What to Do When You Feel Overwhelmed
When is the last time that you felt completely overwhelmed?
Wellness practitioners and entrepreneurs know this feeling well.
It’s a feeling that can take many different forms. Discomfort, anxiety, fear of failure, and hopelessness take over your mind, making it difficult to make decisions and work effectively. It is one of the most common challenges that most, if not all of you will face when running your own business.
And for many of us, the answer to the feeling of overwhelm is pretty straightforward.
There usually isn’t time to properly ground yourself. You keep on keeping on, “grin and bear it”, and do what you can to cope.
Although this keeps your business running in the short term, overwhelm will catch up to you eventually.
Here’s how to deal with overwhelm when it starts to take over your work day.
Recognizing Overwhelm
Before we get into effective strategies for dealing with overwhelm, let’s talk about how to identify it.
There are early warning signs for wellness practitioners to be aware of:
- Taking on more business than you can handle
- Attempting to control uncontrollable situations in your business
- Emotional disconnection from your work (thinking things like “let’s just make it through the week”)
- Avoiding asking for help from your community
- Inability to set clear boundaries between work and the things you enjoy in life
Everyone will have unique ways of dealing with stress as it increases in their personal and business lives. Think back to similar situations in your life when you feel especially stressed, and look for patterns in your behavior. Ask your partner, friends, and family if they notice anything about you during these times that you don't notice about yourself.
Gain Momentum, Do Something Small
For some people, overwhelm leads to paralysis.
This can be rooted in an inability to effectively prioritize (which we will address in the next section), or the feeling of desperation that comes with having multiple big tasks on the go.
Starting with something small, like a micro-goal, can be all you need to get the ball rolling.
There is a lot of science behind why breaking down large tasks into smaller ones helps us to see them as more approachable.
The little brain boost you get from completing a task can give you energy, motivation, and a feeling of accomplishment.
If your tasks are too large and daunting, you will be forced to go too long without this feeling, which can leave you mired in overwhelm for days at a time.
Brain Dump and Reset: Exercise
Your brain is only so good at keeping track of your business and personal responsibilities.
It doesn’t take much to reach a point where the to-do list in your mind keeps you from doing effective work.
So try this exercise. It only takes 45 minutes, and it will bring you back to a place where you can make decisions and work without having to deal with the noise caused by overwhelm.
First thing first, get a pen and paper. It helps to get off your computer and phone, so that text messages and other notifications don’t pull you right back into the mindset you are trying to leave.
Now, write down everything to get it out of your head. This list should include tasks, deadlines, and other work-related stuff. But it should also include concerns, anxieties, ideas, and recurring thoughts.
Grab a highlighter or colored pen, and go through the list from top to bottom. Highlight, or write the number “1” beside anything that needs to be done today. Transfer this list to another page.
Go through the list again. Now, write the number “2” beside items that are still important, but you can get by without doing them today. Transfer to another list. Repeat with the number “3” for tasks that aren’t urgent at all, even if they are still important. Transfer them to another list.
You may be left with items that haven’t been highlighted or numbered at all. These could be the negative thoughts that have been swirling around in your head, or something positive that you are looking forward to in the future when you are less busy.
But the important thing is, these remaining items are out of your control. You cannot change or affect them through your work today, or even a year in the future.
But now they live somewhere else. Not just in your head. They are solidified, tangible, and clear. You can return to them later to address where they come from, and how they make you feel.
Now, it’s time for a bit of a mind–clearing reward. Take 15-20 minutes to do something that you find relaxing. Stretch, breathe, go for a walk, drink some water, or visit with a friend or colleague,
Then, return to your newly-organized to-do list. The key here is to find out what you truly cannot finish or control during your work day, and record it in a place where you can find it later.
Giving yourself a quick mental reset to recenter yourself can be hard to do when you are already feeling underprepared and mentally chaotic, but it is an essential step to managing overwhelm and getting the most out of a day.
Learn to Be Okay With Less
It can be difficult to come to terms with the fact that you cannot accomplish everything you want today, this week, or this quarter.
Your to-do list will always be longer than your can-do list, and once you acknowledge this you can stop setting unrealistic goals for yourself.
This can be difficult. Most motivated business owners don’t want to accept that they will get less done, because it can seem like they are “giving up.”
Why would you want to accomplish less for your business if it means that you may not hit your goals?
The answer is: you need to frame this idea differently in your head. It’s about doing fewer things well, instead of doing many things poorly.
Like we talk about in our article on embracing the fear of failure, getting something done gives you valuable insight and data to learn from.
Your business is your lab. A place for you to experiment.
You probably won’t be able to determine the formula for total business success, but as long as you achieve consistent learning and improvement, you will grow as an entrepreneur and wellness practitioner.
