In every age group I interact with, anxiety is a mainstay of conversation. We have so much to do personally and professionally, we’re building our new normal and the world’s complexity is showing up in unavoidably noticeable ways like high inflation, job insecurity, delayed opportunities, eroded savings and portfolio losses.

Life is a series of daily negotiations and decisions, which though necessary, can be overwhelming.

Hope is always available but on some days we have to go foraging for it.

This is not everyone’s story - others are winning so much they are tired of it. To them I say, enjoy it unreservedly and unapologetically!

In times like this, I find myself thinking of prevention, relief and cure for this condition of being overwhelmed.

Prevention

Assuming my energy audit indicates I am putting effort into the right places, dealing with what’s on my plate is still an uphill task. This puts top of mind the value of strong support systems / teams in every area of my life. I’d say the biggest transition one makes in their early career versus later career is moving from thinking in terms of individual success to team success. Preventing overwhelm looks like segmenting which goals are team sports versus solo effort early enough to mobilise the right structures to pursue them effectively. Asking for help is an under-rated stress reliever. Be self-confident enough to do so.

Does any of this resonate? “I am so all over the place. Sometimes I don’t know where to start or I can’t stick with anything long enough to get results. Other times, I am really busy but my life just isn’t working out like I expected. Bottomline, I’m overwhelmed and I know should do something about it but what exactly?”   

These feelings can mean many things and be caused by several inter-locking factors. When I saw the below chart, it struck me as a useful reflection tool for personal and professional situations. Some of the complex change we must deal with is as much about our inner thought life, our attitude and personal decisions as it is to do with external issues and people. Personally, preventing overwhelm looks like identifying and assembling the necessary ingredients for my desired outcomes early and updating that view continuously. As I dive deep, these types of clear segments guide my actions, keep me calm and reassure me, as well as inform realistic expectations. 

Relief

There comes a hazy stage when prevention hasn’t worked, overwhelm has moved in, I’m not quite ready to find a cure and yet I am keenly aware I need to function through my dysfunction. I need interim relief. I might be feeling overwhelmed for a phase but I know I will eventually snap out of it, and when I do, I don’t want to regain consciousness to a trail of destruction! Does that sound dramatic? Isn’t everything dramatic when you’re in the thick of it?  

The main tricks in my bag to deal with this are:

1. Deciding what areas are not allowed to falter or fail while I am in disarray;

2. Identifying the impactful minimum activities needed to keep them afloat. Survive now, thrive later;

3. Reviewing and revising my schedule daily and sticking to it, with an emphasis on front loading tasks from #2. No auto-pilot allowed at a time like this;

4. As the day goes by and I am reacting to the multitude of issues which trigger my overwhelm, I pay even closer attention to what domain they fit within the urgent / important matrix. These classifications are important later on for the cure.    

5. Developing a temporary routine that gives me what I need to shake up my mental energy. A few easily actionable examples are: working from a different location, doing the types of exercise that don’t allow me to multi-task so that I truly unplug, and cooking daily instead of in advance for an enforced dose of creativity. Once my energy goes up and creativity flows, the chaos might still be there in reality but it doesn’t oppress me mentally. The pathway for a cure becomes discoverable.

Cure

Well, to fix a problem, you have to acknowledge it exists. I have learnt that I need to pause long and deeply enough for self-awareness to catch up with me. A busy mind over-rides glaring signals. 

My early morning power hour this year has focused on prayer, meditation and stillness because that is where the clarity I need most comes from. Exercise is still important as a follow-on later in the day. 

After that, it gets easier to identify what kind of help I need. From the previous traffic light system, one of the first steps is to thoughtfully eliminate the items in the red and/ or amber domains. By this I mean understanding why these red and amber issues are popping up in the first place so that they can be delegated, substituted and automated away if they must be done more efficiently, or to eliminate them if they truly are redundant. By locking into what’s most important, I can regain perspective of whether those fewer items are fit for purpose to unlock the expected change or value.    

When I’m in the thick of deep overwhelm, I am not at my decision-making best. So I try not to make any major decisions until a time when I have been able to simplify or re-balance my life into the calming cadence of my preventative state. The saying, “Don’t sell the sun to buy a candle” exists for a reason! The fewer regrets and avoidable mistakes I can incur whilst I disentangle myself, the faster I can recreate that sense of stability.  

To the extent that I can pick my struggles as I direct my life choices, what I am angling for is to feel overwhelmed from growing my strengths. That shows me I am choosing the right types of challenges. However, I’m a realistic optimist. I know that negative overwhelm may come suddenly from issues I don’t control but I certainly don’t sit around agonising over what may happen and how I might react to a myriad possibilities. 

Here’s to building enough resilience and self-trust to know that feelings of overwhelm accompany growth and do not subtract from competence. No one has it all together, all the time nor should that be the goal. 

Have you noticed someone in your circle of influence struggling? Consider this:

Grace enlightens us to give people the help they need but don’t know how to ask for.