What to do When You Are Feeling Overwhelmed

At some point or another, each and every one of us has had an experience where we have way too many things to do and not enough time to do them. You may even unfortunately battle with this on a semi-regular basis.

Individuals who have yet to successfully create a solid foundation for the mastery of time are even more prone to this scenario than most other people are. If you are one of those individuals, that is why you are most likely vulnerable to being overwhelmed. However, even those of us who have successfully mastered time still experience this feeling from time to time, no matter how badly we try to avoid it.

But, first thing first, when discussing this concept, we must establish what exactly being “overwhelmed” means, and what causes it to occur in the first place.

I personally believe that the concept of being overwhelmed simply means that a person fears that something very important is not going to be completed, or that it is not going to be completed properly. Another variation of this is that everything will be completed and will be completed properly, but the individual’s well-being will be sacrificed in order to accomplish this. The result of this scenario is that a person feels as if they are being submerged in too many activities and tasks, and they are being painfully stretched in too many directions. They are essentially unable to handle everything that is being thrown at them.

There are five main things that can cause the feeling of being overwhelmed:

1) Incorrectly estimating the amount of time that it will take in order to complete a task, as well as agreeing to take on too many tasks.
2) Lacking a realistic and effective plan to accomplish all of your goals, which in turn leads to a lack of confidence and a feeling of helplessness.
3) Not recording everything down in an orderly fashion in a system that reminds you of the tasks that you need to accomplish and when they need to be taken care of. Instead, you keep all of the information in your head, and end up worrying about it there.
4) A severe lack of focus. You allow yourself to be constantly distracted and pulled in different directions.
5) A failure to properly assess and clarify your priorities. You have not made a clear decision about this, and they constantly switch because of that fact.

It is incredibly important that you learn and understand all the different symptoms and signs of being overwhelmed. Doing so will allow you to realize that they are occurring early on in the situation, and will give you time to take care of them before they get too out of hand. I can assure you that it is much easier to deal with the early stages of being overwhelmed than it is to deal with it once it has reached an extreme level. Pay close attention, and get to know your own personal symptoms well. When you find that you are starting to feel overwhelmed, sit yourself down and follow these steps:

1) Reflect on and reevaluate what is truly important in life.
2) Make a list of these things.
3) Prioritize this list, and put the items in numerical order.
4) Break down each list into tiny steps and analyze each one.
5) Start completing each aspect of the list, but make sure that you are only working on one item at a time.

Micromanaging what you have to complete is one of the surest ways to getting everything done in a stress free manner. It will help you to make sure that you properly complete all tasks, and it will prevent you from having a mental breakdown in the process. Chances are that most of your tasks are not overwhelming hard, and it is just the abundance of things on your to-do list that is making them seem that way. Don’t sweat the small stuff, and don’t let yourself be weighed down by things that are actually irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

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