How to Stop Living in Survival Mode

Why Embracing Your Limits May Be the Most Freeing Thing You’ll Ever Do

“I don’t have enough time!” I’ve said it more times than I can count, including about 30 minutes ago on my morning walk.

That familiar twinge signaled in the pit of my stomach. How was I going to pack all this stuff in the container of my life and business?

I have several new, important projects that I’d like to complete before the end of the year—each one mission-critical, or so it seems, each one fighting for its spot on my priority list. But to make them all happen I have to rush the most important one, the one from which all the others will benefit, and the pressure isn’t sitting well with me.

The Pressure to Fit It All In

In years past, I would ask myself, “What would have to be true to make this work?” I would then start playing calendar and delegation Tetris. Nipping a little here and a lot there to somehow wedge it all in. But like sucking in my belly to squeeze into a pair of jeans a size too small, squeezing too much into the container of my life causes chafing of its own.

Compromises must be made, not the least of which is my own peace. Less sleep, longer days, tighter timelines, rushed work, skipped workouts, dinner in the fast food line. Compromises that lead to living in perpetual survival mode with burnout but a few steps away.

Can you relate? I bet you can.

Why do we struggle so much with the limitations of our time? Especially when every human on the planet has the same amount? No matter who you are or what resources you have, there is nothing you can do to change this. Twenty-four hours in a day, 168 hours in a week—everyone gets the same allowance.

And yet we are obsessed with finding ways to stretch time, to do more with it, to defy the laws of nature and make it bend to our will, as though it could be beaten, mastered, dominated. Denial, delegation, automation, working faster, skipping steps, changing deadlines, changing scope—we leverage every trick in the book to avoid the one thing we don’t want to face. But the reality remains: Time cannot be mastered. And we ignore the fact at our own peril.

Our Fear of Not Enough

Sometimes I wonder if our obsession with finding new ways to fit more into our allotted time boils down to our fear of death, of our own finiteness. Not only are the hours in our days and weeks limited, but so are—like the saying goes—the days of our lives. Every day lived is one day closer to our last, and we feel it in our bones even if it doesn’t register in our minds. If we’re honest, what we have left probably doesn’t seem like enough.

So, we fill our plates to overflowing as though we subconsciously believe that maybe if we take more now, in the end, it’ll be enough. That we’ll be enough. Just one more appointment. One more meeting. One more event. One more project.

Yeah, but no.

I feel like I need that sad trombone sound effect here, but the hard truth is that we won’t be able to do everything we want to do in this life. We won’t be able to reach our full potential at work or at home or take advantage of every opportunity. We are going to leave things undone—today, this week, this year, and in our lives as a whole.

This is deeply unsettling to us. Whether we know it or not, our hearts are made for eternity. But that plan was temporarily thwarted, and we must live with the mortal wound of an expiration date while on this earth. Bottom line: We’re made for more and we feel it, long for it, and strive for it. But that sense of wanting more? It can’t be fully satisfied on this side of heaven.

Whew! I’m sure that sounds like a whole lot of bad news. But what if the constraints of our calendars—of our lives themselves—were not a bug but a feature? What if, as my friend Ryan recently said, the problem was actually the solution?

Honoring Our Limits

What if all the productivity tips, tricks, tools, and systems were by and large, missing the point? Yes, they can be helpful. But the point can’t be to fit it all in. Which is great news because you literally can’t, and we are hereby released from the responsibility of trying!

The secret to getting out of survival mode is to accept this. Stop looking for the magic that makes it all fit. There isn’t a schedule that’s somehow bigger on the inside like Dr. Who’s phone booth. It doesn’t exist anymore than the fountain of youth does.

But when we remember our capacity, when we honor and accept it as good, the stress ebbs away. We stop striving and trying to make it all work. Instead, we become free to ask ourselves, “What can I reasonably put in this container?” Then, to be content with the answer. We give ourselves permission to stop trying to cram in more stuff than our lives can hold.

We exhale. We have room to breathe. We say “no” without guilt or so much internal conflict. The decisions get easier. The priorities become clearer. We have peace.

I think peace is what we want most anyway. The more I succeed, the more I fail, the more miles I log in life, the more I believe peace is what we long for most of all.

Solving for Peace

It’s so easy to think achieving more, finding space for more, saying yes to more will get us peace, but it never does. When was the last time another opportunity, more money, or more status helped you sleep better or feel more at home or even safe in your life? Almost never, right? These sorts of achievements never touch the deepest longings or anxieties of our hearts and minds. As conduits of peace, they are fools gold—bankrupt promises of what we want most.

When do I live well and sleep easiest? When I live within my limits. When I do fewer things. When I let go of what other people think, focus on daily actions instead of trying to force outcomes, commit to only what fits reasonably—it might even be better to say comfortably—into the container of my life.

Then I choose (and it is a choice!) to entrust the results to God. Why? Because what I can reasonably fit into my life never feels like enough. I’m always afraid I’ll come up short. I always feel the pressure to do more. But that’s because I feel the pressure of the results. It’s a pressure I’m not intended to bear, none of us are.

I cannot produce results anymore than a gardener can force a harvest. What gardeners know that the rest of us would do well to remember is that all we can do is plant and water and weed. That’s about it. Nature must do the rest. Humans can’t be sun or rain or pollinators. And we don’t need to be. We can simply, humbly do our part and leave the rest in the care and cultivation of the great Gardener.

And there’s the spiritual work.

Enough Is a Spiritual Practice

To believe that my own, finite, human contribution is enough. Not because it is enough, but because my contribution plus God’s blessing somehow makes it so. Miraculously, this makes the hours I can give … enough. What I’m able to accomplish at work in a reasonable workday … enough. What I can pour into my husband and kids … enough. What I can do for my health … enough.

This is hard! I do not pry my clenched fingers off the results of my life so easily. I naturally want to be in control, and default to self-reliance is my favorite (dysfunctional) anxiety-management strategy. But the only path to peace is letting go of control, of needing to dominate my life and my time and bring it into submission to my will.

Peace is found, paradoxically, in the release, in humility, and in submission to the limitations of our lives, not in fighting them. I don’t have to be God; this is good news, because I’m not very good at that job anyway.

And, somehow, when we let go, when we trust, when we respect the container, it is enough. I don’t really know how to explain this to you, but it’s true. What we are able to accomplish at a humane speed on a human scale is enough, and it is good.

The best part? It doesn’t come with compromises that cost us too much. It comes with peace. With deep, restful sleep. With margin for things to go wrong. And margin for things to go right. And that amounts to a joyful, peaceful life well-lived. We can finish the rest in eternity.

If this message met you right where you are, I’d love to hear from you. What helps you find peace with your own limits? Hit reply or share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s discuss!

And if you know someone who’s running on fumes, would you forward this to them? Sometimes a simple reminder that “enough really is enough” can change everything.

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