The Calendar Trap: Protect Your Future
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[00:00:05] James Marland: feeling overrun is about your future. The life you want, the life you hope for, gets pushed to the edges by the system you, you're building with your calendar. Your clients get a spot, your referrals get a spot, paperwork gets a spot, your marketing gets a spot, crisis calls get a spot, emails get a spot.
[00:00:25] You have to do billing, billing gets a spot. But your rest gets what's left over. Your health and exercise, your health gets what's left over. Your spiritual side, your volunteer, your prayer life, that gets what's left over. Your family gets what's left over. the idea you wanna build for your business and, and, your coaching program or, or your, your workshop or your CEU course or hiring more people, that gets left over And that there's just no margin.
[00:00:59] This [00:01:00] story is about my parents taking care of my grandma. Because while the title of this episode says The Calendar Trap, this is not really about calendars at first. It's about sacrificing for something or somebody that you love. For about 10 years, my parents' life just bent around caring for my grandmother.
[00:01:25] she had a stroke, they moved in with her, and they were her caregivers for the last 10 years of her life. And their week had a center, and that center was Grandma. Because meals just weren't meals anymore. They were part of taking care of Grandma. They were part of loving her well. Everything revolved around taking care of her, making sure that somebody was with her. Bedtimes, breakfasts, lunches, appointments, [00:02:00] somebody had to be there. Somebody had to take care of, of Grandma. If something went wrong, that... my parents took care of it. If she had to go to an appointment, somebody took care of it.
[00:02:16] Every plan, everything they did had to pass through this question: What about Grandma? These questions were like, "Can we go out of town? Can we go to that family event?" Kids are graduating, people are getting married. What are we doing about that? Can we take that vacation? Can we take time off?
[00:02:38] I know my parents sacrificed a lot because some of their vacations, they just didn't happen. Family events had to revolve around their location and if they could come. So instead of going places, people came to see them.
[00:02:55] Sometimes they could find somebody to cover, but it, it really was just for a few [00:03:00] days, and it wasn't a system. It, it was just finding coverage. It was more like, "Can we make this work?"
[00:03:07] And to their credit, all of this was not done out of resentment. My parents embraced this job, and they took care of Grandma and extended her life and gave her, a beautiful last several years of her life. There was no resentment. It was love. And they loved Grandma, and Grandma loved them, and she was safe, she was loved, she was cared for, and it truly extended her life, and I admire that.
[00:03:39] I admire their sacrifice. I admired the way they gave up parts of their life. They gave up their freedom so that she could have dignity, she could have support, and she could be loved, and she was well cared for. They don't regret it. I know they would do it again. With, even with all the sacrifice and all the pain [00:04:00] and all they had to give up, they would do it again That love had a cost, and they gave a lot of their calendar to that love.
[00:04:12] They gave up their future willingly for grandma, and that sacrifice for something for the future, giving up your future can be a beautiful thing when love is the reason But here's where the story turns. There's a big difference between giving your calendar to love, to family, to-- and sacrifice.
[00:04:39] There's a big difference between that and giving it to a system. My parents gave their, gave their future, gave their calendar to somebody they loved, and they would willingly do that. But your business, your business or your career is not grandma [00:05:00] The sacrifice for your business is not going to love you back.
[00:05:04] The agency and your bosses, the boss that you work for might have good people in it. And to be fair, there are wonderful companies to work for, and there are wonderful businesses to work for, and some really do care. But that's still a system. Even the business that you're working on, even if you're a solo provider or you're a group practice provider, you're working within a system, and systems do not love you back the way people do.
[00:05:37] Your calendar is not gonna stop and ask, are you okay? Can you handle this?" Your appointment book doesn't care about you. It's not going to protect your marriage. Your inbox is not gonna ask you if your kids are okay or do your kids miss you the truth is your, your business is going to take every [00:06:00] open square you give it.
[00:06:02] Every appointment block, every day, every week, every month, everything you assign to the business, it's going to take, and it's not gonna ask, "Are you okay?" And that's not because it's evil. It's just a system. It's just a process. And these systems, whether we know it or not, are designed to do what they do.
