Name: How to reduce stress without sacrificing success | Erika Coleman | TEDxOneonta
Uploaded: 2026-02-16T21:37:33.000Z
Duration: 10 min 16 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

To-infinitive

One time, I was asked to describe my mom in one word, and I said, champion.

Gerund

And then I watched my four sisters faces as we realized that all five of us, without having talked to each other ahead of time, had picked the exact same word.

Past simple

But literally, her sports trophies felt an entire room.

I swear, if you gave that woman a ball or a stick, she would come home a winner.

But more than that, my mom championed other people.

When I started my own business, I remember her saying, oh, you're so cool for doing that.

And then later, I remember her saying, mmm, I love that you're using your success to help others.

Because you see, at the time, many of my friends were young parents who wanted to work but couldn't do so full time.

And as many parents with young children know, it's difficult to find work that's willing to be accommodating to that.

So I built a company where my friends could work in their own way and on their own time.

She had terminal brain cancer and at most had 18 months left to live.

At the same time, my business was facing trouble for the first time.

And I was terrified I was going to let my people down.

I gave more and more to my business, my employees, my friends, my family, and

But after just 14 months, my mom passed away.

And two months after that, I closed my business.

And so I finally gave myself permission to sit down and rest.

We all want to be seen as competent and capable, so we take on more and more things.

We work harder, we give everything that we can.

But living like this can come with a cost.

Exhaustion, stress, resentment, or worse.

Recent studies have shown that almost half of us workers feel burned out or close to it.

So is there a way that we can get everything done that we're supposed to get done without paying such a high price?

When we've taken on too much and we're obviously stressed out, well meaning friends, family and colleagues love to give us advice.

And this advice tends to fall into two buckets.

Just put in the minimum amount of effort.

Always felt like you were asking me to care less, and I can't do that.

Practice time management, meditate, do yoga, start running, go outside, go to bed earlier, get up earlier, drink more water, eat less gluten, see a therapist, go to brunch with the gals, listen to this podcast, read this book, pet a dog, any dog.

But if you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed right now, that's the point where bucket one is do less.

Which is probably the worst advice we can give someone on the verge of burnout.

We want to believe that the more good things we do, the more rewards we'll receive.

There's research that shows that beyond a certain point, even the most virtuous behaviors will at best give you diminishing returns.

And at worst, these good things can become harmful to you.

But if do less and do more aren't the answer, what's left?

I could tell you that you just need to figure out your priorities.

Because I thought I was doing all the right things when I was prioritizing my mom and those who worked for me.

But that did not stop the stress from putting my health at risk.

Well, after closing my business and eventually finding the strength of stand again, I applied to a master's program at Harvard where I studied stress and well being.

And here's the most important thing that I learned.

You can give your best without giving your all.

I used to think that overachieving was a good thing because overachievers are rock stars who always exceed expectations.

Overachieving also means overextending or giving more than we can sustainably give.

And that is not a good thing, even if you're overextending for a good cause.

If you ever had a if you played high school sports, you probably had a coach at some point tell you that if you want to succeed, you need to leave it all on the field or the court.

And if you're a middle school, sure, this advice works because what you've got like one championship game, and

with a middle school body, all you need is some water, fruit, snacks and a nap and you can heal from just about anything.

But this advice doesn't work for real life, and that's why the pros don't do it.

If you're in the NBA, you can't leave it all on the court because you have multiple games a week.

My mom Taught me that true champions pace themselves to give their best but not their all.

So that win or lose, they can pick back up and go again the next game.

And your best can look different every day.

We need to stop treating life like it's a one off game where we can just give everything that we've got to give and not worry about what comes afterwards.

Sure, if today is the last game you're ever gonna play, go ahead, give your all.

But if you've got a game tomorrow, give your best.

Even achieving is getting everything done that needs to get done without sacrificing your ability to do your best tomorrow.

So instead of only focusing on what we want to get done, let's check in on how we're getting things done.

Especially when it comes to our pace and our presence.

If we want to take better care of our individual health, so our physical, mental and emotional well being, we need to check in on our pace.

If we want to take better care of our social health and not push everyone away while we're accomplishing our goals, then we need to check in on our presence.

Work projects, home projects, anything that's got a clear start and end date during a project.

I want you to ask yourself this one question.

If I continue at this pace, when I'm done, will I have enough energy left to celebrate?

Because let's be honest, when this project is over, there is going to be another project and you've got to pick yourself back up and go again.

But life isn't always perfect projects with obvious end dates.

We all have seasons of life where things are hard, unexpected or out of our control.

And if you're like me, you still want to make sure you're not pushing away those that you care about.

So for this I want you to find one person that you care about and ask them, in the last 30 days, have I been present enough for you?

These aren't meant to be questions to add shame or discouragement to an already overloaded life.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

How to reduce stress without sacrificing success | Erika Coleman | TEDxOneonta

overwhelmed

prioritize

presence

treat