Overwhelmed? A Step-By-Step Guide To Regaining Control
Feeling overwhelmed? Like you're constantly treading water, barely keeping your head above the surface? You're not alone. In today's world, overwhelm is a common experience, but there are things you can do so it doesn't control your life. Here are some practical, actionable steps to tackle overwhelm head-on and regain a sense of calm and a level of control.
Understanding the Beast: What's Causing Your Overwhelm?
The first step is understanding its origins. Take a moment to reflect on the specific factors contributing to your stress. Is it work-related? Home-related? Or a combination of both?
Work-Related Overwhelm:
Excessive Workload: Are you drowning in a never-ending stream of tasks, deadlines, and last-minute requests? Do you feel like there are simply not enough hours in the day to get everything done?
Performance Pressure: Are you struggling to manage a team that's under-performing or dealing with difficult employees? Are you constantly stepping in to pick up the slack, leaving you with no time for your own responsibilities?
Time Management Challenges: Is your schedule packed with back-to-back meetings, leaving you no time to focus on important tasks? Are you constantly rushing from one thing to the next, feeling like you're always behind?
Communication Overload: Are you bombarded with emails, calls, and messages, making it impossible to concentrate or prioritise? Do you feel like you're always reacting to others' demands rather than proactively managing your own work?
Home-Related Overwhelm:
Increased Responsibilities: Are you juggling work with childcare, eldercare, or other demanding responsibilities at home? Do you feel like you're constantly switching gears, never fully present in either role?
Lack of Support: Do you feel like you're shouldering the burden alone, without adequate help or understanding from those around you?
Limited Personal Time: Are you sacrificing your hobbies, social life, and self-care in an attempt to keep up with work and family demands?
Once you've identified some specific sources of your overwhelm, you can now start to build your plan of action.
Taking Control: Strategies to Tackle Overwhelm
Separate the Controllable from the Uncontrollable: Divide your list of stressors into two categories: things you can control, CONTROLLABLES, and the things you don’t think you can control, UNCONTROLLABLE.
This simple act of categorisation can help you focus your energy on the areas where you can make a real difference.
Prioritise Ruthlessly: Take your lists and rank them by importance. Don't be afraid to re-evaluate and re-prioritise multiple times until you have a very clear picture of what truly matters.
Seek Support: Reach out to your boss, colleagues, friends, family, mentor or coach. Sharing your struggles and seeking advice can sometimes provide valuable perspective and relief.
Form a Support Triad: Create a Triad with two other peers or trusted friends [you decide if knowing your situation is preferable or not], or you may draw from your support network [above]. You will use your Triad to practice and provide support and accountability.
Influence the Uncontrollable: Even those things that seem outside your control can often be influenced to some degree – i.e. you can nudge them slightly that will help in reducing its impact. Run your ideas past your triad, have them help come up with others.
If work related… engage your team in the process, have them come up with some ideas. For workload overload - think about ‘work in process’ before attacking efficiency [see Little’s Law or our Monkey Management strategies].
Where to Start?: Choose the top three UNCONTROLLABLES and take a moment to think about what you may be able to do to have an impact, even a small impact. For example, if a demanding client is a source of stress, can you have a conversation to reset expectations and/or renegotiate deadlines?
There are a number of approaches to consider, depending on what the real issue is, but for the moment, let’s assume it involves some communication or a conversation.
We’ll dig into managing meetings and emails etc as separate topics in future blogs.
Develop a Plan of Action: Choose the top three priorities from your list of ‘Uncontrollables’ – having even a small influence over what you thought was way out of your control, will be really empowering [‘Eat that frog’]. Generate a detailed plan for tackling the first item. Break down the task into small, manageable steps.
Rehearse and Refine: Share your plan with your Triad. Practice your approach/conversation. NB – The value of a triad in this instance is you can practice with one per, the other can be an observer. This allows them to carefully watch the scene and be able to provide feedback, insights and observations from a neutral and uninvolved perspective. Use their input to refine and continue to practice. You’ll be surprised how quickly you will feel comfortable. Consider using the Keystone Conversation or SBI worksheets, to help frame your conversation.
Take Action: Take the first step on your first priority, on your uncontrollable list. Remember, progress – no matter how small – is still progress.
Review and Refine: Regularly review with your triad, making adjustments as needed. Celebrate your successes and learn from any setbacks. Then, move on to the next priority on your list – you decide which will give you the best return.
Rinse & Repeat: Continue this cycle of identifying, prioritising, acting, and reviewing. You will see the fruits of your labour.
Next time we’ll look at some immediate strategies to reduce the burden of meetings.
Additional Tips for Conquering Overwhelm:
Ignore the ‘Software’ Solution: The greatest distraction can often be, trying to find some software to ‘sort this out’ for you. Ignore the urge to outsource bringing calm to your day to a device, no matter how clever it is. First you take charge and get some resolution yourself, and then you can delegate to an app.
Above all maintain agency/control/involvement in the process – that allows you to see intimately what’s working and what’s not… and be able to take action quickly to resolve.
Celebrate Small Wins: Acknowledge and celebrate even the smallest victories to boost your motivation and confidence. It’s a researched fact that this will build your ‘success muscle’ and that will in turn build your sense of agency.
Practise Self-Compassion: Be kind to yourself and avoid self-blame.
Learn to Say “Not yet”: It doesn’t have to be a flat “No!”. A “Not yet” indicates that you require to prioritise your workload. Don’t get landed with a monkey! Read our Monkey Management strategies [Show me more].
Prioritise Ruthlessly… Often!: Prioritise everyday, if not 2 or 3 times a day. Engage your team in the process, give them agency to come up with ways to ‘triage’ work. Their developing strategies will help them take ownership of them.
Prioritise Self-Care: Make time for activities that recharge you, such as exercise, hobbies, spending time with loved ones, or simply taking a 5 mins walk.
NB – An app that I have used and refer clients to is a 7 minute guided relaxation. I used it twice a day, morning and afternoon – the results were outstanding. It provided a chance to stop my mind spinning and approach the next thing with a clear head.
Seek Help: If your overwhelm feels persistent or unmanageable, don't hesitate to seek further help.
Remember, by taking proactive steps, you can begin to feel a level of control, influence or agency and create a more balanced, fulfilling life.