[00:06:24] they're designed and built to create an output. And the system you're in, and the outputs you get are... There's a reason for that. It, it's perfectly designed to give... get the outputs that you get. So if you're feeling stressed, your system is perfectly designed to make you feel stressed.
[00:06:44] So in the, the calendar trap, if your system is built to fill every open space, and you're told you gotta fill every open space, you better believe you're gonna feel this pressure to fill every open space. And if your income depends on always being [00:07:00] available, always having time, the system is going to reward you for, for your availability.
[00:07:09] And when you're not there, it's not gonna reward you. So if the, the definition of success for you and for your business is a full calendar, then, then this is the subtle thing. The rest of life starts feeling like a failure. The rest of life starts feeling like a burden. And that's where the calendar trap begins.
[00:07:32] We've talked about the clock, the clock trap, and the couch trap. The clock trap locks down your hours. The clo- the couch trap locks down your location. But the calendar trap locks down your days that you haven't even lived yet. It locks down your future And I think this sneaks up on us in three ways. I think, you get overbooked, then you become [00:08:00] overwhelmed, and then the real life that you wanna live gets overrun.
[00:08:05] Overbooked, overwhelmed, overrun. That's the calendar trap. Let's start with overbooked. What does that look like? Overbooked is when every empty space starts looking like an in-invitation to give more away, and nobody thinks they are building this trap when they add one more person. I think that's what makes it hard because therapists and people in the service industry want to help people, and they feel compelled to help people, and it starts small.
[00:08:39] You're full, and then you think, "Well, maybe I can s-- I can squeeze them in on Thursday. I, I can stop take... I, I'll stop... I won't take my lunch. I can op-- I can start seeing people on evenings. Oh, this... there's a referral. I, I gotta take this referral. I'll find a place to put them. Oh, I feel like I need a break, but [00:09:00] I gotta take these people.
[00:09:01] I'm gonna rest after this push." I'll work on my business, I will hire more people, I'll build this course when things calm down. Or I'll take that real vacation when I feel safe, when I feel like I have a good foundation and, I have a full caseload, and I'm able to save some money away. That's when I can rest.
[00:09:25] I'll rest in the future. I'm working hard now so that I won't have to work hard in the future. And I guess that sounds reasonable. I think we've all done those things. We've all pushed the boundaries a little bit. it actually feels responsible, right? You're making money now so you can rest in the future.
[00:09:42] And it, and it feels like caring. I'm taking care of the people that are coming to me. And for most of us, it feels financially smart, right? I'm taking, I'm taking on more people so that I can have more money in the future 'cause, who knows [00:10:00] when I'm going to be full again The, those appointments, those slots also means another payment.
[00:10:08] It means your source of income. So there's pressure to say yes. Pressure because you wanna help people, pressure for the income, and pressure from the system that says you're only successful when you see people. But every yes has to come from somewhere, and that yes might come from dinner with your family.
[00:10:30] It might come from your sleep. It might come from your volunteer, volunteering to help other people, like at your church. It might come out of, exercise, like you don't have time to exercise or take care of yourself. It might come out of your marriage. It might come out of your creat- creativity. It might come out of your rest
[00:10:52] And it, it almost certainly comes out of building your business, where, you know, oh, I'll hire that person when I feel [00:11:00] rest. I'll grow to a group practice when I, when I f- have the capacity. I'll create that passive income course or workshop or CEU cour- when, when I have time. I'll just do it later. So you, you don't lose your future all at once.
[00:11:14] I think the calendar trap is subtle, where you just give it away one little appointment at a time. And that's the part we don't see, and that's the part we need to see. Most therapists and helping professionals are not purposely trying to get trapped and ruin their lives. They're actually doing really good things.
[00:11:34] They're trying to help people. They're trying to be responsible. They're earning the money to pay the bills. they're doing what they feel called to do, you know, helping people. It's a noble cause. They're serving people. But at some point, the calendar stops serving the message, and it just swallows your whole life.
[00:11:55] It-- and that's when being booked out stops feeling like success and starts feeling [00:12:00] like danger. It starts feeling like a warning sign when you, when you pick up your calendar and you look at it and you feel stressed, or you think about, "I have three months to a vacation," or, "I don't even know when I can take a vacation," when you start looking at your calendar.
