Break the Cycle of Overwhelm

Ep: 138

What if, instead of constantly feeling overwhelmed, you were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief and celebrate your success?

What if, rather than never feeling like you have enough time to do something just for yourself, you actually had “me” time to refresh and rejuvenate?

Imagine a life where you finally felt like you were in control, you could sit back and celebrate your achievements, and life didn’t feel so…overwhelming.

If that sounds great, but you’re thinking “that’ll never be me,” then today’s episode is just the fuel you need to spark change in your life.

For high achievers, overwhelm seems like it’s just par for the course, but normalizing consistent cycles of feeling overwhelmed isn’t the answer. Rather than settling for a quick fix, real change means getting to the root of the problem. But often, we can’t see it because we’re lacking the tools (and the time) to make such a big shift on our own.

Today, Blake asks you to think about what it would feel like if you were in control. What would it feel like if you woke up every day with peace of mind and truly felt accomplished? In this episode, you’ll learn the effects that feeling overwhelmed can have on your life, and the false assumption you might be holding on to about why you can’t reduce the responsibility that you’re carrying. She also shares an exercise with 5 tips that will help you identify what would need to happen in order to create change.

It’s time to recognize that something needs to change and you can do something about it.

What You’ll Learn:

  • The long-term effects of overwhelm (0:38)
  • What you can do when you’re feeling overwhelmed (1:00)
  • Our false assumptions about change (4:12)
  • How to take action and reduce your stress (5:46)
  • What it means if you’re consistently feeling overwhelmed (7:06)

Favorite Quotes:

  1. If you are a high achiever, you may ultimately end up spending a significant portion of your life in overwhelm, paralyzing you from the very changes you need in order to create a happier, more peaceful, and more balanced life.
  2. What would it feel like if you were in control, you had peace of mind and you truly felt accomplished?
  3. It’s important to connect to what we want to feel and what that would look like so that you can really identify what would need to happen in order to create that change.
  4. We’re assuming that we have to do certain things, we’re assuming that it’s going to be painful or complicated or take a lot of time, we’re assuming that we have to figure it out all on our own, we’re assuming that nothing can change. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
  5. By allowing yourself time to process through your current situation, what options you have, and prioritize what will make the biggest impact, you can begin to see light at the end of the tunnel.
  6. If you find yourself consistently feeling overwhelmed, there are likely tools and knowledge that you’re missing that are keeping you stuck. But you can shift those. You can get support.


Additional Resources:

Rather than hoping the grass will be greener, identify what the RIGHT next step is.

We can help you do just that.

Get clarity on where you are on your journey to career fulfillment, where you’re headed, optional paths to get there, and the right next step to take.

Start your complimentary, Personalized Career Fulfillment Plan by going to www.thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan

Want free resources to set your job search up for success? You can get them by going to: https://thebridgetofulfillment.com/mistakes

Transcript

Blake Schofield 52% of workers are stressed at work on a daily basis according to a study done by Account Temps. If you are a high achiever, you may ultimately end up spending a significant portion of your life in overwhelm paralyzing you from the very changes you need in order to create a happier, more peaceful and more balanced life. And one where you actually feel successful instead of constantly worrying about the next thing. Today, on the bridge to fulfillment, I’m going to share with you a quick tip for what to do when you feel overwhelmed. Number one, identify how you’re feeling and why. It’s really important to stop and understand why you’re feeling what you’re feeling, why are you feeling that overwhelm? What is actually creating that feeling? Is it that you feel like you’re gonna let someone down? Is it that you feel like your to do list honestly, it’s just growing and growing and growing. And no matter how much you get done, it doesn’t ever seem to get smaller or under right control. Is it that you feel like you’re stuck doing a bunch of little things that you don’t enjoy, and you don’t feel like you’re getting to the things that you want to stop and really ask yourself, right, what is causing me to feel this way and why? Then from there, the second step is to write your list down, write down, everything that’s going on in your mind that’s on your to do list are things that you feel like are creating overwhelm for you. You know, one of the biggest reasons we stay in overwhelm, is because we actually are trying to keep all of this stuff in our brain and our brains get over loaded, carrying all of that information at once. So get it out, get it on a piece of paper, and then be able to see, right what’s in front of you. Then the third thing I want you to do, I want you to step away from that to do list for a minute. And I want you to actually envision your ideal, identify how you would really like to feel, what would it feel like if you were in control, you had peace of mind, and you truly felt accomplished. Close your eyes. At well don’t close your eyes if you’re driving right now. But if you’re not driving, right, close your eyes, and really envision what it would look and feel like to be in control, have peace of mind, feel accomplished, feel like you had space in your day in your life. It’s important to connect to what we want to feel and what that would look like. So that you can really identify what would need to happen in order to create that change, which is the fourth step identify changes, okay. And you can identify changes by understanding, okay, if I feel if I would feel this wonderful way versus what I feel right now, what would have to change in order for me to get there, you can also go look at your to do list and really be able to identify, right? What of those things need to adjust or change in order to truly feel how you want to feel to have that peace of mind. And you can ask yourself things like, do I need more time for this particular project? And I’m feeling stressed out because I just feel like there’s more to accomplish than the timeframe I have? Do you need an extended deadline for something that you had had planned on a certain date? Do you need to speak with somebody to ask for help or get more clarity. Oftentimes I find that this is a key piece we miss. When we are overwhelmed. It’s because we’re assuming that we have to do certain things, we’re assuming that it’s going to be painful or complicated or take a lot of time, we’re assuming that we have to figure it out all on our own, we’re assuming that nothing can change. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. And so oftentimes, if you can look at your list and where you’re really finding the overwhelm, it’s about identifying what are the things that were nice to complete at this timeframe? And what are the things that are really necessary? Do I have overwhelm because I don’t have enough information. If I had more information, I could be more clear, it would take me less time I would feel like I knew what I was doing would move me forward. Then there’s also the element of sometimes we’re just taking on far too much. So you can ask yourself, are there things that other people can accomplish for me things that I can delegate to somebody else, and are some of the things on this list would be nice to do if I had enough time, but they’re not really necessary.

