How to shift your life when everything feels like a chore!
It’s a terrible feeling when you wake up knowing the only thing ahead of you is chores you need to struggle your way through until you fall back into bed at the end of the day.
There are a few different reasons why everything in your life might feel like a chore. Let’s break down the possible reasons and talk about options to help bring more play and joy into your life, and remove the feeling that everything you’re dealing with is a chore!
I’ve created a checklist to go along with this episode, it covers several different questions you can ask yourself to help determine why everything in your life feels like a chore and the steps you can start taking to change that! You can get your copy using the form below.
Rule out a medical reason
First, if you haven’t already, make an appointment to check in with your doctor. While not the only answer, it’s possible you’re experiencing depression, a chronic illness, or some other medical reason for feeling like everything in your life is a chore. Once you’ve ruled out an underlying medical condition, here’s a few more things to think about!
Review your to-do list
It’s possible everything in your life feels like a chore because everything in your life IS a chore. Have you filled your day with things that under any circumstances would feel more like an obligation than a joy?
We did a deep dive on taming your to-do list and being really thoughtful in what makes it on – and what to remove – in Episode 6 – go back to that episode and get the taming your to-do list cheat sheet.
If you discover your to-do list is just filled with chores – even if they are in alignment with your unique priorities, it’s no surprise you might be feeling like everything in your life is a chore. In this situation, start adding one fun thing to your daily schedule – not your to-do list, your schedule. Block out the time on your calendar. Set an alert or reminder. And treat it like a non-negotiable.
If you’re having trouble thinking of fun activities, try revisiting things you enjoyed as a kid. And if you can’t remember what you enjoyed as a kid, ask an old friend or family member what your childhood passions were.
Are you aiming for perfection?
If the tasks on your to-do list are things you’ve enjoyed in the past, or you could imagine yourself enjoying under other circumstances, think about how you’re approaching them.
Are you expecting perfection and the struggle to reach that point is taking the joy out of the task?
I’ve spent most of my life struggling with the desire to be perfect at everything I tackle. In school, an A- might as well have been an F. As an adult, I tried to put 110% into everything I did (work, relationships, my home) so it could be perfect.
As a kid, I went straight from crawling to walking with proficiency. It wasn’t because I was a walking prodigy, rather, it was because when I thought no one was looking I would practice walking around my crib using the railing for support. Even at that age I struggled to do anything less than perfect.
Perfection is a myth
But here’s the thing I’ve come to understand – perfection is a myth. It’s a moving target. Each time we learn something new, we realize we could have done something better.
When I created the original Solicited Advice videos, I thought I did a great job on balance and cleaning up the audio. As I returned to editing audio for this podcast, I did more research, experimented with settings, and the difference in audio quality between the two is HUGE.
I thought I was pretty close to perfect when I was editing audio last year. I now know how much better I could have made it.
That’s the thing about perfection. Even if you manage to achieve it, it’s fleeting, the next moment that perfection is no more when you realize you could have done something differently.
But the amount of time and energy we spending on trying to reach perfection can easily make everything you undertake feel like a chore.
Can you pick one thing item on your to-do list right now where you can aim for B+ work? Experiment with releasing perfection on just that one thing and letting “good enough” be enough.
Learn more about where perfection is holding you back and how to start releasing it in my Recovering Perfectionist eBook.
Have your interests changed?
We talked about this as well in Episode 6 while taming your to-do list. Think back on the things you enjoyed doing 20 years ago. How many of those things would you now view as a chore or a burden? What about 5 years ago? Maybe even six months ago?
Perhaps something that might feel like a joy in another season feels like a chore in this one. Spending hours in the garden during the spring is always enjoyable for me. Pulling the thousandth weed in 95 degree weather in the middle of summer might feel like more of a chore. Cleaning up the garden in the crisp autumn air feels like a joy. Finishing up the pieces I didn’t get a chance to get to in 40 degree weather as winter rapidly approaches – a lot more like a chore.
Are you trying to finish something simply because you’ve started it?
Maybe your interests changed but you’re still trying to force yourself to complete activities related to old passion projects. For example, if you would rather be sewing that knitting, why are you forcing yourself to finish knitting that blanket?
Or perhaps you feel as if you’ve started something you have some obligation to finish it. I have a rule – when reading a new book it has 30 pages to hook me. If I’m not interested in finishing it after 30 pages I stop reading. I know my time isn’t worth the struggle of slogging through something I’m not enjoying. It takes reading which is something I enjoy and turns it into a chore.
What are you trying to force yourself to finish that simply isn’t in alignment with your interests any longer?
Are your expectations out of line with reality?
Most mornings our cat Lada will sleep peacefully somewhere while I work. However, some days she wakes up full of energy. And when that happens, every time I sit down to type, Lada will scamper into my office and start looking for a houseplant to nibble on. I’ll get up and chase her away from the plants and sit back down. But before I manage to type a single word, she’ll be right back at them. And each time I have to get up, I can hear my tone shifting toward more and more frustration as my patience grows thinner and thinner.