[00:12:15] Or you get stressed because you know vacation's coming up, and there's a lot of work to do before and a lot of work to do after. Your calendar's telling you, "Fill your schedule, stay booked, get more, get more clients, max it out. That's what success is." Because a full calendar means income. But if a full calendar is the only picture of the success, it's the only measure of success, then what happens to the rest of your life?
[00:12:46] What happens when you need rest? What happens when you need to take care of somebody? What happens when your kids, y- your kids are doing activities and they want you to show up?
[00:12:56] W- yeah, what are you gonna do? If [00:13:00] every slot is full, then an empty slot starts to feel like you're failure, you're failing. That's another subtle part of the trap. And so when empty spots start feeling like failure, that's not freedom, that's a trap
[00:13:17] The, the second part here is that calendar does not stay on the wall. It gets internalized. It gets into your body, and that's where the second part of the trap comes in is the overwhelm. Overwhelm is when the calendar looks full, but you personally feel empty. It-- From the outside, it looks like success.
[00:13:41] You have a wait list. You're booked out for months. Referrals are coming in. People want you and need your services, and you have people saying to you when they look at your calendar and they look how busy you are, "Oh, that's great. That's a great problem to have, to be so busy." But [00:14:00] internally, if you peel back the layers, you feel tired.
[00:14:03] you just feel behind. You feel like you should be grateful, like, "Oh, this is great to have," but you're also worn down. That's a warning sign of overwhelm
[00:14:15] I, when I go on vacation, when I've gone on vacation in the past when I was trying to do everything myself, I remember when I was on the vacation, I needed a couple days to stop thinking about work. Like, all the busy work and all the moving parts would, just be in my head, and it just wasn't peaceful Then about two days before leaving to go back to work, my mind starts thinking about all the things that are going to be waiting for me, and so those two days aren't peaceful.
[00:14:51] So if I took five days off, like a whole week of work, two of the days I'm worried. I get about a day of [00:15:00] relaxation, and then two days of worrying about what's coming back for me. I mean, can you relate to that?
[00:15:06] Can you relate to your body being on vacation, but your mind is still at work?
[00:15:12] That's not rest. That's delayed panic All, there was so much waiting for me on the way back, emails, paperwork, people, problems to solve. Did the people who I assigned to take care and to cover, did they do their job? what mess was I gonna find when I came back? So then the vacations start feeling like something that are stressful, and you're overwhelmed, and that you're gonna pay for later.
[00:15:44] And th- when that rest starts feeling like a debt or when that rest starts feeling like a stressor, it, that's not rest
[00:15:52] A lot of therapists know this feeling. You take time off, but you lose money before you leave. You lose peace when you're [00:16:00] gone. You lose time when you get back because everything depends on you. Everything is waiting for you. That's not freedom. That is the calendar owning you from a distance
[00:16:15] It uses your care, it uses your ability, it uses your guilt, it uses your desire to do the right thing for people. It uses that voice that says, "If you don't show up, nobody's gonna help them." And it uses the fact that another appointment also means another payment. It means more income for you.
[00:16:40] Ah, this calendar trap uses everything good against you. It's very powerful. It feels noble, it feels responsible, it feels practical, but slowly it, it takes your life one appointment at a time, and it doesn't give you- [00:17:00] It doesn't care about you. It's taking everything, but it doesn't give anything back This, being trapped is a system, and when you stay in that system long enough, something else starts to happen.
[00:17:16] The future you want, the future you wanted to build when you started your career and, or you started your family, or you s- you went, when you went to college and you said, "This is what my future is gonna be," that stuff gets overrun. That stuff gets crowded out. Overrun is when there's spots on your calendar for everyone else, but the actual important things of your life get left off A- and really that's the part that scales-- scares me the most. That's the part when I've seen other people for years and years who look like they have it all together, and they have the wait lists, and they're opening new buildings, and they're hiring all these people, and they're creating new programs, [00:18:00] and then five years later, the, they have troub- their kids are having trouble or their marriage is in trouble, or they, their business failed because of some other, the, some other area of their life that wasn't the business demanded more of their time, and it needed them.