Blake Schofield They’re things that I can actually deprioritize or get rid of entirely and really being able to like Identify the gap between how you’re feeling and why you’re feeling that way. Be able to truly see what’s on your list or what’s on your mind, understand how you want to feel, and then be able to connect those dots to look at the list and understand, what do I need to change? What do I need to do in order to allow me to get to the place I want to be. And then finally, once you’ve gotten clear on that, you prioritize and you take action. After you’ve gone through that list, and really identified the things that are causing overwhelm the places where you feel like you don’t have enough time, or the things that you need to be successful look and find the top two to three that will make the biggest impact in your life right now, and take actions on those. What you’ll find is as soon as you can reduce that stress and that noise from feeling overwhelmed, and the sooner you can take one to two actions to reduce that pressure, the easier everything else becomes. And then you’ll have the momentum, and the energy and the peace of mind to start taking more actions and really knock through that list. Because here’s the reality, overwhelm can make it feel like what’s in front of you is insurmountable at times, it can make the easiest tasks, tasks feel difficult, and it can create a false sense of lack of control over the outcome, that you can’t change anything. But that’s just not true. By allowing yourself time to process through your current situation, what options you have and prioritize what will make the biggest impact, you can begin to see light at the end of the tunnel. Now, what I’ve shared with you today is a quick exercise that you can do when you find yourself overwhelmed. That said, if you find yourself consistently in cycles of overwhelm, that is a sign that something is misaligned in your life. And there are likely belief systems or patterns, or lack of processes or knowledge about how to create a structure for your life that you need that you’re missing. And I want to say that, again, if you find yourself consistently getting into cycles of overwhelm, there are likely tools and knowledge that you’re missing, that are keeping you stuck. But you can shift those you can get support. And you can learn how to align your life in a way that works best for you so that you can wake up energized every day, feel accomplished in doing what you want to do, and feel successful in achieving your goals. You can change this pattern, no matter how crazy Your life is, or how demanding Your job is, or your kids schedules are. You know, I spend a huge portion of my corporate life working 60 to 70 hours a week. I’m a mom of three kids, I get it. I know the challenges. But I would tell you, I have yet to find a woman that I’ve worked with who doesn’t have substantial opportunity in reclaiming their time, their energy in their mind. They’re getting the right tools and support to understand how to do so. And by getting help and identifying why you continue to get in the cycle, and what structure habits and mindset shifts are needed for you. You can stop the cycle of overwhelm, and spend much more time being present and truly enjoying your life. I hope you found today’s episode helpful. Thank you again for joining and just being a partner in this community with me. If you are really getting value from the podcast, I would love to hear from you. Please just take a quick minute to go to iTunes and rate and review the podcast let me know what you’re enjoying. But also I’d love to hear from you. Are there other topics or things you’d like to learn about? Your feedback is so important to me so that I can really show up and serve you in the absolute best way possible. Thanks so much again, and I hope to see you again next week on The Bridge to Fulfillment.