Overestimating our supply and underestimating our demands

Although Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier's book The Resilience Plan wasn’t written specifically for female clinicians, it has a lot of pearls of wisdom for us.

One particularly noteworthy “pearl” for me was the idea that our prior success managing various demands (did someone say grad school, dissertation, etc., etc.?) can lead us to overestimate our supply (things that increase our health and energy) and underestimate our demands (factors that drain our energy) in our current life. And, when we’re using our past experiences to guide our current estimates, we’re often forgetting the context in which we tackled those demands . For example, I was single, in my 20’s and living with my parents when I completed both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

So why is this important to know? Because accurately estimating our supply and demand is an important step in creating an effective resilience plan (a concept that aligns nicely with our broad definition of self-care).

As some of you know, from 2020 through 2023 I chose to be the primary care provider for my loving parents whose physical and cognitive health were in decline. In addition to taking care of the usual tasks that come with being a care provider, I also moved my parents twice, cleaned out the family home, sold the family home, did my best to help them adjust to long hospital stays and life in a personal care home, and said my final good-byes to them when they passed away in 2021 and 2023.

At the time, I did my best to consider the impact of my upcoming “demands” and to ensure that I included things that added to my “supply” (e.g., connecting with nature, spending time with my husband, taking breaks during work, etc.). And nevertheless, I underestimated my demands and overestimated my supply.

Although I did my best to adjust my self-care plan along the way, the reality is it’s much harder to correct for underestimating our demands and overestimating our supply (which generally means subtracting demands and adding sources of supply) than it is to correct for overestimating our demands and underestimating our supply (which generally means having room to add some demands).

Can you think of a time when you’ve underestimated your demands and overestimated your supply? How can you use this pearl of wisdom and your own past experiences to more accurately estimate and prepare for the next 3 months?