Are You Indulging in Overwhelm? Three Steps to Getting Out.

Overwhelm, it is a slippery little fellow. It pretends to be legitimate, caused by the long list of things we have to take care of in our lives like managing the household, the kids’s schedules, our health, our social life and our love life…then pile on the demands of the career relaunch journey, like networking, informational interviews, applying to dozens of jobs, etc.. Voila - overwhelm rears its ugly head and brings many of us to a screeching halt with its excuses. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there. Welcome to the human experience! 🤣 The good news is, there is a way out!

I swam in overwhelm when I was relaunching my career and it still crops up in my life every once in a while. But now I know the source of it and have learned how to manage it better. Thanks to life coaching I’ve come to realize that overwhelm is an indulgent emotion that doesn’t serve us in our lives. It keeps us stuck. We think it comes from our long to do lists but it doesn’t. It comes from our thoughts about them. Our to do list is neutral until we give it meaning with our thoughts. Some of us will choose to think (consciously or unconsciously) “I got this...bring it on!” and others will think “This is too much...I can’t possibly do this all.” That is the difference between whether one experiences overwhelm or not. Your thoughts and how you manage them!

Most of my clients come to me in a state of overwhelm. They list everything they have to do and tell me how little time they have. Nancy, for example, had “a long list of tasks she had to get done for her family and volunteer commitments, and didn’t see how in the world it was possible for her to accomplish the relaunch goals she had set out for herself.” She was stuck in overwhelm mode.

But what we uncovered together was that it wasn’t her external circumstances that were causing her overwhelm, it was her thoughts like “I have too many responsibilities, and there is no way I’m going to it all done today,” and “I’ve been out of the workforce for so long, I don’t know what I’m doing…this is all too much for me.” These thoughts were generating the feeling of overwhelm. Not her external circumstances.

Thoughts create feelings. And when she felt overwhelmed she was unable to make any progress on her tasks. She focused on the menial easy tasks and avoided tackling the ones that truly mattered to her, affecting her overall results.

3 Steps to Getting Out of Overwhelm

The key to getting out of overwhelm is to first notice that you are in overwhelm and that it isn’t serving you. Give yourself lots of compassion, you are human. It’s okay. We’ve all been there. You don’t want to compound the situation by beating yourself up over the head with more negative feelings for being overwhelmed. Slow down, take a few deep breaths and follow these steps:

What are you thinking? Figure out what thoughts you are thinking when you are in a state of overwhelm. This takes practice as you can be in an anxious state and not always thinking clearly. But try writing down your thoughts on paper and noting what sentences are repeating over and over in your head.
Without judgement notice what thoughts are generating the feeling of overwhelm for you. Question them. Are they really true?
Bring a sense of curiosity and fascination to the process.
Even if you believe a thought is true, notice that it isn’t serving you. Breathe into it.
Notice what emotions each thought generates in you.
An emotion is simply a vibration in your body. Notice how it manifests in your body.
Try to allow it instead of resisting it. It may be uncomfortable but you can handle it and eventually it will pass.
Continue to treat yourself with compassion and understanding as you process any discomfort in your body.
Find a new thought: Once you have taken ownership of the thought that caused the feeling of overwhelm and processed it, identify a new intentional thought that serves your end goal. For example, I’ve used the phrase “there is always enough time to focus on what is important to me,” or “B- work is good enough.” The key is that you have to believe it.
Then you have to practice it over and over so it becomes your new default thought - rewiring your neural pathways.
It doesn’t have to be the exact opposite of your original thought that wasn’t serving you, just one that helps calm you down and releases you from overwhelm.
Come up with a plan: Sit down and come up with a plan for how you are going to get things done and just follow it. I have yet to meet a client who isn’t able to let go of overwhelm after they prioritize, organize, make a plan and start following it.