00:00 

Hey there, this is Tanya Hale with Intentional Living and this is episode number 18, "Overwhelm." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Well, hello there, my friends and happy day to you. Really, really glad to be here today with you and I'm so glad to be able to share what I've been working on. This is something that just as I talk to people it seems like more and more of us just are overwhelmed a lot and so we're going to talk today, about what we need to do and how do we handle it when we're overwhelmed and how do we start working towards keeping ourselves from getting overwhelmed. Because do you ever feel like you're drowning? This is the feeling of overwhelm, like I'm drowning in the deep end of the pool and I just can't get my bearings. Sometimes we just get spread so thin that we feel like we can't think or function for one more day or one more week or one more hour or minute and it just gets overwhelming, right? We hit to the point where we're shutting down. 

01:23 

Now sometimes we get in this groove of getting things done and we're moving and we're shaking and we're adding things and we get energized by all this moving and shaking, right? And we just keep moving and we're going and we're in this groove and then all of a sudden it seems like we get one extra thing added and it throws us over the edge and we all of a sudden go into overwhelmed breakdown mode, right? And then things can start looking and feeling really bad really quickly. Sometimes it just, it comes out of the blue because we don't realize that we're adding so much, and sometimes we realize that, "oh yeah, I'm getting there, I'm getting there," but it still always kind of surprises us that it just kind of takes over our lives one day. 

02:12 

But very often, this is a product of our own behaviors and the things that we're doing. There are times in our lives that things happen. For example, about three years ago, I had a sister who had an accident and was all of a sudden in the hospital for several weeks, and it was just kind of a big deal. And all of our lives kind of went on hold, and we all started taking time to take care of that. Sometimes these emergencies happen, but really, when we look at emergencies like that that we have no control over, they really don't happen that often. More often than not, getting to this place of overwhelm is a product of our own doing. 

03:00 

If you're familiar at all with Stephen Covey's time quadrants, he talks about four different time quadrants. I'm just going to talk about the first two right here for a second. Quadrant one is when we are in crisis mode. This is doing things that are important, but also things that are urgent. They have to be taken care of right now. This should be reserved for true emergencies. Quadrant two is doing things that are important, but not urgent. These put us focusing on quality things in our life mode. Now, some things that happen in our life are crisis, but as I just talked about a few minutes ago, those don't happen very often. 

03:44 

Most things that put us in that crisis mode, through quadrant one, are a result of our own lack of planning or preparation or over scheduling. I know everybody's got their thing, I'm pretty good at planning, pretty good at preparation, over-scheduling is my big thing. Because I tend to get excited about things, and I jump in too quickly. And I'm just like, okay, I'm going to do this. And I make a decision, and I sign up for something, and I pay the money, or I commit to do something. And then by the time my brain slows down, and I think about it, I go, "whoa, can I handle this? I don't know if I can handle this." And then I find myself in overwhelm mode. So figuring out how we get to overwhelm is going to be the subject of another podcast someday. 

04:32 

But today, I want to discuss what to do when we're there. So how do we get to a place of equilibrium? Some people call that balance. How do we get there? How do we get to a place that we're not overwhelmed? Alright, here we go. First step, when you find yourself just about ready to break down. down, because you're at that place of too much, too fast, first thing, stop. Just stop, put everything down, take some time to breathe, turn off your phone, sit in silence, turn off your brain. It's going to feel like you don't have time to do that. It's going to feel like, well, if I do that, everything's going to fall apart. I promise you, life will go on even if things do fall apart. But stop, just sit. 

05:26 

Our first inclination for probably most of us when we start feeling this overwhelm, come on, is to start putting it in higher gear and start pushing ourselves harder. We're going to stay up later, we're going to get up earlier, we're going to be eating more fast food, we're going to start cutting out our exercise. We're going to start doing all these things, but these are all some of the worst things we can do. First, stop. Sit still, and breathe, and let your heart slow down a bit, and let your brain slow down a little bit. Get control. I know for me, when I get in these modes, I'm just running, and running, and running, and I don't realize that I'm running at such a high level of energy. My brain is just moving, and my heart is moving, and my body is just moving. Step one, stop, okay? Breathe. Let our physical bodies slow down. 