[00:18:18] That's the part that scares me the most because I know the system is trapping you into getting fully booked. But fully booked and giving up your future is taking away from the important things of your life
[00:18:34] Overbooked is about your schedule. Overwhelmed is about your mind and body. But feeling overrun is about your future. The life you want, the life you hope for, gets pushed to the edges by the system you, you're building with your calendar. Your clients get a spot, your referrals get a spot, paperwork gets a spot, your marketing gets a spot, crisis calls get a spot, emails get a spot.[00:19:00]
[00:19:00] You have to do billing, billing gets a spot. But your rest gets what's left over. Your health and exercise, your health gets what's left over. Your spiritual side, your volunteer, your prayer life, that gets what's left over. Your family gets what's left over. the idea you wanna build for your business and, and, your coaching program or, or your, your workshop or your CEU course or hiring more people, that gets left over And that there's just no margin.
[00:19:32] There's no margin on the side of the page for anything left, and that's what the calendar trap does. It locks down your future. It's not just that you're busy today, it's you're busy today, the endless days of being busy, and your future is the future you haven't lived yet. It's already being com- claimed by the system that doesn't care if you're okay.
[00:19:58] And if you're not careful, [00:20:00] if you don't create boundaries, your priorities get overrun by what you've already scheduled. And what is really important to you, if you stopped and looked at it, doesn't get a spot on your calendar. I'm not saying that working... that anything you're doing is bad. This is just a warning that says there's a trap in the calendar. Working for an agency is fine. Working for private practice is fine. that, that's okay. You just, you just still need to know that you're trading your future for a system
[00:20:33] And I, I learned, I learned this the hard way. there was a time when I thought I was building a future with a company that I would probably retire at. I'd worked there for 18 years. I'd given up other opportunities to stay. I, I could have worked for other places, but I gave my future to them. I even went and got extra training on my own dime to advance in the company.
[00:20:57] I invested in degrees and [00:21:00] training and leadership development because there was just this hope that that system would take care of me. That was the promise, I guess. I, I felt there was a promise of promotion, a promise of advancement, and I just thought I was gonna just work there and retire there.
[00:21:17] Then that company was bought, and the new company eliminated positions, and mine was one that was eliminated. And the future I thought I was building, the things I was giving up for, you know, my family time and other possibilities, they just disappeared. it disappeared. the system didn't care.
[00:21:37] Now, that doesn't mean every company's bad, and that doesn't mean your company's bad. That doesn't mean your agency is bad. That doesn't mean your-- the system, your group practice that you're running is bad. That, that, that doesn't mean anything. It, it just means that the system can eat your future. It can take your loyalty and give you hope, and then one day it changes, that [00:22:00] something can change, and then you're the one left over trying to figure out what's going on
[00:22:05] W- what I'm trying to say here is just go in with your eyes open. This, this isn't just a calendar issue, it's a future issue, and you're giving your future to something. Just make sure you're giving it to something that will give back to you
[00:22:19] So
[00:22:19] When you look at your calendar, you might be thinking, in the current system, you might be thinking, "How many spots can I fill? How much income can I make?" The better question might be, "Where's the trap?" Or, "What is my calendar protecting?" Because your calendar can actually be a good protector instead of a trap.
[00:22:41] Your calendar should not just protect everyone else's needs. It should also have a place for your priorities, for the people in your life, the practices and priorities that matter to you. Your calendar should protect your family. Your calendar [00:23:00] should protect your rest. Your calendar should protect your spiritual life, your volunteer service.
[00:23:07] It should protect your health. Your calendar should protect your thinking time and your building time, your inner peace time
[00:23:17] Because if it does not protect these things, then li-- then your life, the things that are important to you, will get the leftovers. And what... Normally, there's just not enough for all those things, for all the important things.
[00:23:32] And this is what keeps coming me back to my parents and my, my grandmother. My parents gave their calendar to love. They sacrificed, and they chose this life with their eyes open, and it cost them something. But they did it for something worthwhile.
