We’ve all felt overwhelmed at some point in our lives. It’s that feeling we get when we have too much to deal with and not enough resources to deal with it all. It can be positive, like you’re overwhelmed with gratitude when something amazing happens, but a lot of the time, it can be negative, like having too much work and not enough time to complete it.
We’re not really taught how to deal with the negative aspect - we’re told to achieve as much as possible, to work hard, and to give our best. We’re not really taught how to prioritize + eliminate, nurture and be successful without ‘working hard’*. But it can be done!
*I have a mixed relationship with hard work! I believe it has it’s time and place but it shouldn’t be your default setting and it’s not the only way to succeed! We deserve more balance and enjoyment in life, don’t you think?
If you’re dealing with negative feelings of overwhelm in your life or business, don’t worry! You can lose those thoughts of
“This is too difficult”
“This will take me soooo much time”
and
“I’ll never get this done”.
A key factor in eliminating overwhelm is understanding why you’re feeling overwhelmed in the first place. It’s often related to doing #allthethings, whether it’s in your business or life. I have some good news! You have the power to stop the overwhelm and choose a less stressful way forward.
If you’re feeling burned out and overwhelmed in your business, I’m really excited to share my brand new course called Find Your Flow with you! Find Your Flow is a full productivity system for creatives who want to go from overwhelmed mess to organized, goal achieving badass! We’re open for enrollment between now and November 30, you can find out more info and enroll today using this link (we have some amazing bonuses for this round that you don’t want to miss!). I’d love to see you inside.
Here are the top 10 ways to overcome overwhelm:
1. You don’t have to do it all
Sure, you might *want* to do it all, but if that ‘want’ is leading you into overwhelm, it’s time to take a step back and assess the situation. When your to-do list is overwhelming you each day, try this exercise:
Look at your tasks and see if any can be delegated to a team member, family member or even another time
See if you can delete any tasks off your list. Is everything you’re doing 100% necessary? Or, a better question might be, are all of your tasks getting you the results you desire? Seriously, sit with this one. Maybe someone told you it’s necessary to create an original YouTube video every day, but you haven’t noticed a big difference in viewership, subscribers, or revenue to when you released one video a week. That is a CLEAR SIGN that creating a video every day is not 100% necessary. Be brutal with this and really hone in on the tasks that move you closer to your goals, and delete or reduce the other ones.
You can always add more time to your deadline, but remember, unless you have a DeLorean, time can’t be bought back. If you just need an extra couple of days to wrap up a project occasionally, can you allocate that extra time to it so relieve your overwhelm? Then do it!
2. Have a Top 3 every day
If your to-do list has 10, 20, or even more tasks on it each day, you’re probably feeling overwhelmed (babycakes, why are you doing this to yourself?!). Before you wrap up your work day, select 3 tasks that you’ll do tomorrow that are the most effective at moving you towards your goals/vision. These are the things that will get you the biggest results. Hint: they might not be what you THINK you should be doing! Once again, step outside of the “shoulds” and analyse what is (and isn’t) working for you.
When you are setting your tasks for the day, make sure that you are choosing your top 3 focus tasks that you are committed to doing that day - and just focus on those.
Selecting these the day before is helpful, because you’ve been in your work all day and should have a good idea of what to do next, instead of taking time in the morning to ramp up your work energy and focus to make those decisions when you’re not in the zone.
3. Direct your thoughts
Overwhelm is often related to being stuck in your thoughts. You’re thinking “I’m too busy to get this done”, “How will I finish this by the deadline?”, “I’m going to f*$k!ng fail”, “I don’t have enough time”, - these thoughts start to distort and determine your reality. The good news is, you can choose to direct your thoughts differently.
Your thoughts dictate your reality, so even though it might feel hokey at first, setting your intention will begin to shape your reality and move your thoughts away from “This is stressful.” to “This is easy.”
Before you start your task(s), set your intention for how it will go. Think, write, or say out loud your own variation of these:
“I’m going to get this task done in the next hour.”
“This is going to be effortless and fun.”
“I’m in a flow state, and the results will come easily.”
By directing your thoughts toward how easy, fun, and flow-y your task will be, you’re breaking out of the autopilot spiral of overwhelmed thoughts.
4. Clear out your work area
Yep, I just told you to clean your room! But seriously, the visual clutter surrounding you while you work adds to the feelings of overwhelm. Side note: this is not a procrastination exercise!
Set a timer for 10-15 minutes and start clearing up your space - wherever you’re at when the timer goes off is where you’ll stop for now.
You don’t have to redecorate your office! Just tidy the space around your work area, and perhaps light a nice candle, or put something calming and pleasing in your space, like a crystal, a picture, or something else that reminds you to take a breath and enjoy your day.
Spend 5 minutes at the end of each day tidying your work area, so when you are ready to work in the morning, you have a tabula rasa to get going without any distractions.
5. Become an observer
When you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s easy to get caught up in the stressful emotions of the situation. Stop zoning in on the problem and step outside of it to check the reality of the situation from another perspective.
You can use meditation for this - close your eyes, take a few deep breathes, and then imagine you are sitting in your workspace. Now, imagine you are stepping out of your body and move away from yourself, observing the scene from a short distance. You’re removed from the emotion of the situation and are now an unattached observer. What do you notice about the situation now? What actions can the person in the scene take to move forward, quickly and easily? What can they stop doing to make things easier?
If you have trouble visualizing, another way to do this is to think about how you would help a friend or family member who is dealing with the same overwhelm issue that you’ve come up against. Give advice to yourself as though you were offering it to your friend.
