Ep #47: How to Gain Control Over Your Overwhelm

You are listening to the Strong as a Working Mom podcast, Episode # 47.

Welcome to the Strong as a Working Mom podcast. If you’re balancing career, family, wellness, and some days sanity, you are in the right place. This is where high-achieving, busy, working moms get the tools they need to eat, move, and think. I’m your host, physician, personal trainer, and Certified Life Coach, Carrie Holland. Let’s do this.

Hey, how are you? What’s new, what’s good? So, what’s good here, we are going to talk about overwhelm. The reason I want to dive into this is multifactorial. First, I’ve noticed that a number of my clients have been coming to our sessions lately with feelings of overwhelm. And maybe it’s the combination of spring and spring sports and activities for the kids and of school year, hoopla, work ramping up, or maybe even a combination of all the above. But I’ve definitely noticed an uptick in the level of overwhelm in my clients.

Admittedly, I have noticed it in myself. I have a number of talks and projects that I’m working on, and while I’m enjoying all of it, it is definitely creating a crunch on my time. Meanwhile, we’re in the thick of spring sports, which means we are schlepping our kids all over for swim, lacrosse, and track. And then, there’s the end-of-year school year stuff. There’s just a lot going on.

But the main reason I want to get into this is because overwhelm, it is a tricky feeling. And if you’ve been there, which I imagine many of you have, you will probably know what I’m talking about. Overwhelm is a feeling that generally does not get you anywhere. It may be that you feel overwhelmed by the amount of tasks you have to get done today. That’s often the most common way I see it come up for my clients. And that is a factor of being too busy.

We’ll get into being too busy on an upcoming podcast, so stay tuned for that. Or you may be overwhelmed with emotion. So, when you’re going through something very difficult, like loss or a major life change, you may feel completely overwhelmed with emotion, and you may not know what to do with it. I want to help you with this.

Here’s what we’re going to talk about today: We’re going to talk about what exactly overwhelm is. Then we’re going to talk about how it might be hurting you, and then last, and most importantly, we’re going to talk about how to bust through overwhelm. I want you to walk away with a step-by-step process for getting control over your overwhelm.

I came up with this process on my own, because when I went looking for how to deal with it, I didn’t find anything. I didn’t find a process or a framework that really resonated with me. So, I decided to create one on my own, and I’m going to share it with you. All right? So, let’s go.

First, what is overwhelm? To keep it really simple, overwhelm is a feeling. When I went to look it up and get an exact definition, there are actually loads of definitions for this word. To be clear, when I’m talking about overwhelm, for the purposes of today what I mean is to feel buried or inundated. It’s a feeling of being overpowered.

So, let’s take a step back and get back to basics. Remember that a feeling is something that starts in your brain and travels outward to your body. Your feelings can cause a physical sensation in your body. And if you really pay attention to this, you’ll start to notice it. So, think for just a second about what overwhelm feels like in your body.

For me, the best way I can describe it is that it feels frantic. When I am overwhelmed, I feel my pulse start to rise, and then I feel a heaviness on my back. I get a tightness in my jaw, and then I just feel straight up tense all over.

Beyond that, more importantly, when I’m in overwhelm, my brain, or my mind, is literally jumping all over the place. I cannot calm down enough to focus on one thing because there are so many things to focus on, and I feel like a pinball. My mind feels like a pinball shooting all over the place with no clear route or direction, at the whim of whatever I run into along the way. A pinball, that is what I feel when I feel overwhelmed.

So, what is it for you? For me, pinball was the best analogy I could think of. And to be honest, I never really enjoyed pinball because it was way too fast and too frenetic for me. And now, that’s what I think of when I think overwhelm.

And so, here’s why this matters. When you’re dealing with overwhelm, and if your brain is all over the place, it makes it really difficult to make decisions. You may have a hard time focusing or staying on task. You may find it difficult to prioritize.

Essentially, your brain may be going 1,000 miles an hour, expending a boatload of energy just being overwhelmed, but you’re not getting anything done. You’re not achieving anything. You’re not making decisions. You’re not getting to work. You’re not focused. You’re spinning, for sure, but there’s nothing happening.

