Ashley ChandlerFounder + CEO, The Teenage Guide · Founder and CEO, The Teenage Guide | Parent and Teen Coach

Are you busy or avoiding this?

1 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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The speaker argues that feeling busy often masks avoidance of harder things, especially in parenting and raising teenagers. Saying yes to everything drains energy you could spend on what actually matters. The question is whether you're truly busy or just dodging the real work.

Chapters

Being busy is oftentimes a subconscious excuse. We're not necessarily even aware we're using it. And this isn't to make you feel bad if you're busy and you say that. The invitation is to become aware. What are you busy with? Are you busy focused on experiences, things, people, expectations that are distracting you from the biggest— Purpose. Problems or challenges that you face as a parent or that your teen is facing. Because oftentimes being busy is a distraction. I've spoken about this before. I think it's worth bringing up again. It's oftentimes a reflection of us saying yes to things, even unconsciously, that suck up our time and energy and divert our attention away from the things that genuinely would help us.