Overwhelm

Hello World,

Ah, Overwhelm.

Overwhelm to me is like a friend I used to hang out with, who was kind of a bad influence.

They would make me do things I didn’t really want to do, but I didn’t have enough self-love to say no and walk away.

I have since ended that relationship. But everyone once in a while, they will come back to visit, and the familiarity of old times draws me back in.

We hang out for a time until I start feeling kind of shitty and I remember why it is that I ended that relationship in the first place.

Yes, feeling overwhelm is a relationship with time that you can choose to end. It literally does not serve any purpose.

The only thing overwhelm creates is…more overwhelm.

Trust me, I’ve spend my fair share of time, spiralling about all the things I needed to do, feeling terrible, and then going on social media instead to avoid feeling the overwhelm. Result: less stuff done, and more overwhelm.

Or starting one task and then remembering another task, and then doing that instead, and then starting another task…  Result: nothing actually finished, and more overwhelm.

Or making excuses and putting things off until later because there is no deadline, until the last minute where panicked and delirious I vow to Never Do This To Myself Again (until the next time)… Result: Task doesn’t get done, it’s on my mind until the deadline, which creates more overwhelm.

So one day I decided I was just not going to wallow in that feeling anymore.

Because feeling overwhelmed just blocks me from getting anything done, which sucks because…

…the reason I feel overwhelmed in the first place is because I believe I can’t get anything done.

If you have this same issue, here’s how you can change your relationship with overwhelm and time:

(1) Be honest with yourself: where are you stealing your own time? For me… hello sneaky rendez-vous with IG and FB.

(2) Decide you have enough time. What if that were true? If you look in your past you can see how you basically managed to get things done. You just thought you needed to pressure yourself with overwhelm but — plot-twist — overwhelm just makes you want to avoid the task instead.

(3) Prioritize and work on that thing until it’s done before you start a bunch of other things.

(4) Understand “have to” vs. “want to”. This is YOUR LIFE. You get to fill it with exactly what you want to fill it with and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Did you know you didn’t even have to finish that work assignment if you don’t want to? But my guess is, you DO actually want to. You don’t want to be fired. You want to keep working. You want the paycheque. So question tell yourself that you want to.

Taking control of your time and your life when it feels like things are constantly just happening to you and out of your control can create stress and overwhelm. They key to taking yourself out of that look is understanding why it’s happening in the first place. Hint: your sneaky brain! In a free 60 min call, I would love to show you some tools you can apply right away to take yourself out of overwhelm, and create more agency and control in your life.