[00:23:51] They did it for the relationship. They did it because it was the right thing to do. And sacrifice can be beautiful when [00:24:00] love is the reason, when the reason is worthwhile. But sacrifice can become a trap when it takes from you. When you sacrifice and fill your schedule, and it takes away from your relationships, it takes away from your spiritual side, it takes away from your health.
[00:24:18] You were never meant to give away all of that. That's the difference. It's not wrong to give your life to something. We all, we all give our lives to something, really. The question is whether you're giving your life to something that's worthy of it. Are you giving your future to something that is worth the cost?
[00:24:38] Relationships are worth the cost. The example here where my, my grandma, she was worth the cost. They extended her life. The love they gave was so sweet. It's a worthy, it's a worthy sacrifice. But sh- just think about the system you're in right now. Is that worthy of the cost you're giving it? Is the anxiety [00:25:00] worthy?
[00:25:00] Is always being available worthy? Is the full calendar worth your health or your family getting the leftovers? I don't think it is Are you giving the most important things in your life to a future that doesn't care about if you're doing okay? Those are hard questions, Maybe you feel guilty "Oh, if I don't, if I don't have this session, if I don't see these people, if I don't fill up the time, I'm, I'm not gonna earn money, and the people who need me won't get my help." But if you're feeling the overbooked, overwhelmed, and overrun, the services that you're giving aren't your best services.
[00:25:49] If you're feeling overwhelmed, and you're feeling like your, your life is suffering, then you are not present and giving of your best, and I [00:26:00] think your clients would want the best of you, your family wants the best of you. If you're not giving your best, you're not helping the people in the best way possible
[00:26:10] People need you. They really do. You are so important. People need you, but they need the whole you, the whole you I don't, I don't want, I don't want you to feel bad about this. That's not my, that's not my thought. Oh, I'm full. I, I'm, I'm going for a full schedule, and I, I feel super booked, and I am starting to feel overwhelmed, and now I have one more thing to feel bad about.
[00:26:36] I just want you to notice when you look at the calendar I want you to think, "I could be trapped by this." When you look at the calendar, think, "Is my... Do I have time for my family there? Have I scheduled in my health? Have I scheduled in, helping people, my ser- my volunteer time or my spiritual time?
[00:26:59] Who, [00:27:00] who or what is getting my future?" And if you need help, talk to somebody about it. Talk to a spouse, talk to a friend. Talk to another practice owner. Just talk to somebody who knows you well enough that you can be honest with them and they can be honest with you, th- with you.
[00:27:22] And ask, "Am I too busy or am I trapped? Like, am I just-- is my calendar trapping me and taking away my future?" Because the calendar's black and white. It's data, and it's gonna tell you what, what's on your calendar is what you're protecting. So are you-- is there anything for your family? Is there anything for your health?
[00:27:45] Is there anything for rest? What does it say that matters to you? And what would it take to change? What, what would it really take for you to take a real week off without paying for it before, during, or after? [00:28:00] Those are some questions that those are things that could be difficult to ask, but the, the alternative is just to slowly give away your future one appointment at a time, and then you're trapped and chained and overwhelmed, overbooked, and overrun
[00:28:18] As we wrap up this series on the trap, three traps, the clock trap locks down your hours, the couch trap locks down your location, and the calendar trap locks down your future. I wanna encourage you, your future should not be the leftovers after everyone else gets a spot
[00:28:41] final, the final question is, is your calendar protecting your future, or is it slowly taking away your future? Hey builders, thanks for listening to the show. It's now time to examine your calendar so that you can reclaim your future and put your mission in motion. [00:29:00] We'll see you next time Once again, I want to thank our sponsors of the show. If your practice is stuck behind a business bottleneck, remember, you don't have to solve it alone. Visit scalingtherapistservices.com and connect with a trusted partner who can help you build a stronger, healthier, and more sustainable practice. I want to thank these businesses for supporting the show: Humor Speaks, RevKey, The Practice Co-Lab, Arc Integrated, TheraSaaS CRM, Guess Compliance Consulting LLC, Freedom Business Solutions, Bossco LLC, and Profit Comes First.
[00:29:39] Thanks for listening.
[00:29:41] Now go put your mission in motion
