The antidote to overwhelm is to simplify. This means you need to cut back, slow down, eliminate, and outsource. "Simplify" means you need to do less.
There are several things to know about overwhelm:
1) By staying busy, you have lost control over your life. You have become addicted, if you will, to being busy.
There are several reasons for this. For one, your mind or ego needs something to do so it creates stuff or situations to keep in busy. You may have been taught that success is hard work so you look for ways to be busy to create "success." That definition never included happiness or peace. Thirdly, the media, the internet, the sub-culture affects you more than you realize. In just trying to stay in tuned with everything, you're overwhelmed. There are so many stimuli along with the perception that you have to stay on top of it all that you stay busy just to try to keep up because you think that's what you're supposed to do.
Your life is no longer your own but rather a constant stream of "what's next?"
2) Slowing down and attempting to do less will cause you to question your current behavior practices.
Why do you have so much to do? What is the resistance you feel to slowing down and doing less? Do you thrive on deadlines and juggling priorities? How does it feel when you are between projects: Can you enjoy the space or do you tend to feel a little anxious or bored?
3) By slowing down, you will reconnect with your values, your feelings, and your soul. You cannot access your inner Self when you are traveling at the speed of busy.
You will learn how to make different choices about your time - you'll become more protective and you'll stop wasting it. As you begin to identify your priorities, you'll start taking better care of yourself because you'll see and feel the cost of not doing so. There is nothing of greater importance than YOU ~"Without you, what do you have?"
Coaching tip: You can select a pace to slow down your life either by eliminating stuff gradually over a few months or dumping most of your projects right now. Consider all of the projects you ‘think about' everyday and that suck up your time and energy.
You might be:
- involved in volunteering (how many efforts?),
- professional organizations that don't directly benefit you,
- home projects that you've been saying for years you want to do (hire someone to do the work, put them on a schedule and get them done, or forget about them),
- pipe dreams (let them go!),
- roles you take too seriously (like mothering your adult children or smothering your spouse),
- pushing yourself to complete a goal but never getting there (hire a coach or dump the goal),
- being unhappy in some area of your life and having no direction (hire a coach),
- still trying to resolve old emotional problems (hire a therapist).
How about addictions such as eating too much, drinking, drugs, any other ways in which you escape and avoid dealing with life's tough stuff? These are such a waste of time and energy not to mention unhealthy.
Coaching tip: Identifying where you waste time trying to impress, to be somebody, pretending (lying, denying), feeling ashamed or acting out of guilt are great places to start.
Question anything you do because you think you "should." Who says you "should?" Many of the actions you take regularly may be out of habit. This will require you to be attentive to what you do and why you do it. Question everything! And choose only to do those things that add value to your life or that are in alignment with your life purpose. Stop doing things for the wrong reasons.
As you start to simplify, you may feel bored. You may even get a cold or headaches. Things in your life will shift - friends and opportunities disappear, your predictable life will change and things will not be the same. This is a normal reaction to the change in pace. Just go with it. Trust the process. You'll start to find better things to do and as you do, you'll enjoy yourself more, feel more in control of your life, and your relationships will improve. This is the path to happiness and real success.
Let me know how you're doing.
Your partner for success,
Coach Julie
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