Are you suffering from FONDE?

What the hell is FONDE you may ask. FONDE is my acronym for Fear of Not Doing Enough. Women in particular suffer from FONDE, fear of not doing enough for other people before we start considering our own needs, our own lives, our own desires.

As women, we are expected to be nurturers, caretakers and selfless givers–to everyone except ourselves. We sometimes worry if we have done enough for others before we take our own turn at being happy or living the life or opening a business we love.

I remember when I first started publishing. I was worried that it was too soon to be devoting any of my time to a pursuit that might not even make me any money. I might be taking all this time away from my s.o. and kids and it probably wouldn’t get me anywhere.

Then I thought, if not now, when? When would be the ideal time to live my dream of being published? When my kids were grown? When I retired from teaching? When? Writing enriched both my life and my children’s lives because it showed them they could aspire to a creative profession of their own. Both of my children are in creative professions right now.

So think about the kind of life you dream about living. Is it your turn now? Can you give up the need to do for others and seek fulfillment of your own dreams and desires? Because you know caretaker’s disease is a real thing. Many women who spend their lives taking care of or living for their significant others die or succumb to disease because they expend all their life and energy seeing to someone else, be it their children, spouse or parents.

How would you feel if you got to the end of your life, and though you helped fulfill others’ dreams you never got to live your own? I know that I wouldn’t want to have lived that life. How about you?

If FONDE has you in it’s grasp, email me at dee@deesavoie.com, and let’s talk about how you can start living the life you dream of, you desire, and most of all, you DESERVE!