6. Use affirmations
When you’re inside of a stress response, your reptilian brain switches on - we’ve all heard about it - the flight or fight response. There’s actually two more responses that can be triggered here which are freeze (self-explanatory) and fawn - easily recognisable as a dog showing you it’s belly to gain favour. None of these responses are ideal when you’re not in an actual life threatening situation, but they often happen when we’re consumed with stressful and overwhelming thoughts.
You can use affirmations as a kind of negotiator between your mind and your emotions. Affirm to your conscious mind that you’re ok. You can use phrases like “I am safe.” “I am here.” “I am in control.” “I am protected.” etc. This is like a circuit breaker for your brain to stop these primal danger signals and allow you to refocus your perspective on the solutions instead of reacting to the triggers.
7. Have an HQ for your work
Working inside a chaotic system can be really overwhelming and stressful. Knowing where to find things (whether it’s physical or digital) - and being able to source any item you’re looking for in under a minute will reduce overwhelm in everyday moments.
Create thoughtful systems for your work - from the way your files are organised, to how you reply to certain emails, to the way you plan your projects. Having a system in place saves time and reduces guesswork when you’re repeating a regular task.
Gather your resources in one place - instead of having bits and pieces in a bunch of different apps, folders, on your desktop, on your phone… Have a “home” for everything so you know where it is and can access it quickly when you need it.
8. Create vs. Consume
Ah, the social media scroll. It gets us all, I know. Whether you’re scrolling Insta, or stuck in the research phase of a project, it can be hard to break the habit of looking to start doing! If you get overwhelmed with research or mindless scrolling try these:
Set a timer for your social media excursions - limit yourself to 10-20 minutes max, and stop when the timer goes off.
Engage meaningfully - leave thoughtful comments. Instead of just scrolling and occasionally double clicking, engage with the content consciously. Leave thoughtful comments if someone’s work helped you or made an impact. Save and share their posts if they’re relevant to your work/audience. Take it a little slower and absorb what you’re engaging with.
Added bonus: Engaging on social media like this does wonders for your own account growth, too!
Spend more time creating than consuming. Start by setting a timer for double the time of your consumption and work your way up. So if your “consumption” timer is 10 minutes, set your “creation” timer to 20 minutes. Gradually up the ratio, so for every minute of consumption, you’re doing a LOT more minutes of creation. You can decide which ratio works for you, but remember, creation is YOUR VISION and consumption is someone else’s agenda.
9. Convert what-if’s to even-if’s
When you’re stuck in overwhelm-doom-thoughts, your mind can easily spiral from “I don’t have enough time to get that done today” to “OMG I’m a failure I should just quit” to “I’m literally dead right now”. Yeah, I have a Masters degree in worrying too.
Do a worst case scenario exercise. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with your tasks, what would happen if you don’t do a particular task? What’s the absolute worst case scenario? How would you overcome if that situation unfolded in reality? While it’s unlikely that the worst will happen, using this fear setting exercise prepares your brain for how to react, and gives you a more measured perspective on the “what-if”.
Switch the words from “What if I don’t do this….” to “Even if I don’t do this…” It’s a subtle change but a very different meaning emerges.
Here’s an example of an old thought:
“What if I can’t post on Instagram today?”
“My business won’t grow and I’ll fail.”
New thought 1 - Highlight something you’re already doing
“Even if I can’t post on Instagram every day, I am already growing my business by reaching potential clients through email every week.”
New thought 2 - Highlight your confidence in your work/self/the universe
“Even if I can’t post on Instagram every day, I trust that my ideal clients will find me when they need my expertise.”
New thought 3 - Highlight a modified, but effective plan
“Even if I can’t post on Instagram every day, I can reach my ideal clients by posting once a week and engaging meaningfully for 10 minutes each day.”
10. Action over observation
The most effective way to stop feeling overwhelmed is to start taking action. When you find yourself looking at everything you need to do and feeling frozen, try taking a small step forward. The action-taking pulls you out of observer mode and into action mode, calming the overwhelm and allowing you to make progress. To take a small step toward action, try:
Breaking your main task down into smaller steps - these are more achievable than the “big thing” and the act of breaking the task down gives you clarity on where to start
Set a timer for 25-45 minutes and start on the first step. You’re only committing to this action for a short time, so give it your full attention. (this is called the Pomodoro Technique).
During this time, don’t do anything else except the task. That means no email, no phone notifications, no social media, no snack breaks. After your timer finishes, take 5 minutes for a break, and then start your longer timer again - either on the same task or, if that’s finished, move onto the next one in your sequence toward your larger main task.
Repeat until you’ve finished at least ONE of your main tasks for the day (your main tasks should be 1-2 hour long tasks maximum, if they’re longer than that, break them down into smaller parts)
Committing to action is really the only way to move forward! Make sure you’re taking action on IMPORTANT tasks and not just busy work. You’ll feel so much better when you complete one of your top 3 tasks rather than a bunch of random things.
Do you have any hot tips on how you snap out of the overwhelm feeling? Share your ideas in the comments or tag/DM me on Instagram, I love seeing other’s methods for dealing with their productivity blocks.
Don’t forget - if you’re feeling burned out and overwhelmed you will LOVE my brand new course Find Your Flow! You’ll learn how to build your own unique productivity system that suits your life - there’s no cookie-cutter solutions here. We’re open for enrollment between now and November 30, you can find out more info and enroll today using this link (I don’t want you to miss the discounted pricing and bonus calls I’m offering on this special launch round!). I’d love to see you inside.
xo
Shell