Let’s face it we all have some level of daily overwhelm in our life. But if we aren’t careful it can start to eat away at our productivity and energy. Living in that negative anxiety will steal your momentum faster than anything else will. Trust me I know. I was like the overwhelm QUEEN when I first started my online business.
Problem is overwhelm holds us back from doing the things that actually matter. Think about the last time you were overwhelmed. Did you choose to do the hardest thing on your to do list or the easiest? Probably the easiest. Issue with that is if we are choosing the easiest things to get done we probably aren’t spending time on the things that actually matter and will move the needle forward. This makes us feel unsuccessful at the end of the week like we got nothing accomplished. Then we go into the next week feeling overwhelmed and behind again and the vicious cycle continues round and round.
Reality is overwhelm is simply a mismanagement of the mind. It’s actually your subconscious mind trying to hold you back from progress. Here’s how I’ve learned to take back control and manage the “feeling” of overwhelm strategically.
#1: I simple choose again.
So anytime I’m feeling overwhelmed I sit myself down and ask what feeling I would like to replace it with today. Sometimes it’s love, compassion, joy, excitement and so on. In the moments my mind goes to overwhelm I get up and cultivate the new feeling. Most of the time it’s me dancing around like a fool all over my house to raise the vibe. How fun.
By doing this you are literally training your brain to choose something better. It will over time reduce the amount of times your brain leans towards the overwhelm feeling.
So what feeling do you want to replace overwhelm with?
It’s so important to start the day organized. Most of overwhelm comes from being distracted, or reacting to everyone’s agendas. Often times people wake up and braindump all the “things” they have to get done that day and than start checking off the to dos. Problem with that is we as humans typically choose the easiest things on the list and those aren’t the things that will actually move things forward.
Throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks in your life or business without any intention behind your activities is lethal to your energy, vibrancy, and productivity.
I recommend starting your day off with a plan. Sit down the night before or in the morning and ask yourself what are the 3-5 main projects that I am working on. What are the 5 things I need to do in order to move each project forward. Than choose the things you will get done that day and schedule block times for those tasks. Uninterrupted block time is gold. This gives you the time and focus necessary to get stuff done.
When you start your day off with intentional like that it makes you feel more secure and reduces overwhelm because you know what’s coming.
In between projects give yourself some white space. It’s easy to rush from project to project from task to task and have hours go by where you forgot the last time you went to the bathroom or stood up from your desk. I’ve even forgotten to brush my teeth before. GROSS.
But this behavior actually creates overwhelm. Your mind cant focus on one thing because it’s got 3 projects, 5 tasks, and being pulled to what’s next before proper room to digest, declutter and breathe. In order to have focus and creativity your mind needs rest.
Think about your brain as a computer. If your computer has to many apps and programs running it’s hard for it to keep up and ends up slowing everything down. It may even over heat! You definitely don’t want that.
So I like to take a 5 min break every 25 min. Or for you just starting out you can take 15 for every 50. I get up have some water. Sometimes I meditate, shake my booty to an awesome song, take a nap, go for a walk in nature. I encourage you to make a list of things you can do in between projects that you would enjoy. Then get out there and do it. Your brain will thank you.
Have a daily catch up time. It helps so much to block off some time at the end of your day to play catch up. I like calling it closing loops. If we leave our day with to many open loops your mind can’t fully rest, relax and be present going into family time. I block off about 30 min daily for this, sometimes 1 hour in more hectic days.
I use this time to reply to any open emails, finish that last paragraph for the blog, edit the last 3 minutes of that video so it’s ready to post, or make a couple lingering phone calls.
I think of this time as my hail mary last attempt to crush it.
Trust me just taking that time and closing some loops will leave you feeling WAY more accomplished in your day and remove overwhelm for the evening and next day. You will be more present for your family and be able to actually get some sleep instead of laying there going over everything you didn’t get done that day.
There you have it my top 3 ways to eliminate daily in the moment overwhelm. If you liked this post and got something out of it let me know your #1 take away in the comments below. Or I would be forever grateful if you would share the video with a friend who you knows might need to hear this message today.