And that’s the tricky part. When you’re overwhelmed, it may feel like you’re putting out a lot of energy, but you don’t have anything to show for it. And the longer you stay in that place of overwhelm, the longer you spin your wheels without making any forward motion. You’re not making any progress.

For some of you, this may be where you live. Or if it’s not you, you can probably think of someone in your life who is frequently or even constantly overwhelmed. She may seem distracted, disorganized, pressured, and straight up stressed out whenever you see her. It may be that it takes very little to put her into overwhelm, and that’s likely because it’s a pattern.

Here’s something important to note, your feelings can be a habit. Just like flossing your teeth or chewing with your mouth open. Your feelings may be a habit. So, your friend who always seems like she’s overwhelmed, frantic, and racing, it’s likely a habit. It’s a conditioned response. When work, life, career, or something else heats up in her life, overwhelm may just be her default.

The hard part about overwhelm is that often we blame the overwhelm on our circumstances. So, as an example, when I have a client tell me, “I’m overwhelmed because I have a big deadline coming up, my kids have sports every evening, and I don’t have time to finish my work.”

When she says this, and you might find yourself saying something similar, but when she says this, what she’s doing is blaming her feeling of overwhelm on her circumstances. She’s blaming it on sports. She’s blaming it on her deadline and not having enough time.

But here’s the thing, remember this, circumstances are neutral. Your lecture due on Friday, that is neutral. Your kids’ swim practice on Wednesday, neutral. Circumstances are neither good nor bad, right? They just are. Your circumstances only become a problem when you have a thought about them.

So, in this case, when you have a deadline coming up, and you know every night is filled with kid stuff, and you think to yourself, “I have no time to get my work done,” there it is. There it is. It makes total sense that thinking, “I have no time to get my work done,” would cause you to feel overwhelmed. Of course, you would feel overwhelmed if that’s the way you’re thinking. And that’s exactly it.

Remember, thoughts are not fact. Thoughts are not the absolute truth. So, just because you think it in your brain, it doesn’t mean that it’s a fact. But we can get really, really stuck by this. It’s very easy to trap yourself into thinking that if you feel a certain way, it must be true. But it’s not.

I know that’s so hard to hear, but your feelings are not the side effect of your circumstances. Your feelings are the side effect of your thoughts; big difference. I bring this up, and repeat it all the time, because so many of you, myself included until I really dove into this work, so many of you believe that your circumstances are what is causing your overwhelm. But it’s not.

And the sooner you’re able to realize that your thoughts, and not the work deadline or the busy weeknights filled with kid ubering, are what are causing you to feel overwhelmed, the sooner you can harness your authority and use your very powerful thoughts to change it.

With that being said, let’s go to the next step here. When you recognize, overwhelm, and realize how it is keeping you from moving forward in your life, and you’re ready to move past it, then what? What do you do? How do you walk through overwhelm?

The first thing to do after you recognize that you are spinning, is to ask yourself this key question: What is really true here? And the key in this question, really true. Remember, we just talked about how our thoughts are not fact. So instead, we have to go looking and uncover what are the actual facts.

So, in the example we started with, what are the facts? The work deadline, that would be one; you have something due on this date. And the next fact would be your kids sports schedule. That’s it. Those are the only facts at hand. “I don’t have enough time to get my work done. I have too much on my plate. I can’t get this work done,” Those are not facts. Those are your opinions. Your assessment and your interpretation of your circumstances. Remember, they are not the truth.

When you feel that your brain is spinning out of control, and you have too much going on and can’t focus, start by asking yourself: What is really true? I have to get this report done by 5pm on Friday. My son needs to be dropped off at swim practice at 5:30 and picked up at 6:45; Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this week. My other son has track practice today at five o’clock, and lacrosse tomorrow at 5:30. That’s it. Those are your facts.

It is essential to boil it down and get to those facts. Why? For my perfectionists out there, listen up. Perfectionism hates data. Perfectionism hates the truth. Perfectionism hates facts. So, think about it. It is a lot easier, when you’re in a space of overwhelm, to start wigging out and think to yourself, “I have to get this work done. And I have so much to do, and so many kids activities, and I have no time,” and on and on and on. “I have no time.” How many of you have said that before?

