When the waves of overwhelm wash over you, it’s natural to feel powerless and lose your sense of direction.
You lose sight of what you need to do next and how to get yourself to do it.
Allow me to show you a unique approach to dealing with your overwhelm.
Let’s look at the traditional approach to deal with overwhelm!!
One of the traditional ways to handle overwhelm is to seek out tools that make you focus on being organised or prioritise your time.
A lot of these tools are available and you may be familiar with some of them, like Asana, Google Docs, Basecamp, Evernote and Trello.
These tools can work if you diligently use them in the many they were created for. Certain types of people actually use these tools very effectively too. The rest of us need a better solution.
The approach that I’m about to suggest may seem a bit overwhelming in itself. I’m going to break it down in a way that will make it very manageable for you understand.
My approach stops your overwhelm in its tracks instead of putting bandages on the end-result. It focuses on the mindset that creates the environment that allows you to become overwhelmed in the first place.
A better approach is to change your behavior, beliefs and values around the thing that triggers your overwhelm…
So how do you do that?
There are four steps you can use to eradicate overwhelm for a situation completely.
Imagine for a moment that your beliefs and values are software programs running in your mind.
Step 1: Increase Your Awareness.
First, become more aware of what is happening when overwhelm starts to happen.
Awareness is the first step to stopping overwhelm overtake you. Starting to notice the feelings, actions and reactions that occur with the overwhelm feelings. These will be on autopilot and you will start to catch them earlier and start to make changes.
One of the reasons why much of what you have been experiencing has been happening on autopilot is because your brain is the largest consumption energy and it needs to conserve energy whenever it can.
In an effort to conserve even more energy your brain needs to move as many repeatable actions or thoughts into your subconscious mind to free up energy. Imagine having to think all day "Breathe in Breathe out" You would be exhausted. As this happens, these thoughts slip outside of your awareness. This is the purpose of the AWARENESS EXERCISE, get you to actively notice them again. Don't be concerned, you will not be aware or every action and thought. Just the Overwhelm ones.
One of the powerful tools the brain uses to move thoughts over to the subconscious is to “
How do you feel about sales people?
How you feel is the result of your brain, making
It’s like a software program that runs automatically.
Awareness is the act of catching yourself running through a particular “software program” and realizing what is happening. Pay attention and you’ll get a glimpse of what is occurring as you go through it.
Step 2: Review What Happens When Your Internal “Software Program” Runs.
Once you are aware of overwhelm happening, you need to review your thoughts, feelings and actions that lead you to become overwhelmed.
What I want you to look for is something I like to call “The Jump.”
The Jump is where your brain takes a shortcut. It’s the point in time where a previous generalization or “shortcuts” have been created.
The Jump is like a piece of software that automatically runs when the right trigger is present. In the past, you had an event or series of events or thought processes that led your brain to create this software, but there’s one problem.
Sometimes making The Jump doesn't actually make sense in this new scenario. Because it either does you a disservice or it happens even though the context isn’t the same as the context in which it was created.
Let’s look at an example. One my coaching clients was running into overwhelm whenever he had to do market research. After gaining awareness of the process, he was going through, he realized that the word “research” was a trigger for his automatic software program that drove him into overwhelm.
Hello John, meet Overwhelm.
Realizing the inner dialogue and actions he goes through does one very important thing – it shows John the different areas where he can make changes. Some changes will have little impact, but others will change things dramatically.
Is this happening with you in the same way, just in a different scenario?
Step 3: Create A More Desirable Software Program.
Now it’s time to reprogram your thoughts, feelings and actions to how you want them to happen in the future.
It’s time to consciously and purposefully write a new software program so the jump takes you where you want to go instead of taking you to overwhelm.
Let's expand on the example we used previously with John.
After exploring when he originally had a negative association with the word “research,” he discovered he had attributed “just reading a bunch of stuff” to the word.
Strangely enough, he loves learning.
When he moved into the “market research” phase of a project, his mind made the jump to “market research is pointless reading” and then when he started “reading.” he started telling himself “this is pointless and a waste of time.”
We changed the sequence. We rewrote the software program and he did it consciously.
We have associated “market research” to an automatic software program he already has that works for him – “learning.”
Take your scenario and play it out like John, so you are rewiring your brain in the sequence that you want in the future. This is a conscious step, which will enable it to become a subconscious one, essentially writing the software program that you want.
Step 4: Implement the Software of Your Beliefs to be in Run Mode.
The last step is "Implemention", now installing the software program so it runs automatically. You will need to run through the scenario to see how it makes you feel.
This process isn’t automatic at first. You have to continue step 1, awareness, and when you get to the trigger, you run the “new program.” It seems like a lot of work, but it’s pretty easy and gets easier.
Looking at John again…
The first few times he had to do market research, he was aware of that the word was a trigger and he purposefully said to himself, okay, it’s time to “learn” about my market.
After starting the software “manually” a few times, it started to run on autopilot.
Now he does “research” easily because it means something totally different and a different software program runs that leads him to feel good about what he is doing.
His overwhelm disappeared in this area and was replaced with a heightened sense of productivity around performing “Market Research” in his business.
This is the end-result you are aiming for – where your new software runs automatically.
Let’s summarize how we get to this point.
- 1Practice awareness.
- 2Look for your “automatic software programs” when you make “The Jump” and notice what happens when your automatic software program runs.
- 3Start writing a software program that you want to happen.
- 4Install the software program consciously – practice awareness and actively start your new software program when your old “trigger” is present. Repeat until your new program becomes automatic.
This unique technique works better than task lists, prioritisation and other tools that address overwhelm after it has you firmly in its grip.
A Call for Continuous Improvement
I love this saying...
“What got you here will not get you there. Many of the beliefs and ways of being that have gotten you to where you are today will be the very beliefs and ways of being that hold you back from going where you want to go tomorrow.”
This is a journey that never ends as long as you are moving forward and evolving in your life.
This is why it’s so crucial to treat the process, you have just learned as a continuous activity.
Put this into practice today and you’ll be on your way to an amazing experience as you realize the power you have to escape and avoid the overwhelm that has been holding you back as you proceed towards the future and the success that you are going to create.