Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less

by Tiffany Dufu

When a belief punishes the believer—for instance, when women believe that for us, “having it all” must mean “doing it all”—it becomes what psychologists call internalized oppression.

is the story of my three-year journey to figure out what really mattered to me, how to achieve it, and what structures of support I needed to put in place to make it possible. The

This is the story of how I learned to excel at a purpose-driven career, nourish my marriage, raise happy children, give back to my community, sustain meaningful friendships, and be healthy and fit—all at the same time.

humans are hardwired to choose the path of least resistance when completing tasks, even when performing on autopilot does not best serve a particular situation.11

syndrome causes us to focus more on our output and less on cultivating the relationships that are just as critical to our career advancement. We

go it alone, expecting to be recognized based on our own merits, without asking the right stakeholders to advocate for us.

We believe that whatever we can do better and faster we should just do ourselves. The problem is that we believe we can do everything better and faster, so everything ends up on our list. We can’t possibly get it all done, but we still burn ourselves out trying.

number of married mothers in the labor force has soared from 17 percent in 1948 to more than 70 percent today,

women’s happiness is declining at rates far greater than that of men’s.

get clear about what matters most to you, and the rest will fall into place.

In fact, psychologist Dr. Ayala Malach Pines argues that the root cause of burnout is not that we have too much to do, it’s the feeling that the things we do aren’t meaningful or don’t reflect who we really are.1 In How Remarkable Women Lead, Joanna Barsh writes about the critical role that meaning plays in the success of women.

“Tell me about a time when you experienced me at my best.”

The first was my legacy, the imprint I wanted to leave on the planet. The second was my innate gift, particularly my ability to move others. I then added a third consideration: how I wanted to spend my time.

share with her the first thing that came to their minds when they thought of her—a word, story, or image that captured the experience they’ve had with her.

to recognize the humanity in others, to create our own reality, and that there is no substitute for discipline and hard work.

Will this advance women and/or sub-Saharan Africa? 2. Is this true to the values our parents instilled in us? 3. Will this put us on a path to financial freedom? 4. Will our descendants be proud of us?

Put simply, just because you’re better at doing something doesn’t mean you doing it is the most productive use of your time.

What you do is less important than the difference you make. I

should be looking at my list with an eye to the obligations I couldn’t delegate. Leveraging our highest and best use means employing what we’re good at and focusing on the tasks only we ourselves can do in order to realize our greatest goals and priorities.

advocating for your children to have specific teachers, talking with your children about the activities they participate in at school, and aspiring for them to attend college.

best-self activation, or reminding people of the moments when they’re at their best, was the most effective tool in inspiring employees to make substantial improvements in their relationships and their performance.4 I

when we approach experiences as if they’re relational, like showing up for work because we’re inspired by our company’s mission, what we’ll do to achieve the mission is limitless. “Best-self activation allows people to incorporate their personal identities into their jobs. Their employer is saying, ‘I want your whole self to be involved in your job, not just your skills.’”

Delegating with Joy is asking someone for help with a higher purpose than the task itself.

Asking for help with achieving what matters most to you is a win-win. So often when we ask for help we ask with frustration or even contempt for the other person. Sometimes it’s painful to ask for help because we feel that by doing so we’re being weak. But when we focus on the ultimate outcome, we transition from delegating with resentment to Delegating with Joy.

One of the simplest things an educator can do to create a more inclusive classroom is to wait longer before calling on students.5 Similarly, one thing women can do to create an inclusive workload at home is to wait longer before undertaking tasks.

same-sex couples negotiate home management much more effectively than heterosexual couples do.3 Why? Because most straight couples operate by default along gender norms—as Kojo and I also did before we created MEL—whereas same-sex couples who both work outside the home are more likely to divide responsibilities using criteria like skills, talents, and interests. As a result, each person is more in

“fundamentally premised on the displacement of the ability to speak about or act directly on the original injustice, it results in a shift of negatively loaded emotion to other human targets.”

affirmation sparks positive emotion, which in turn widens our consciousness and increases our creativity, our resilience, and our belief in what is possible.

getting clear about what mattered most to each of us, leveraging our highest and best use, creating a MEL, and setting aside time to discuss our challenges and our goals.

regularly express gratitude to each other as a way of making sure we both felt affirmed.