06:29 

The second thing we're gonna wanna do here is pull out a piece of paper, and write it all down. Every last little bit, everything that your brain is thinking of, get it all out of your brain, and get it onto a piece of paper. It doesn't matter if you do a bullet list, it doesn't matter if you do a paragraph, I usually do a bullet list of things that I've gotta get done, and a paragraph when I'm trying to process situations that are throwing me over, right? But we've got to get it all out. Even things you wouldn't usually put on your to-do list, like taking out the garbage, or filling the car up with gas, or setting up your hair appointment, those may be things that we just do as they come. But every little thing, get it out of your brain, and get it down on paper, okay? Everything your brain is thinking that you need to do, get it out of there, alright? Because now your brain can relax a little bit, because it doesn't have to keep remembering all that stuff. The paper will remember it for you, alright? So this may take you 10, 15 minutes, I don't know. Whatever it takes is whatever it takes. This is going to allow your brain to let go, and allow you to think and process. 

07:46 

Now, once you've done that, I want you to look at that list, and I want you to circle the top three pressing items. What are the three things that have to get done, just it's just vital that they happen right now. Okay, you're gonna circle those top three and then you're gonna look at just those three and you're going to pick the top one. First thing, figure it out and get it done. Just take that first top item, forget the other two for now, and figure out how to do it right now. Take some of that immediately, immediate pressure off by getting something done and everything else is just going to sit. Okay, this is going to be a huge stress reliever for your brain. Getting one of those big projects done. 

08:38 

Alright, I know for me, oftentimes I find that sometimes those things that are most pressing really don't take that much time. It just takes that I focus in on it, but when I've got a million things going on in my brain something can take me much longer to get done because my brain is all over the place. 

08:57 

Allright, step number three. Now you just need to sit down and now that your brain's had a chance to process all this stuff, it's down on paper, you've done something else, you've given your brain a break, now we need to figure out what to do with all the rest of this stuff on the list. And this is where we really have to take a reality pill. We have got to see. We've got to say, "okay, what can I ask for help with or what can I hire out?" 

09:25 

Okay, so for me, I know that I am looking at a pretty hefty month coming up. And I've got a lot of things going on and I'm thinking, "okay, so how am I gonna keep myself from getting an overwhelm when I start looking at how spread thin I'm going to be?" And I just decided, you know what, the one thing that I don't wanna worry about is having to keep my house clean and having to get my lawn in my garden ready for spring. Alright, because that always takes a lot of time and so I've been finding people to do these jobs for me. These are something that I'm still doing because at some level I kinda like it and I like having that control. But this is a time in my life where I'm just like, I don't have the luxury of being in control of that right now because that is something that even though I don't spend hours and hours cleaning my house, not having the basics done is something that's going to stress me out as I go into this really busy month. And so I just decided I'm gonna hire somebody to come in, do a really good, deep, big clean in my house and then I can spend the month just keeping up on the basics, you know, keeping my dishes done and keeping my laundry done and those little basic things and not have to worry about doing a deep clean for the whole time. 

10:36 

And this time of year in Utah, obviously a lot of lawn and garden prep, my lawn needs a first mow, my garden's got all kinds of weeds that need to be pulled out of it, my flower beds and I want to get to them before everything gets super big. So I'm in the process of hiring somebody to take care of that for me because that's what I need to do. So can you find somebody to help you or to hire out some jobs? Ask yourself what other things can be delegated to family members? What things could my kids be doing realistically? What about a spouse or are there other people who can help out? What can actually just be deleted off the list because it would be really nice to have it done. It's on my dream list, but it just isn't realistic right now with everything going on. If it's just not realistic, knock it off your list. Just cross it off. If it makes you feel better, make another list somewhere of things to do over the summer or things to do next fall or whatever, but get it off of your list and let your brain let go of it. 

11:44 

This is the deal. When we're in overwhelm, we don't have the choice to keep our "I just want it done my way" ideas. We don't have that choice. We're at overwhelm. And at some point, we have to let go of our control issues. We have to realize that B minus work is exactly what the job calls for. We need to let go of our idealistic perfectionism. And we just need to move forward. Is this hard? Of course it is. But is it even vital? Absolutely. We have to realize I'm at overwhelm, I'm in survival mode right now, something's got to give. I just can't do it all. 

12:37 

So another trick you can do here with this list. Do you have a bunch of little annoying things that need to get done? Call the doctor's office. Do all this kind of stuff, right? Write them all down on a list. Give yourself 30 minutes to knock as many off the list as you can and tell yourself that at the end, I'm going to throw everything else away. I'm going to throw that list away. In 30 minutes, it is brilliantly amazing how much we can get done in 30 minutes of serious focused work. Alright, and trust me, you're going to love how you feel when this part is done, when you have whittled that list down to the bare basics. What do I really have to do? Sometimes we get an overwhelm because we have all of these to-dos that are on our dream list. They're on our "I hope I can get to this. I really want to get to this." But we let them push us over the edge. 

