A couple of weeks ago, I got caught telling a whopper set of lies.

I was waiting for my daughter to get out of school, when another mum asked, “How are you doing?”

“Good,” I said breathlessly, “but crazy busy!”

(Lie #1: I certainly was busy, but I was not well at all.  My back pain had returned in spades and the stress was so bad I’d started getting recurrent cold sores in my mouth.)

“I’ve got a launch coming up, I created a new product, and I’m wrapping up the book chapter I’ve been writing on contract.  And of course the hubby’s been out of town a lot, so doing most of the child care. But,” I sighed, “I just have to get through April and things will slow down.”

My friend cocked her head and asked, “Haven’t you been saying that since October?”

Lie #2, that I thought everything would “slow down next month,” was the worst of all, because at least part of me believed it.  Indeed, I’d been engaged in a vocational sprint for more than six months, where the finish line always remained just a few steps ahead of me.

In my last update on my no goals experiment, I shared 3 strategies for de-cluttering your commitments. I’m here to say I tried juggling and failed.  It was a good experiment, but at least for me, I couldn’t make it work.

I decided the only real solution was to remove all work commitments and start completely over.

For many of my clients, the thought of starting over is one of their biggest fears.  There were certainly days I just wanted to curl up and hide in my room.  I was so stressed about the how: how to break ties without burning bridges, how to throttle back without losing momentum, and how to focus on the work I love without burning out.

In this post, I’ll show you how I’m addressing all three of those concerns and how you might do the same.

In January I made the bold statement that I was committing to living without goals.

Us overachievers can be so melodramatic.

There were a number of warning signs that led me to re-evaluate the goals in my life:

• I was anxious, even when (or especially when) things were going well
• No matter how much success I enjoyed, I still didn’t feel I’d done enough
• I felt so overwhelmed at times it was like I was suffocating

Two months into the experiment, I can say that when I’m successful at letting go of my goals, my stress goes way down.  For example, previously I might have set a goal of working out 3 times a week–a goal I’d rarely live up and when I didn’t, resulted in a lot of internal scolding.

Now, I have an “area of focus” on fitness.  That means I work out when I want to and I make sure it’s fun (no more forcing myself to do “what’s good for me”).  I experimented with different kinds of exercise and ultimately found a Pilates class in my neighborhood that I love.  I go once or twice a week, plus walking with a group of friends once a week.

So at least in that area of my life, giving up goals leaves me feeling great and reduces stress.  If I don’t work out for a week due to projects, that’s ok.  My fitness now flexes more seamlessly with my priorities because there’s no pass/fail criteria.

However, there was one big challenge I underestimated in going goal free: dealing with your previous work commitments.

I’ve found that, much like physical clutter, your previous aspirations and commitments carry a lot of emotional baggage that make them tough to get rid of.  In this short video, I talk about three strategies for cleaning out your mental closet (without losing your mind).

Can’t see the video? Click here.

What do you think? What’s the best way to de-clutter your commitments?

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Editor’s note: I’m experimenting with adding more video on Everyday Bright and would love your feedback.  Like these videos?  Prefer just text?  Think I need to hire a videographer to make these worthwhile?  Let me know!

We tend to think of success as a kind of salve for our problems, not a cause.

In fact, it seems self-indulgent or selfish to even talk about it.  When I asked on Facebook for tips for managing the stress of success, one friend said, “If I had that kind of stress, I’d be counting my blessings.”

And that’s what makes us so dramatically unprepared for the stress of success when it happens.

Even worse, that stress undermines the very feeling of success we were after.  We assume the stress means something is wrong, with us, our choices, with life.

Probably the best description of this feeling is Ze Frank’s brilliant video on the “supposed to be’s,” where you feel anxious that you’re anxious or disappointed that you’re vaguely disappointed in the success you worked so hard to achieve.  Or as he put it, “to think that feeling bad is the same thing as moving backwards.”

Seriously, who among us over-achievers hasn’t felt that way more than once?

Now that we’ve agreed that the stress of success isn’t frivolous, we can get on with the 21 tips to help cure what ails you.