Hello, my name is Nicole. I’m a volunteer-aholic.

(you say: Hi, Nicole…)

Over the course of my career both as a social media coordinator and event/newsletter coordinator, I’ve amassed a certain set of skills… (Cue the Taken music here.) Skills that mean I’m adaptable and able to take on pretty much any sort of administrative/creative task from website building to video editing to folding brochures. Not life-saving skills, I’ll admit, but usually they are common needs amongst organizations.

This means, when I see a need that I’m able to fill, I jump in. But as I’ve come to learn over the past year, I tend to jump into things I simply can do. Not things I’m made to do.

Thus, one of my most difficult and challenging resolutions for 2013 is simply this: Not volunteering for anything new.

Of course, I’ll maintain the volunteer roles I’ve already established (and most of these I do feel are things that I’m meant to be doing… so don’t get me wrong.)

It’s time I check myself and check my motives. Am I doing these things simply to feel involved? Wanted? Appreciated? If so, then I’m bowing out here and now. Many times, I simply have the compulsion to fill up my to-do list so that I have no room for the things I really fear most (aka, the projects that matter most in the scope of my career and life…)

They say that admission is the first step to recovery. So here I am, admitting my weakness.

My resolution: No more half-assed work done at the last minute because I have too much on my plate. No more endless work to fill the void in my life. What I must do, I will do the the highest standard. No more volunteering for tasks I can do. Time to focus on what I’m made to do.

Am I alone in this? Have you ever taken something on and realized you really weren’t doing it for the right reasons? 

Much love,

the has-been