.
These are all the pieces that could be part of it. Then ask yourself, “Because of that, what's happening?”
 By going through this process, you’ll know what you want in every area of life. If that's what makes you satisfied, then that's what makes you happy. Really, that's the ultimate goal, isn’t it? To be happy and satisfied and content in life. Don’t you think? When you know what it looks like to be happy in every area, it kicks off the clarity on the steps you must take and the things that will happen when you are there. That's how you set the goals around it. Then I get asked the following question, “But what if I have too many things that I want?” Great, you're a big dreamer or you have good clarity on all the different areas of life. Once you see the whole picture, you then get to decide:
If it’s in your career, you may be looking to get a promotion or raise your rates in your business to afford the kitchen renovation you're wanting. Or maybe it’s hiring someone to help you so you can have a cleaner house. You start to see how something in one area will actually help another area. Now another question is, “What if everyone around me knows what they're doing, and I don't? Or knows what they want to do, and I don't?” Well, that's probably because you're focusing on career or personal development and education as the area. It's okay if you don't know what you want in every area. The key thing is if you can just design your life, then you'll be able to see what fits into the lifestyle you want. I've had a lot of people first decide what their career or what their education will be. Then after that, they try to design their life, but it doesn't fit in anymore. They then see the reality: they're always working or they're career has them traveling so they're always away. That's not what they were looking for. They just planned backwards. The real desires come forward:
If you're thinking, “Everyone else knows what they want, and I don't”, it's okay, go through this process. Go through the exercise. The last thing I need to clarify is if you do this process and then come to realize:
 While doing this exercise, it's going to show you the things you value most in life. Then you're going to be able to start working towards that. Maybe having a career or having a business or investing, something that will help you to have a relaxing or travel-lifestyle. These are the steps as best as I can explain them in a blog. If you want to do this exercise with a booklet to figure out what you want, then get the “3 Simple Steps to Figure Out What You Want” mini course as my gift to you. Then, you'll be able to really see a bigger, and clearer picture of what you want. Make sure you grab it and tell a friend because it's going to have more information about what you need and will help walk you through the process. Read my other blogs here:
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