A lovely bonus was the fact that expressing gratitude also has a positive effect on health and mood: studies show that its physical and psychosocial benefits are profound.

gratitude—the act of showing appreciation for a thing, a person, or an act as it is—reinforces that what we currently have, who we currently are, and what we are currently capable of is enough.

time spent alone can be as valuable to the relationship as time spent together.

In his popular TED talk “The Psychology of Your Future Self,” psychologist Dan Gilbert notes that it’s easier for us to remember the past than it is to imagine the future.

Gilbert’s point is that we have a tendency to view ourselves in the present moment as static, assuming that our current selves are more permanent than they actually are. We have a limited imagination for how we will evolve, and we are inclined to view our spouses through that same lens.

Maybe his investment is his word: he promised “till death do us part,” and he has no intention of reneging on that. Maybe he’s invested in ensuring that his children are happy and healthy, and he needs their mother to be happy and healthy, too. Maybe his investment is economic: to relieve his own breadwinning pressure as well as pay the bills, he needs his wife’s income. Or maybe he’s invested in his wife’s potential as a human being. Perhaps he understands that her success is his success, and he will do whatever he can to facilitate

The three messages we need to retire:

1. “He can’t manage the details.”

2. “He isn’t here.” A husband’s absence is another common explanation women give for why their spouses aren’t more active in the home.

“He doesn’t know what’s best for our children.” This third assumption may be the saddest and most troubling of all, because it reinforces society’s limited definition of masculinity—that of the hard-charging breadwinner who is only capable of leading outside the home.

can’t manage details, isn’t here, and doesn’t know what’s best for our children.” These three messages, rooted in stereotype and woven through our culture, block a range of creative approaches to home management to which men might otherwise contribute. And these inhibiting messages fail to take into account that for many women, nurturing behavior does not come naturally and has to be learned.

So what stops women from embracing the notion that our husbands may really have a strong wish to be engaged? One reason may be that men seldom express the desire directly, in part because cultural stereotypes make it hard for them to be honest about their caretaking desires. A

Society] so thoroughly devalues whatever thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are culturally defined as feminine that crossing the gender boundary has a more negative cultural meaning for men than it has for women—which means, in turn, that male gender-boundary-crossers are much more culturally stigmatized than female gender-boundary-crossers.”

other words, men have a more difficult time engaging in gender role fluidity than women because of external pressures for men to present themselves in ways that are deemed masculine. This expectation, in turn, makes them feel insecure about expressing their domestic desires to their peers for fear of appearing anything less than manly. Sadly, even as the advertising world evolves to show men taking on a larger role in the domestic sphere, cultural commentary still seems one step behind. In 2015, for example, several Super Bowl commercials featured strong and nurturing fathers who were intimately engaged in the lives of their children. In a spot for Dove’s #RealStrength initiative, which asserts that a man’s demonstration of sensitivity and love toward his child does not make him any less of a

realized occasionally, intentionally relaxing might be a more sustainable approach to managing a hectic schedule. Intrigued

As frustrated as some of our spouses’ habits and behaviors might make us, we can often learn and benefit from them.

I had never taken the time to ask myself such questions. But in the quiet of my Stop & Sits, after breathing and assessing for as little as six minutes, the urgency of my to-do list would teasingly subside.

The connection between a happy woman and a thriving All-In Partnership cannot be overstated. Research has proven that happier women make for happier men.

They participate at home out of love for their wives and commitment to their families, and they are rewarded with partners who are infinitely more serene, joyful, and clear on their priorities because these women now have the bandwidth to participate in activities that nourish their souls.

“We tell women again and again that you have to put on your own oxygen mask first,” she explained, “but we don’t provide the tools to understand that it requires a lot of courage to do that. Women are trained to maintain harmony even when it hurts us.