At the risk of ruffling your feathers, I will ask you to get very honest with yourself and simply ask: Is that the absolute truth? Is it 100% true that there is absolutely no time in your day to get your work done? Here’s another example I will often walk through with my clients when they’re dealing with overwhelm, it’s exaggeration. We are all guilty of it, myself included. And I would caution you to be very wary of exaggeration when you’re overwhelmed. Because I’ve found that all it does is make a big problem in your brain even bigger.

So, as an example; this is not an uncommon conversation I’ve had. A client will tell me, “I have tons of meetings, and hundreds of emails return and too many deadlines. And I have to drive my kids all over town, and there’s just no way I can do this.”

And then, as your coach, I will help you sift through this and get to the actual true facts. How many meetings is a ton of meetings? “Three.” How many emails do you actually have to return, is it really 100? “No, there are two emails that need my attention today, and the rest can wait.” How many deadlines, and when are they? “I have a project due this Friday at five, that’s it.” And where do you have to drive your kids? “I have to take them to the high school that’s eight minutes away, and the carpool will take them tomorrow.”

Do you see what we’ve just done here? We went from big and crazy, from tons of meetings and hundreds of emails and too many deadlines and driving all over town, we went from that to three meetings, two emails, one deadline and an eight-minute drive. Do you see that? We got specific. This is so essential.

When you feel overwhelmed, pay attention to the sentences you’re telling yourself, and everyone around you for that matter, and find what is actually true. Sometimes it’s even helpful to write it out. When you feel that there’s too much going on, it can be helpful to pare it down to the absolute most true facts. It takes something big and nebulous and potentially scary and overwhelming, and makes it smaller, specific, and manageable. And that is exactly the point.

Often, when we get into overwhelm you get into a headspace where you feel you can’t manage. You can’t possibly dig yourself out from all that is swirling around you. And that comes from your perception that things are much bigger and scarier than they actually are. So, instead, get very specific. Do not be vague. Do not be nebulous, and don’t exaggerate. Ask yourself what is true, and then answer it very honestly. All right?

Once you’ve determined for yourself what is actually true, the next step to moving through overwhelm is to decide what is important. Now, you know what the best thing about this step is? There’s an acronym for it; W-I-N, What’s Important Now. It’s credited to Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz; I had no idea.

This, again, is where you’re going to get very realistic with yourself and decide what needs your attention the most, and when. And if you’re thinking to yourself that this smells like prioritizing, you’re exactly right. I am asking you to make some decisions based on what is true, and decide how you’re going to address what’s in front of you.

Stephen R. Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, said it best, and it most definitely warrants repeating here. He said, “When you have too many top priorities, you effectively have no top priorities.” And I agree 100%. So, instead of trying to convince yourself that everything matters, instead, decide what matters most now. What matters today?

If you have no groceries and have no idea what you’re going to eat for dinner, you’ve got to get your kids somewhere, you need to respond to some emails, you have a load of laundry to fold, and a message to call back your Aunt Susie, you’ve got some choices to make.

You have to decide how to W-I-N and determine what is most important now. If you have no food and you’re in charge of dinner tonight, and it’s already 4:30, you may need to make that a top priority. The emails, they can wait. The laundry can also wait.

If you want to get even more fancy, you can go back to the Eisenhower Decision Matrix. Where on the Y axis, or the up and down axis, you have Importance. And on the X axis, or the left-right axis, you have Urgency. The most urgent and important things are in the upper left corner. Those are the things that you take care of ASAP. So, if it’s 4:30 and you’re on for dinner tonight and you need to feed everyone before sports practice, that’s your task. That’s your top priority.

So, if you’ve never used the Decision Matrix before, I think it’s a really great tool. It will help you determine the priority order of your tasks and how to approach them.