Although we try really hard not to reinforce naughty behavior with positive attention, sometimes I need to remind myself that Lada is a cat. As much as I think she understands me, she doesn’t really get it when I try to explain that the plants don’t actually want to be tasted.
So eventually, I realize my expectations are out of line with reality. I’m expecting her to be reasonable and rational. She’s a cat.
So instead of chasing her away, I pick her up. I snuggle her. I get her brush and gave her some focused loving attention. (Because Lada really enjoys brushings – and as a bonus, it reduces the cat tumbleweeds rolling through our house!) Or I’ll run around the house tossing toys and playing the cat version of tag.
And spoiler alert – after spending a little time together, Lada curls up somewhere cozy peacefully snoozing, and I’ve put a healthy splash of tea in my teacup with a little surprise moment of play!
Shift your perspective to focus on the opportunity
When you shift your perspective from being stressed because you’re unable to focus on what you “should” be doing to instead seeing the opportunity the situation presents, things feel less hard. And you’re able to move from feeling frustrated and annoyed to feeling joyful and serene.
If you’re finding the things in your life feel like chores because what you expect and the reality of the situation are out of alignment, first, reminded yourself to focus on the opportunity in the situation.
This means looking for the silver lining, the lesson, or the spontaneous moment. (This isn’t the same as ignoring the negative, it’s simply about reframing what isn’t working to find a way to make it work!)
Do you have margin built into your day?
Another way our expectations and reality diverge is when we don’t have margin built into our day. If you don’t plan your schedule down to the minute you’ll have enough flexibility so you can take 10-15 minutes several times a day for spontaneous moments.
Having this bit of margin built in, you’re able to fully enjoy these moments as they come up without the anxiety of falling behind on your to-do list dampening your joy.
This bit of margin is also incredibly helpful if something takes longer than expected. If you find that your expectations for how long something will take are chronically shorter than the reality, then rushing to pack 12 hours worth of stuff into an 8 hour time window is bound to make you feel like even the fun things are chores.
If this sounds like you, check out my Personal Energy Audit. It will help you understand not only how to plan realistic time frames for your day, but will also help you discover areas where you’re leaking energy that could be used to either restore you or for productive purposes.
Everything feels like a chore when your tank is on empty
Here’s where it’s critically important you make sure you have enough self-care in your life. Sometimes things feel like a chore because we’re exhausted, run-down, and out of energy.
The way you refill your mental, emotional, and physical energy is through self-care. The more self-care in your life, the more energized you’ll feel, and the less some of those tasks will feel like a chore simply because they require your energy input in some way.
For many years, when someone would ask me how I was doing, I would always say “ok”. Or “I’m fine, thanks, how are you?” Because those are the polite things we learn to say when someone asks how we’re doing.
But occasionally, someone would say, “no really, how are you actually doing?”. And the answer to that question was a lot different. Often it was exhausted. Overwhelmed. Stressed out.
Sometimes the answer really was ok, but let’s be honest, ok is just one step above not ok. And the truth is that we all deserve to feel awesome, fantastic, joyful, and great, not just ok.
Now when someone asks how I’m doing, my answer is much more likely to be “I’m really good!”. Or “I’m busy working on such exciting stuff.” Even at the end of the day when the answer is “tired” it comes with a deep feeling of accomplishment and pride in everything I’ve done that day – and the knowledge that “tired” will lead to an incredibly restful sleep!
Shifting from so-so to fantastic
I’ve made a lot of changes to result in this shift and one of those changes that can still have an instant impact on changing a so-so day to a fantastic one, is self-care.
I talked a lot about understanding what self-care looks like for you in Episode 4. You can listen to that episode and get my free Self-Care Toolkit to help you create a consistent, sufficient, and sustainable self-care routine that works for you and your life.
Making the chores you can’t avoid fun!
Finally, no matter how well you clean up your to-do list, no matter how much margin you plan into your day, no matter how full your reserves are, and no matter how much you align your expectations with reality, some things you might otherwise wish to avoid are going to be necessary – but it doesn’t mean they can’t be fun!
Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you receive podcasts for next week’s episode where I’m answering the question of how to make the necessary things in life enjoyable!
In conclusion, there are a number of reasons why you could feel like everything in your life is a chore. You might find you resonate with one, several, or all of these reasons.
Grab this week’s checklist using the form below to help you determine what might be causing your life to feel like it’s filled with chores and how to start making changes.
Working to adjust just one of these reasons your life feels like it’s filled with chores will start to shift things for you. Remember – little steps are the key to sustained progress! And don’t forget to tune in next week for the second half of this discussion!
Show Notes
Additional Resources
Learn more about Taming Your To-Do List in Podcast Episode #6.
Get the Recovering Perfectionist eBook.
Learn how to conduct a Personal Energy Audit.
Discover where you might be going wrong with your self-care routine.
Get the Self-Care Toolkit.
Schedule a Discovery Session with me.
Submit your question to be featured on a future episode.
