Overwhelm is NOT and Emotion

OVERWHELM is a mindset, not an emotion.

And I have a simple exercise to cure it!

How many times have we all said, “I feel overwhelmed”? Guess what? Overwhelm is not an emotion. It is a MINDSET.

Ask yourself what is the underlying emotion? Usually it is fear or sadness or both. The mindset of overwhelm is usually lots of thoughts rolling around in our head that are not organized. Or it is a “to do” list of things that we don’t seem to have time for.

It can be fear of judgment or failure. It can be a sense of sadness. It’s good to identify the feelings underlying the sense of overwhelm. And once you do that…I have an easy exercise to turn your mindset around from victim to victor, from inaction to action.

What is it? Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle with equal room on each side. Now start to write on the left side the list of all of the things that are causing the sense of overwhelm. It can be done with just one big project with lots of moving parts, or for all of the different items that feel like too much to do.

Get them all down. Now look at that list and find something that can be done right now. One thing that has a clear action related to it. Find one more item on your list that can be accomplished fairly quickly. Write them down on the right side of the paper.

Sit back and breathe for a minute and see how you feel. When you do this it moves your monkey mind from total focus on the problems, and moved it toward solutions. It takes you from inaction to a sense of “it’s possible” type action.

This exercise helps get your list from inside your head to paper and turns your thoughts toward solutions. Try it! When I first heard about this years ago, it was a lifesaver. Let me know what you think!

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