I’m not managing everything. And I’m fine with that.

September. October. November. For many of us this isn’t the golden season from the photos. It is the return to the spin: school, work, activities, meetings, shopping lists.

And the quiet voice in your head: you have to manage all of it, and perfectly.

Plan everything. Catch up. Look good. Be patient. Cook healthily. Be nice. Exercise. The holidays are long forgotten, and we start running again. Only where to?

We run because everyone runs. Because we want to be on time with everything, for everyone. And somewhere along the way we lose ourselves. The familiar feeling comes back: I have no energy. And instead of asking what we actually need, we start blaming ourselves.

“I’m tired” does not mean “something is wrong with me”

Tiredness is not a failure. You don’t have to be ready for everything. Not feeling like it sometimes doesn’t make you lazy. It makes you human.

Your body and your head need rest, not only sleep. They need space. And they need something most of us were never taught: letting go.

Maybe strength is not carrying everything. Maybe it is being able to put down what isn’t necessary, or isn’t yours any more.

What wears you out most is what you think you should do

Often the heaviest thing isn’t the work itself. It is the invisible, endless list in your head. “I still have to call…” “I have to remember to…” “I have to do it better than last time…”

Even when you sit on the sofa for a moment, your brain doesn’t rest, because it is still managing. It is not your body that is tired. It is your head. That mental load, more than the doing itself, is what burns us out. (More on that in The mental load.)

So it is worth letting go not only of tasks, but of expectations of yourself. Not everything has to be perfect. Not everything has to be today.

What letting go does

Letting go doesn’t mean giving up or not caring. It means not losing yourself, or your health, in the race to keep up with everything.

When the pressure drops, the body can come down from high alert: muscles loosen, breathing slows, the nervous system has a chance to move from “keep going” to recovery. The head gets quieter, and it becomes easier to hear what actually matters.

That isn’t weakness. You can’t pour from an empty cup, and letting go is how it fills again.

“But how, when everything depends on me?”

You don’t drop everything at once. You start with small things.

• You don’t have to cook three courses. One is enough.
• You don’t have to smile when you are tired.
• You don’t have to go to every meeting or every party. Sometimes “I can’t” is reason enough.

These small “I don’t have to”s open up space in your head. And where it gets quieter, strength comes back.

And one more thing: stop comparing

Other mothers seem to have it all under control? Someone’s home is already decorated for Halloween, and you haven’t even got your autumn coat out yet?

It isn’t a race. Your pace is enough. So is the way you do things.

In autumn, and in any other season, it is easy to get lost in what you should do, what is expected, what others are doing. You can choose differently. You don’t have to manage it all perfectly. You don’t have to pretend everything is fine.

Sometimes the most useful sentence of the day is: “That’s enough for today.”

Kasia Biernacka is an organisational psychologist and leadership advisor based in Belgium, with more than 20 years in HR and leadership development. She has talked about the hidden cost of living in “I’ll manage” mode in interviews for Onet and iKobiece.pl (both in Polish).