Robert Palmer Should Have Written a Song About This...

Remember how the song Addicted to Love by Robert Palmer goes?

The lights are on, but you’re not home. Your mind is not your own…
You can’t sleep, you can’t eat. There’s no doubt, you’re in deep…
You like to think you’re immune to the stuff, oh yeah. It’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough. You know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to love.

There was a time in my life when I used to be addicted to my to-do list. I got such a kick out of doing more. At the end of the day when I could reflect on what I had achieved I felt good. The problem was, I started needing to add more to my list to keep feeling great about myself. The target kept shifting and it became exhausting.

I now know my to-do list was never going to be enough and if I stayed in that cycle, I would have stayed addicted to output, outcomes and outsourcing my value to what I did instead of who I was.

Many of us become reliant on external validation to feel good about ourselves. It might be validation from other people – our clients, our boss, and friends. Or we may rely on our work as a form of validation like how much we can churn out each day.

Relying on things outside of us to prove our own self-worth becomes a problem because we’re at the mercy of other people’s opinions or we must keep working hard to feel worthy ourselves. We acknowledge our worthiness based on things outside of us instead of accepting our inherent self-worth that over time forget or discard.

You never see a toddler saying they must go down the slide 10 more times to feel good about themselves. There is no question in their minds about their worthiness.

Notice whether you are immune to the urge to stay busy and productive or are you trying to fuel your feelings from your to-do list?

Check out my blog next week when we explore worthiness and why we don’t need stuff or people outside of ourselves to feel good. In the meantime, become aware. Are the lights on in your brain, but you’re not home? Are you oblivious to your need to keep busy? Get curious.