How Many Activities are Too Many? Find Your Balance!

Many students enthusiastically register for activities at the start of each school year. From sports to music, clubs and hobbies, it’s fun and fulfilling to stay busy inside and outside school. And it’s healthy to be involved in a variety of activities – they allow us to grow friendships, practice teamwork and giving, and expand our creativity and knowledge. Activities help us prepare for our future.

But how do we know when we are doing too many activities? What amount of activity is healthy? While there is no generic answer since every child and teen has an optimal balance between school, activities and rest, there are questions we can ask ourselves and God to make the determination.

Are you overwhelmed with activities?

The activities in which we participate should feel like comfortable additions to school and home life. We should feel like we’re growing our existing skills and learning new things. They should make us feel energetic, eager to learn, and closer to God.

On the flip side, if we’ve overcommitted, our time and energy are pulled in too many directions. We can fail to meet expectations and perform poorly. And most importantly, being overwhelmed can decrease our openness to being close to God: we just don’t have enough mental or spiritual bandwidth.

But God doesn’t want us to be overwhelmed and distant from Him. So we should thoughtfully commit to an amount of outside activity that does not overwhelm us and helps us maintain a close relationship with God.

Balance helps us grow ourselves and our relationship with God

One of the most vital things in our lives is our relationship with God. Spending time with God makes us happy, healthy, and fulfilled, so our activities should not become a barrier to God. The amount of activities we do should leave plenty of room for God in our lives.

In other words, the key is healthy balance. We can participate in outside activities, do well in school and at home, and be close to God. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with activities, try cutting back to the few that make you feel most happy, healthy, and fulfilled.