The other piece of this that I want to address is the idea of multitasking. We live in a world where you can drive your car, have a conference call, and eat a sandwich all at the same time. And people love to talk about how they’re excellent multitaskers. But here’s what I want to make clear: So, yes, you can multitask and do multiple things at once. But it is impossible to multi-focus. There is a big difference.

Think about it, you cannot have a meaningful conversation with your partner, your kid, or anyone really, while you’re texting on your phone. I have most definitely fallen into this, and it doesn’t work; I’m taking steps to correct it. You cannot be fully present and focused on your work meeting when you’re trying to order groceries from the Shipt app. You can’t work on your big project while you’re helping your kid with his math homework.

Don’t trap yourself into thinking that you can do multiple important things at once. You may be able to multitask, but being multi-focused is superhuman, and our human brains just do not have that capacity.

So, if your brain is swimming and you are all over the place, take a minute, collect yourself, take a deep breath, and decide what is most important right now. You cannot do everything, you cannot tackle and manage everything all at once, so pick what is most important, in the here and now, and start there.

Alright, so once you’ve decided what is most important right now, then you have to decide what to do. And this, in and of itself, can be a tough decision for you to make. Often, when you get overwhelmed and you know you need to do something, it can be really easy to pass it off and decide ‘I don’t know what to do’.

This is the fascinating thing about overwhelm and indecision, they often go hand in hand. And those two emotions together can be really stifling when you’re feeling stuck. So again, going back to my pinball analogy, when your brain is all over the place and you have too much to process, it can be really easy to process exactly none of it, because you feel lost. It can be really easy to overwhelm yourself into indecision and procrastination, thereby making a bad problem worse. Do you know what I mean?

I’ve definitely run into this, where I’ve had a number of things come to a head all at once; a podcast is due, I haven’t responded to this client’s email, I haven’t written my newsletter, and there’s something going on in my kids’ school. And then on a deeper level, there have been times in my life where everything has felt a total mess within my family, and I didn’t know how to proceed. My answer was to say, “I don’t know what to do,” and leave it at that. And that’s no good.

Here’s what I want to offer you, you do not need to have all the answers right now. In fact, you don’t have to have any of the answers right now. Whether it’s related to too many things on your plate or a major life or family stressor, you do not need to know all of the answers, here in the moment.

When we create this immense pressure on ourselves to have it all figured out, that’s when we can spin in circles and go nowhere. And something as simple as deciding what’s for dinner becomes as complicated as calculus.

So, instead of knowing a well detailed, laid out map ahead of you, start with the first step. Start with what you do know. I say it all the time, and it is so true, and I use this sentence to ground myself in times when I feel like I’m a total hot mess; you can borrow it. “Take action on what you do know. That’s the next right step.”

Again, going back to our initial example, if work is busy and you have more to do, but you have to get your kids somewhere. And you’ve also got to get dinner; it’s 4:30 and you need dinner ready by five; there it is. You don’t have time to grocery shop and there’s nothing at home; that’s it. Forget about work right now or the laundry or your Aunt Susie, just for the time being, and take the next right step.

Stop at the store and pick up food for dinner. That’s it. Do not make it any more mountainous of a task than that. And then, you get home and pull dinner together. Now, what is the next right step? Kids have to get changed. So, they get their sports stuff on. There’s your next right step. That’s it.

When you are totally overwhelmed, that can be your approach. Because remember, you can’t multi-focus. You can only really do one thing at a time and focus on one thing at a time. So, decide what that is, execute, and then ask yourself: Okay, now what is the next “right” thing to do? I use “right” with air quotes because there really is no one right way to do anything if you think about it.

But the cool part about taking this approach, is that when you take the next right step, the next step after that will reveal itself to you. When you take action, instead of spinning, you will not only feel better but the next steps of getting out of overwhelm will become apparent.

“I’ve gotten my kids to practice. I still have three emails waiting for me, but I have to make some headway on this project. So, for the next 45 minutes, while I am kid free, I will put my phone in another room, I forget about the laundry, I’m skipping looking at Facebook, and I do the next right thing. I get some work done.”

Again, it’s one decision, you are not solving for world peace here. You are simply taking one step to move forward, because that’s all you can do. And as you take one step, the next step will reveal itself. And when you get stuck, you ask yourself: What is the next right thing to do? That’s it.

