Welcome to Part Seven of the Introvert Life Series! For the next two posts, we’re going to focus on your family life. First up is managing family obligations as an introvert.
(If you missed the previous posts in this series, you can catch up here.)
For our purposes, this is more about family you don’t live with–if you live with family, you likely tackled a lot with them in the “home” section.
If you’ve got a smaller, or more organized family, making it to family events may not be a struggle. In this case, events may be few and far between, and you may have plenty of notice to plan accordingly.
But in my experience, I have come across very few families who operate this way. Some families gather often–for every birthday, holiday, and kid’s sporting event. Some have events that pop up at the last minute.
And some people have a history of trying to get to multiple family dinners and events on major holidays.
It can be hard to live a happy and healthy introvert life with these demands of your time and energy. If you factor this into the rest of your life, things can get overwhelming pretty quickly.
One of the best ways to manage your family/introvert life balance is by paring down the family events you go to and making peace with not making it to every event a family hosts.
Today we’re going to look at why you should do this and how to make it happen.
Why you need to manage family obligations as an introvert
Your energy levels
Attending family obligations as an introvert can be fun, but also draining. Or in some cases, they can just be draining. It depends on the size of your group and how well you get along with everyone.
And if you’ve got a family that gathers often, is known to throw things on the schedule last minute, or puts you in a position to attend multiple Thanksgivings, you may find your energy frequently drained as a result of your family alone.
As introverts, we simply do not have the energy to be everywhere and do everything.
As we’ve covered before, part of taking care of ourselves means staying home when we need to. This includes skipping out on family events if you don’t have the energy for it.
Your stressors
If your family event is also home to one of your introvert stressors, then that’s another reason to be a little more conservative with your attendance.
If you find yourself in this situation, save your family events for when they’re really important, or for when you’re good and rested, and have the extra energy to give.
Skip out on the more minor events and anything that fall when you’re not feeling your best.
Sometimes balance means missing out
Family obligations in and of themselves can take a lot out of you, even in the best of families. When you factor your family events into the bigger picture of your life, you likely won’t have the energy for everything.
Part of finding balance means passing on some events so you have enough energy to give elsewhere. It can be very easy to fall into the “it’s family” trap and feel the need to give more of yourself than is actually available.
But living a happy, balanced, introvert life means making sure there’s enough of your energy to go around.
Some of your energy can go to family, but it’s up to you to make sure you have enough for the other areas of your life that matter too.
How to manage family obligations as an introvert
Let go of the “it’s family” excuse (and don’t let yourself be guilted)
In order to be your best for your family, you need to take care of yourself. That may mean missing an event to do so.
Some family events are important, but everyone isn’t essential. There’s no reason you should ever feel guilty for missing something. If you come from a good supportive family, they should understand your need to miss out when you’re not 100%.
And if you don’t, then they probably aren’t the kind of people you should be giving your precious energy to, let alone feel bad when you don’t.
Prioritize and strive for balance
As we’ve covered, you can’t make it to every family event, but it’s a good idea to know which ones are high priority and which ones can be skipped.
For instance, maybe you don’t have to make it to every extended family member’s birthday, but you want to make it to your more immediate family’s birthday. Or maybe you prioritize holidays and major life events (graduations, weddings, etc), but no events in between.
Whatever your priorities are, do what you can to balance the times you give your family with the rest of your life.
Set expectations (for yourself and family)
If hitting multiple family members’ houses on a given holiday leaves you drained for the rest of the week, then it might be time to reevaluate how realistic that expectation is and alter your plans accordingly.
Maybe instead, you’d be better off only doing one house a year on rotation. Or maybe you plan to only go to one family the day of and catch up with the others on the days following the holiday.
This same philosophy can be applied to any current family dynamic and expectation that isn’t working with your introverted tendencies.
Whatever changes you decide to make, set your new expectations within your household and communicate those expectations to the rest of your family.
When your family learns to expect differently from you, you’ll likely be hassled less and find these new expectations make for more peaceful planning for everyone involved.
Looking for more tips on how to manage your introverted life?
If you’re liking this series and are looking for more, check out the Introvert Life Guide, which gives you an even more in-depth look at each of the areas we cover in these emails.
This guide was designed to help you build the introvert life of your dreams. And it’s full of plenty of tips, tricks, and ideas to help you create an introvert life that’s uniquely yours!
It will also help you embrace your introverted nature and build a life to help you thrive!
For more introvert life tips, check out the other introvert posts!
Sound off: How do you manage your family obligations as an introvert? Tell us about it in the comments!