13:36 

Alright, so forth. Now that you can breathe because things are manageable, it's time to get back to your basics of what you know makes your life run better. So I often find myself at overwhelm when the systems and the routine that I have in place are being neglected. For example, my nightly planning. If I'm not doing that, I find myself floundering all the time. My night routine. If I don't keep that up, I struggle. My morning routine. You know, my getting up early. My having prayers and scriptures and going to exercise in the morning. If I'm not taking care of those routines, those things that that keep me balanced. And that's why they're there. That's why I make them a routine. Because they help my life be more balanced, right? If I'm not doing these, I tend to spin out of control. And when I hit that overwhelmed place, I find that very often my morning and my night routines have been suffering ,that I have not been keeping up on those the way that I need to. As much as I wish that they were an automatic habit every night and morning, I still have to work at them every single day. 

14:48 

Another thing, eating for me is big. I mean, well, I guess it's big for everybody, isn't it? We all need to eat. But for me, cooking good food is a stress reliever, alright? And so I found that that's something that I like to incorporate into my life several times a week, if not daily, because cooking helps me relieve stress, plus I'm also eating good food, and I'm kind of a food snob, right? I'm not a fast food lover, I like to eat good, yummy food. I'm not a processed food, don't pull it out of the freezer and give it to me, I just don't like that, right? I like good home-cooked food, and so that helps to relieve some of this stress. And when I'm not incorporating cooking into my week and into my days, I find that I start spinning a little bit out of control. And so get to know yourself a little bit. Understand, what are the things that you really like to do to help you keep things going? What are the routines and the systems that help you feel like you've got things balanced and in control? 

15:55 

And then fifth, this is where we've gotta take some time for honesty about real expectations, and we have got to start scaling back. If we find that overwhelm is a consistent place that we're living in, we are not living our best lives, okay? And don't you dare start telling me that you can't scale back. If we're choosing more and more things until we're in overwhelm  most of the time, you don't have an option. You have to let something go, and things can go. We have to realize that it is all a choice, it's all in our brains of what we choose to think. 

16:39 

So for example, I look at my closet right now, when I got divorced, I spread out in the closet, and then I filled it back up, and I've got this complete. And I love it all, everything in there I love and I keep trying to go through and I go, "oh, but I really, really like this." And so I'm having a hard time getting rid of stuff because I just love it all. But honestly, I could easily get rid of half of what's in there and be just fine because half of it I don't wear but once a year, right? But that once a year I think it's really great. But I could get rid of it, even though I love it, right? 

17:14 

Our time is the same. We may love what we're signed up for. We may love that volunteering opportunity that we take every couple of weeks. We may love the interactions with the people in our book club. We may love binge-watching Criminal Minds or Downton Abbey. But just like with money, we cannot afford what we can't afford. If we start thinking of our time as a limited resource, just like our money, we realize that we can't afford certain things, even if we really love them. 

17:49 

And not just our time. We've got to start thinking of our energy as a limited resource as well. I don't care how much I love all of these activities. If I don't have the time or the energy, I don't have the time or the energy. And credit cards are not an option here. Because when we live our lives in credit mode, we eventually crash and default on all these things we love anyway. And then we start feeling guilt or shame for not fulfilling our responsibilities and for letting people down. We have to stop living our lives on credit thinking that the day of reckoning is never going to come because it always does. And that's when we start spinning into overwhelm. At this point, we start letting everybody down, rather than just a select few that we understand could go anyway without too much pain. 

18:43 

And for some of us, this is the hardest part, saying "no." Saying "no" for some of us is the hardest thing that we do in our lives. And yet it's the most important because this is where we have to start setting boundaries with our time and our energy. We have to protect ourselves from this overwhelmed state that breaks it down and that causes us to be completely ineffective. 

19:13 

So this step, scaling back, may take some real heavy thinking and processing. And maybe you'll even need to take a day off of work or get a hotel room for the night away from everything and everyone so that you can think and process and really evaluate. But that's okay. Guess what? You have my permission, not like you need my permission, but you have it to take some time to reevaluate your priorities, figure out where you really want to invest your time and energy, both of which are depleting resources as the day goes on. So this step is intentionally getting ourselves out of quadrant one crisis mode and getting us back into quadrant two, which is where we're focusing on things that are important but not urgent. They're getting us back into our focused mode or our quality living mode. And this is where we decide what we want to say "yes" to and what we want or need to say "no" to. This is where we honestly evaluate our time and our energy and we choose purposefully and intentionally what we want to do. This is where we set boundaries to protect ourselves from ourselves and stop trying to please other people. 