You don’t let yourself spin back into overwhelm by thinking about tomorrow or what you haven’t finished yet or how you’re going to find time to make those phone calls. Instead, you focus on the one and only thing that is the next right move, and you get it done.

Alright, so the next step to getting out of overwhelm, while it sounds very simple, can be really challenging for some of you, myself included. It’s the idea to let it be easy. Let it be easy. I will be the first to admit that I am the queen of making things more difficult than they need to be. Whether it is learning the inner workings of my website, creating a landing page, starting this podcast, making decisions about my business, deciding what to make for dinner, what color shoes to buy my kid, you name it, I can make it complicated.

However, it is yet another characteristic about myself that I’m working to change. And for me, that means making decisions less mountainous. Most of the decisions we make throughout the day are not life or death. Most of our decisions do not risk irreparable damage.

So, when it comes to working on your project that is due, you make some adjustments to your schedule, you squeeze in time after you’ve dropped your kids off to sports, maybe you get up a little early one or two times before the end of the week. But it doesn’t have to be a big deal.

In fact, it will only be a big deal if you make it a big deal. You can let it be easy. And to be truthful, if you’ve done the previous steps I’ve outlined leading up to letting it be easy, this should be fairly simple to do. Meaning, if you’ve gotten very specific and honest about what is actually true in your situation, you should have very few actual, real facts in front of you to wrangle with.

“I have a deadline. My kids have sports tonight. Dinner,” those are your facts. That’s it. Then you decide what’s important now. “Dinner. First things first, we need to eat dinner.” Then you’ve taken the next right step. You stopped at the store and you got some groceries. Then you simply come home and make dinner. That’s it.

You’re chopping a salad, let it be easy. You drive your kids to their sports, maybe you’re five minutes late because you couldn’t find a water bottle. That’s okay, get them where they need to be. That’s it, let it be easy. You have 45 minutes of quiet, so you pull out your work and focus distraction free. Let it be easy.

Do you see how this works? When you get very honest with yourself and get specific about what is most important, then you decide what is the top priority. And then you take a step, just one, knowing that it may not be the exact right one. But once you do it, the next right step will reveal itself to you. And then, you let it be easy instead of an insurmountable task.

Something happens; you feel lighter, you feel less frantic, you feel less like a pinball flinging all over the place at top speed. And instead, you feel controlled, you feel focused, you’re getting things done, you’re taking one step after another to walk out of overwhelm and walk into calm. And getting there does not have to be complicated. It will only be difficult if you decide that getting out of overwhelm will be difficult.

Do you see that? You have the power and the authority to decide how these steps are going to go for you. You can come at it and say, “Oh, my God, there’s too much and this is going to be awful. There’s no way I can get all this done. I’m going to get fired. My kids are going to hate me. I’m ruining the practice,” and on and on. Or you can think, “I’m making dinner, and then I will get them to practice. And then I will do some work.” It’s simple, it’s easy; big difference. Okay?

The last step in this process is to release. What I mean by that is this: You do what you can, that is within your control, where you are able. And then, you accept what you cannot control. I don’t know how else to describe it, other than to call it a release, but I think it’s fitting.

If you truly have done your work, and you’re taking all the steps we’ve outlined and you are applying these concepts when you feel overwhelmed, then you’re taking the bull by the horns. You are no longer living at the effect of your circumstances. But instead, you’re taking action from a place of empowerment. And sometimes we have to loosen our grip. We have to release.

I think of it this way. Imagine what it’s like to throw a bucket of balls in the air and you’re trying to catch every single one of them before they fall to the ground; not going to work. And if you’re so focused on trying to catch every single one of those balls, you end up catching exactly none of them.

What if, instead, you threw all those balls up into the air but you focused on one. Your only job was to catch one ball. That’s the ball that’s important now. That’s your W-I-N. Do you think you could do that? You can totally do that.

And that’s what I think of, when I think of release. You’re releasing yourself of the responsibility of catching every single ball. Instead, you’re letting those other balls go on purpose, and controlling for that one ball you know you can absolutely catch. You take the pressure off.

