Don’t spread yourself too thin

He wants to improve his English speaking skills so he has joined a classroom program, ordered a CD course, purchased a pile of books, joined another weekend program and bought tons of English movie DVDs. I told him that improving his English speaking skills is fine but this way, he would be spreading himself too thin and wouldn’t achieve any results. But he doesn’t seem to understand.

Can you guess the meaning of spreading oneself too thin from the above paragraph?

She is doing too many things. I am afraid she has spread herself too thin and may not succeed at anything.

Think about your breakfast table and imagine you are spreading butter on on your bread. Now what happens if you spread the butter too thin? Well, your bread would taste dry as if there is no butter. So, if you spread the butter too thin, the impact of the butter would be so less that you would not get the taste – in effect, the result which you wanted would not be possible.

And why would you spread the butter too thin? That’s also simple – when you are trying to butter too many toasts with a small amount of butter.

This is the core theme of the phrase – if you try to do to many things (with the limited amount of energy you have), you are spreading yourself too thin. If you try to allocate too few resources into too many areas, you are spreading it too thin and it would not be an effective strategy for getting results.

Let’s take some examples:

1. He has started a business, taken up music classes, karate classes, joined a gym, is writing a book and also teaches slum kids. I have a feeling he is spreading himself too thin. He would only end up stressed and I am afraid he wouldn’t be able to do anything very well.
2. The army has limited resources in this area and cannot spread itself too thin. The government needs to allocate more resources to defense.