20:36 

This is where we decide that a quick get-together with friends for our children's birthday party is fabulous and we don't need to spend $500 on decorations and food and a bounce house and three days getting it all set up. This is where we let go of our perfectionist expectations and become real people. Because being a real person is where real happiness is to be found. So let's say goodbye to overwhelm, at least until the next time we get overwhelmed, right? Because hopefully we will have some things in place by the next time so we don't spin so out of control. If every time we start heading into overwhelm, it becomes a little bit less than the next time because of the baby steps we're making along the way, then we know we're on the right path. 

21:31 

And this is the deal, overwhelm happens to every single one of us. We get excited about projects and we jump in before we know what we've really done. But the earlier we can avoid that, the earlier we can figure out that we're heading for a crash, the earlier we can put the brakes on, the earlier we can make a lane change and we can avoid an all out disaster that puts  us out of commission. 

21:57 

So here's one of my favorite phrases when somebody asks me to do something. "Hmm, let me check my schedule and I'll get back with you." I love that phrase. I've used it for about 20 years now and it saves me from getting to the place of overwhelm as often. Sometimes I really do know right away whether I can or I can't commit, but sometimes I'll say that anyway. Even if I know that I can commit, well, I guess I say it if I know that I can, right? Sometimes I'll just say it just because it gives me a little buffer space. It gives me a place to start to really evaluate whether I want it or not, okay? But usually, a lot of times when I feel the excitement building as somebody is talking about something they're doing and they ask me, to be part of it. I know immediately when I start feeling that sense of anticipation and that sense of excitement, I know immediately that I need to slow it way down and I need to say, you know what, let me check my schedule and I'll get back with you. 

22:59 

Because what this does is it gives me time to allow my emotions and the excitement of the situation to settle down. It gives me time to remember all of the things I'm currently committed to. It gives me time to really process whether I want the extra time and the extra energy commitments in my life that saying yes would require. And if I do decide that I want that, when I get back with them, I say "yes." But I also need to make sure at that time I establish any boundaries that I feel may need to be set at the beginning of getting involved. 

23:37 

So if I say "yes" to a time commitment, I can say "yes, I would love to help, but I'm only available Thursday nights and Saturday mornings," alright? It's total, it's my life. I can set priorities that need to be set so that I can work it in and not get to my state of overwhelm. If I don't feel like I can do it, that's just all I need to say. I just need to say, "hey, it doesn't look like that's gonna work for me, but thanks for the offer." That's it. No excuses, no explanations why, just that it's not a good fit for me right now. 

24:11 

Alright, if you're new at saying "no" and that makes you super uncomfortable, you can say that and then you can change the subject. You know, "that's not a good fit for me right now, but thanks for offering. You know, hey, how are your kids doing by the way? I see that your son's playing soccer. Or tell me about your vacation in Mexico last month. It looked like it was great fun," right? So if it makes you super uncomfortable because "no" is new, say "no" and then change the subject. Or you can even just say, "you know what, sorry, that's just not a good fit for me right now, but thank you for asking. Hey, I've got some other things I need to take care of right now, so I need to go." 

24:51 

Alright, this is the deal. My friends, let's start slowing the train down a bit so we can really enjoy our day-to-day living. Really enjoying and participating in life requires that we make connections with people. It requires that we have heart-to-heart talks and that we interact with people on an intellectual and an emotional level. And when we are running so fast that we're headed for an overwhelmed crash, it's almost inevitable that we are not giving ourselves time to make those connections. And those are the most important things in our lives, those connections with people. So let's slow it down, let's make it so that next time that overwhelm is not so huge, and little by little we will get to the point where the only overwhelm we hit are when real true life emergencies happen. That we're not creating this overwhelm by getting too overextended or by not planning and preparing on time. 

26:06 

Gosh, I love growing up don't you? I love hitting this point in my life where I feel like all the pieces are coming together. This growing up is an awesome business and I'm glad that you're joining me on it. So along those lines if you would love some personal help from me to learn how to overcome overwhelm or just to navigate some tough situations with more clarity, contact me at tanyahale.com and you can book a free 20 minute coaching session to help get you started on this process, and I would love to help you find more peace and contentment in your life. Truly, I would. 

26:41 

If you feel this podcast is adding value to your life, please do a couple of things. One, you can subscribe so you never miss an episode. And two, you can leave a review. And three, you can share this with all your friends who might need a little bit of extra balance and figuring it out as well. So that is it for today. I wish you the best in all that you do. Truly, I hope that you  can find a place of balance and a place of peace and a place of contentment. Have an awesome day, bye. 

27:12 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.