When people take on too much

There is such a thing as being conservative. And it's not a bad thing. Apparently, some people don't understand the meaning of the word. I'm not referring to religion... I'm referring to being smart about how much you can handle and saying "no" when you should.

One of my many pet peeves is people who take on too much, thinking they can accomplish everything, and end up doing such a bad job on most of them. I do have respect for those who love to roll up their sleeves and be involved in their cause, taking on different tasks to help make things a success. Sometimes it's necessary. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's smarter to just delegate responsibilities.

I do recognize those who feel the need to do everything on their own. Sometimes you just can't trust others to do a good job and feel that you are the best person to do it - so it's just best to do it yourself. I've been there and done that. And I still do it. Maybe I should work on my trust issues and allow other people to help me out when I need it. Maybe you should too, if you have the same problem.

And there are others who take on too much simply for the fact that they can't say "no." Perhaps they're afraid of disappointing other people. Perhaps they're afraid of being criticized or deemed lazy if they did not say "yes" whenever people asked for help. People like those need to understand that they're not a total failure if they feel that they aren't up to the task or feel that they wouldn't have time for it/do a good job.

I have been dealing with several people at my graduate school that are just oh, SO busy and apologize fervently for not returning my emails for days. "I'm just so busy" is the common excuse among them. Yes, I understand that they're busy, but being in the profession that they are - working closely with students (ahem, or they're supposed to be) - they should know better than to leave a student hanging for several days before getting back to them.

I don't mean just an email asking a casual question. I'm talking about advising to get ready for internship and graduation. I'm talking about actually giving us our grades instead of making us wait 8 weeks for it. Yes, 8 weeks and I'm not exaggerating. And if a student asks you a question about an assignment a week prior to the date it's due, do NOT wait until the day before it's due to answer.

At the moment, I am trying to get my student teaching set up for the spring. I have been in contact with the school district and we are both ready to move forward - however, my advisor is pretty much non-existent right now. He isn't answering my emails so all I can do right now is just sit and wait. I did just find out that I possibly may not even qualify for student teaching because my advisor failed to check in with me and let me know that I was supposed to do this and that beforehand (like filling out forms that was due at the beginning of the FALL semester)... things I was not aware of. I would expect that an advisor would work closely with all his students to make sure they are progressing well in the program. If I received some sort of schedule of things to do and due dates, I would have done them. I have heard nothing of this requirement until just now. I blame the advisor.

If, in fact, I find out I cannot student teach because of this, I am going to give my advisor hell. I'm going to try my best and do what I can to get my foot in the door because I am determined to student teach in the spring.

So here's a word of advice - Doing more doesn't mean you're a better person or you're pleasing more people. If anything, doing more than you should could mean you'll do worse. So instead of doing a fantastic job with one or two projects, you could be doing a really horrible job doing 4 or 5 projects. And by doing a horrible job on all (or some) of your projects, you'll just get poor review from your peers. And so finally, by attempting to please everyone, you've actually disappointed a few.