I pride myself on having lots of capacity for all things, but this summer I hit the red zone. Not quite my breaking point, but it sure felt like it came close.

I was hitting walls all over the place.. Mental. Emotional. Physical.

I realized, which if I’m honest with myself, I’ve known for a while, that I overstuff my life. Period.

Whether it be jamming:

• too many meetings in a day, too many topics in a meeting,
• too much content into my brain, driving, peeing, waiting in line…must…fill…brain…with…more…
• too many activities while on vacation,
• too many topics in this blog,

You name it. I am constantly trying to cram as much as humanly possible into every second of every day. A sense of urgency that is largely driven by my keen awareness and understanding of the brevity of life and the short runway ahead of me.

This mindset is slowly killing me.

To add to this bad habit, we also had the reality of taking on new big things. We added 5 team members in Montreal. We acquired a web development company in Philadelphia, which came with all the joyous logistics of getting incorporated and operating in the US. We acquired and onboarded our largest client in history.

Lotso shit let me tell you.

So combine an addiction to doing more is better with an onslaught of circumstantial more and you get system overload.

Then came the epiphany.

While off to see my youngest daughter play flag football in Philly, I got a note from one of my 24-hour Adventure Race team members. (yes, I also threw in training for a 24-hour race for good measure) She said she had to bow out because she was dealing with some health issues and had to listen to her body.

My first reaction was totally. You have to listen to your body. Smart move.

Wait a minute…she might be onto something here. If she can listen to her body, is this something I could allow for myself? With very little thought, my body was viscerally and undeniably answering yes.

Sitting across the breakfast table at the hotel that morning with my dad, I said: I think I need to bow out of my race. He looked at me with a wry smile and said: I think that might be a wise decision. Something has to give.

With my dad’s wisdom and my whole body screaming at me; permission had been granted. My friend’s email was the spark to gift myself the grace necessary to recognize and embrace my humanity and allow myself to start removing things from life that, rather than creating fun and excitement, are just creating a deeper sense of overwhelm.

No exaggeration. I mourned the decision for 2-3 days. Then I realized I was letting go of a 7-8 year journey.

What started as a 1-hour Spartan race, which turned into a 2 hour one, then 5 then 14. It then transformed into a half Iron Man and a full Iron Man with a marathon in between. Then it grew to my first 24-hour Adventure Race last year. (It was actually 26 hours and 20 minutes, but who’s counting.)

I had in part defined myself by the fact that I would do something longer and crazier every year to see how far I could push myself. Ultimately, or so I told myself, I did all these things to see who I would become along the way.

It turns out, I am, as we all are, capable of great things. But I am also able to run myself into the ground along the way.

It is time to build a healthier way forward. To remove a bunch of shit from the suitcase and try to take only one trip at a time.

It turns out that if I drop some of the rocks I am carrying, not only does the burden of their weight fall away, it frees my hands to craft a new reality.