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How to Gracefully Back Out of a Responsibility After You’ve Accepted It
It’s never easy to walk out of a commitment, but it can be the right thing to do in some cases
What would you do at work if you said yes to a new project or responsibility, but later found that you were unable to go through with it? If you’re already overstretched, you don’t have to go through with it simply to keep people from being disappointed in you. There are ways to withdraw gracefully.
If you’re enthusiastic about your work and the contribution that you make to your team, in general, you may have trouble with a tendency to accept more work than you’re able to complete. If your boss asks you to run a new committee, for example, your instinctive response may be to accept with enthusiasm.
You may only realize that you’ve spread yourself too thin when your email inbox begins to fill up with messages from everyone on the committee, and the appointments clog up your calendar.
You may desperately want to go back to your boss and tell them it was all a big mistake, and you shouldn’t have said yes to begin, but you might worry about what your boss and everyone else would think of you to see you back out.
