Overwhelmed is over-rated !
But being overwhelmed and stressed is over-rated – put plainly its just not good for you ! Ladies its aging, and guys – well, yes its aging for you too, but guys generally age better so lets not dwell on that little mystery.
When you start to feel stressed its because you’ve started to think that you’re going to fail ! Pure and simple – somewhere in your head you’ve started to think that you’re not going to make it, you can’t get it all done, and that’s causing you stress and flooding your body with adrenaline – which is soooooo not good for you it’d take a separate blog post to thrash that one out !
So what can you do?
Here’s three possible actions you can take…
1. Break it down
Question : how do you eat an elephant?
Answer : bite by bite
Break whatever you’re trying to do down into small manageable steps, so you can feel that you’re moving closer to your goal and achieving something.
2. Give yourself more time:
Can you re-negotiate a deadline, you’ll do much better with this if you’re not consistently doing this… but its worth asking…. At least you’ll be able to separate out your to do list into immediate, urgent and needs to be done, but not necessarily today
3. Discuss it, diarise it, delegate it, or delete it…!
Discussing things can be really helpful when you’re not thinking so clearly – just make sure you’re picking someone smart to discuss it with – someone who can sound it out and pick their way through the threads of what you’re saying
Diarise it – if it doesn’t have to be done today – then diarise it, and forget about it, concentrating on what absolutely has to be done today. I know its not ideal, but sometimes you’ve just got to let go of perfection and accept that there was only one superman, and you’re not him !
Delegate it – get some help, enrol people in helping you…. Explain what needs to be done and why and get everyone involved. A problem shared is a problem halved.
Delete it – oooh, harsh I know – but is it going to make any difference to your life….? Really ? if it’s not, and it’s a pile of stuff that you’ve been meaning to read for weeks, that’s blocking up your desk – just admit that you’re not going to do it, sweep it into the bin, and see if the world doesn’t begin on time the next day – it will I can promise you.
If you’re really stressing over something, a deadline, or a customer, or a call you have to make, then the best thing to do, is to change your state – if you’re sitting, then stand, if you’re standing then lie down, if you’re at a desk, then go for a walk round the block.
Get your body moving – for some reason it helps, go outside, look at the sky and see how big it is and how small we are, and how much it really really really doesn’t matter.
Deep breaths everyone !