Sometimes, when we get into overwhelm, there can be so much tension, so much urgency, that it feels graspy. If you’ve been there, you know what I’m talking about. You’re just trying to get a hold of something, anything, that makes you feel calm and grounded.

My goal here today, by walking you through this, is for you to see that you can most definitely come back into control. But you do that by grasping onto what is really important, what really matters most in the moment, and releasing the rest. All right?

So, there it is. We just went over how to take the feeling of overwhelm, that feeling of being frantic and all over the place and disorganized, and walk through it so that you feel more in control, more grounded, and more empowered.

Alright, to review, here are the steps to moving through overwhelm. First, you get really specific. You decide what in your situation is actually true and real fact. When you’re very honest with yourself, I will bet you that you will find very few actual facts. But look for them and get very specific about what is needed from you.

Next, you decide what is important now. Remember, that’s how you W-I-N; What’s Important Now. Decide that so you can focus your energy there. And remember, too, that multitasking is one thing, but as humans we cannot multi-focus. So, pick the one thing you’re going to focus on, and do that first.

And then next, take the next right step. The point here is that you do not need to have all the answers figured out. It’s often that false belief, that you need all the answers, that keeps you from moving forward. So, instead of needing all the answers, focus on taking the next right step. Take one step, that’s it. And when you do this, the next step will become apparent. Do not trap yourself into thinking you have to have it all figured out right here and now, you don’t. Just take action on what you do know. That’s it.

And next, when you do take that next right step, let it be easy. Often, when we get into overwhelm, we make any forward motion complicated, mountainous, and cluttered. Don’t do that. Remember, it’s dinner, chop some veggies, microwave something. Or if it’s work, write one paragraph of your report, let it be easy.

And then last, release. Control what you can. Choose what you’re going to control and leave the rest. Sometimes we try to grab onto things so tightly, especially when we’re overwhelmed, that it feels graspy, and that does not feel good. So instead, I’m asking you have to be very choosy about where you focus your energy and purposefully release the rest. You are making an intentional choice about what to control.

So, I hope this helps you the next time you feel overwhelmed. The most important thing here to remember, is that overwhelm, while it feels very real and true, it’s a feeling. Overwhelm is a feeling created by your thoughts. And that’s actually a really great thing, because it means that feeling overwhelmed is entirely optional.

No matter what is due from you at work, no matter where your kids have to be this evening, no matter what is in your fridge, you always have a choice. You can choose to think, “there’s no way I can do this,” and spiral into overwhelm and feel frantic and messy. Or you can think, “I can do this,” and show up, do your best, and prove yourself right. Which one do you choose?

And if you want help with this, let’s talk. If you are overwhelmed, I can help you move through it. When you coach with me, we get to the bottom of your overwhelm by answering the hard questions to determine the cause, and then we create a plan. And yes, while we address your schedule, your career, and all the demands on your time, we go so much deeper than that; we look at your mindset. How you think about your schedule matters more than what is on it. And I will help you do this.

Go to my website. Check me out at www.CarrieHollandMD.com/contact. Tell me what’s causing you to feel overwhelmed, and let’s get to work to change it. All right, thank you again for hanging out with me, and I will catch you again next week.

If you like what you’ve been hearing, please review the show. I would love to get your feedback and ideas. Your suggestions have inspired episodes and will help me make the show better for you. And share this podcast with a friend, text a show link, share a screenshot, or post a link to the show on your social media. Be sure to tag me @CarrieHollandMD on either Instagram or Facebook, so I can follow along and engage with you.

This is how we get the word out to other working moms who want to feel strong, inside and out. If you know someone who wants to feel better or eat and move differently but she is too tired or too busy, it is time to change things up. And you know, making that change starts with how you think. And that is what we do here on the Strong as a Working Mom podcast. I’ll see you next week.

Thanks for listening to Strong as a Working Mom. If you want more information on how to eat, move, and think, so you can live in the body you want, with the mind to match, visit me at CarrieHollandMD.com.