7 Steps to Dealing with Overwhelm in Your Day
Are you feeling overwhelmed with everything that you need to do today?
You’ve come to the right place. I get it. We are trying to do so much to take care of everyone else. We want to be all to everyone in our lives. You don’t want to disappoint anyone. And your goals are sky high for what you want to accomplish today and in your life. You truly believe you can do it all because according to every inspirational poster and meme out there, You Are Unstoppable! You Can Do It!
Well, I agree. You are a force to be reckoned with. But trust me, it takes time to conquer whatever it is you are working towards. Rome wasn’t built in a day and today shouldn’t look like you are trying to show those guys how lazy they were! So please stop and take a breath. Make a list. Prioritize. Ask for help. Show yourself some grace. Learn to say no. Stop comparing yourself to other people’s “perfect” life.
1. Stop, Take a Breath.
When you are rushing around like crazy, thinking you don’t even have time to go pee, you have hit overwhelm! That is when you start to forget what really needs to get done and what order you should do anything. No matter what you do, or get done, it doesn’t matter anymore. You are so concerned about what you still can’t accomplish. This mentality can quickly spiral out of control. So first before anything else, you need to slap yourself out of this frenzy. Hopefully, you don’t actually need to slap yourself. But you do need to consciously STOP. Plant both feet firmly on the ground and take a long deep breath. If you are deep into the overwhelm, take 3 or 4 long deep breaths. Trust me, you have time and these 15-30 seconds of stopping the rat race will pay off.
2. Make a List.
That's right. Write it all down. Get all of that crap out of your head. Some call this a brain dump. Don’t worry if you forget something, you can add it to the list later. The most important thing to do right now is to get the crap out of your head and onto a piece of paper. Or use your notes on your phone. Whatever you have to make that list, make it.
Stop and take a breath
Make a list
Prioritize
Ask for help
Show yourself some grace
Learn to say no
Take a break from social media
3. Prioritize.
Not everything has to be done right now. Some things can be done tomorrow or even next week. So sit down and go over your list. What is the top priority? If you have no food in the house and you don’t want to go out to eat again for lunch and dinner and breakfast tomorrow morning, then going food shopping should be high on the list, you need to do that today. On the other hand, if you have everything you need for the week except for a cake mix to make your son’s birthday cake 3 days from now, then you don’t need to go to the grocery today.
If you are feeling overwhelmed and you are wearing your last pair of clean underwear, do some laundry. But today is probably not the day to strip the beds and wash all of the sheets. That can wait. Trust me. There are college kids everywhere sleeping on sheets that haven’t been washed since Christmas break!
Do your best to accomplish your number 1 priority for the day. Once that is done, if you have some time left, move on to the next thing on your list. You may have to make a new list each day until you feel like you are on autopilot with a normal routine. If you are anything like me, unless I’m on vacation, I make a new list everyday.
4. Ask for Help.
You may think you need to prove something to everyone or to yourself, but there is no reason for you to think that you have to do everything on your own. That’s what other people are here for. We all have gifts, talents, and knowledge that we can use to help each other. Don’t you feel good when you know you've done something to really help out a friend or family member? Doesn’t it feel great to know that you made their day easier, even if it's just something small in your eyes?
When you are feeling overwhelmed with way too much on your plate. PLEASE ask for help. Yes, this may mean that you are giving up control on the outcome of whatever task you pass on, but at this point, are you in control of anything? Working on your to do list while in the state of overwhelm can cause a lot of unnecessary chaos. If you need to drop something off at the post office and your neighbor waves to you in the driveway and tells you they are on the way to the post office before picking up their dry cleaning, simply ask “Would you mind dropping this off for me while you are there?” You just freed up 30 minutes of your day and your neighbor feels great because they have been able to help you, afterall you helped them by watering their flower garden while they were away for a long weekend.
Hand off some age appropriate household chores to the kids. Ask your husband, partner, roommate to pitch in around the house. Again, so many of us are currently living in a state of overwhelm. It is also totally ok to overlook any unnecessary chores. If the clutter is bothering you, throw it all in a box and throw the box in the closet. If someone can't find something they left laying around, tell them to check the box. If the box hasn’t been touched in a couple of months, throw it out, you obviously don’t need anything in it.
If you are overwhelmed because of emotional stress, ask for help there as well. Ask a friend to come over or meet for lunch/dinner. Maybe you need to ask a therapist or coach? Join a support group. Whatever it is that you can’t handle… Ask for help.
5. Show yourself some grace.
You are only human. There are only 24 hours in a day and you should be in bed sleeping for 8 of those hours. 8-10 more hours are more than likely devoted to a job of some sort. That doesn’t leave much time to conquer the world in front of you. So show yourself some grace.
You are doing the best that you can. You may say, “No I’m not, I laid around all day freaking out about how much I should be doing.” Well, to that I say, “Today you needed to rest. You might have to rest again tomorrow. That is OK. But soon you will get up and scratch one thing off of that list.”
6. Learn to Say No.
This is a tough one for most of us. Yes! Can I hear an Amen for the other recovering people pleasers out there?! So many of us just want to make everyone else happy, even at the detriment of our own mental and physical health. This is why so many of us need to learn how to say NO. When you are feeling exhausted and overwhelmed and a loved one asks you for a favor, we need to learn to answer with a no that is incredibly full of love.
I’m sorry honey, I wish I could but my plate is so full right now, I can’t manage another thing.
No, I can’t help you with that today. Can you ask someone else or can we do it another time?
I’ve been so busy lately, I really need to take some time for myself before I can add anything else to my to do list.
For those of you that have had it up to past your eyeballs…. No. Turn around and walk away.
7. Take a Break from Social Media.
I don’t know exactly how it happened, but so many of us have trouble putting our phones down. Be honest, who here scrolls while you are on the toilet? I remember my grandmother had word search books and crossword puzzles next to the toilet. I thought it was funny until I picked one up! Ok, it's still funny. I remember us yelling at my cousin because he would stay in there forever playing grandma’s bathroom games! Here’s my point. Doing word search puzzles is a better way of passing the time than scrolling social media where you are bombarded with posts about how perfect everyone else's life is. Let’s face it, rarely do we share the truth on social media. Stop making it easier to compare yourself to others.
Conclusion.
Seriously, everything will be ok whether you get it all done today or not. When you start to give yourself a break, you will see that this is true. You need to ask yourself, is this task really as important as you believe it is. Is it ok if this waits for tomorrow, next week, or even next month. A day planner or calendar can really help you get organized and prioritize your life. Give tasks a real “due date”. Ask for help as much as you can. You know you help your friends and family all the time. If you already have something on your plate and someone wants to add another “to do”, learn that it is ok to say no. Please, Please, Please, stop comparing yourself to everyone else.
If you are looking for further help letting go of daily stress, please check out my Secrets For Less Stress.
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