You made it happen

Being responsible for the outcome doesn’t mean doing everything yourself

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is that you don't have to do everything yourself,
as long as you make sure it gets done. As

(00:24):
long as you work within any budget constraints, you can
use all the resources available to you to fulfill your responsibilities.
Back when people had potlock parties, I know of one
savvy woman who responded to the inevitable question, oh did
you make that? With I made it happen. I love

(00:47):
that if she promised to bring a pie, she did
not promise that the pie would be homemade. She simply
promised to make a pie happen, and that she most
certainly did. Similarly, by shifting our focus from what we
personally need to do to what we need to get done,
we can alleviate a little pressure and give ourselves some

(01:09):
freedom and how we fulfill our responsibilities. So, if dinner
is your responsibility in your household, that doesn't mean you
have to cook from scratch every night. It means you
get dinner on the table. Some days it will be
a homemade feast, and some nights it might be a

(01:29):
rotisserie chicken in a bagged salad grab from the supermarket
on the way home. No, you didn't exactly make dinner,
but you made dinner happen. I think we are more
okay with this concept at work. No one is under
any delusion that the executive who presents a big report
did all the work herself. It is understood that while

(01:52):
she didn't make all of those findings personally, she made
them all happen. She did her part, which was making
sure that the big report was delivered. She did indeed
do the work she was responsible for doing, even if
other people did a lot of it too. But we
sometimes feel more conflicted about this in our personal lives,
and partly that's for financial reasons. Our executive in the

(02:17):
previous example probably works for a big company where people
are employed to help her. Households operate under different constraints,
but we might have more leeway than we think. If
you set a budget for food and then you aim
to work within that budget, well you can make choices.

(02:40):
That means that if you eat leftovers one night, well
some other night there's extra funds for a pre made dinner.
Or maybe you have a very cheap omelet based dinner
one night, and voila, you've bought yourself some space for
takeout on another evening. It still works. You didn't make it,
but you made it happen. Being responsible for something does

(03:03):
not always mean having to do all of it yourself.
If you take responsibility for seeing that the task gets
done well, then you have done your part and this
can leave you with the time and mental bandwidth to
do the things that only you can do, and that
is a big win. In the meantime, this is Laura.

(03:29):
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time. Hey everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at

(03:49):
Before Breakfast Pod that's b E the number four then
Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me an
email at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeartMedia dot com. That
Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks
so much, I look forward to staying in touch. Before

(04:13):
Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
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