What To Do When You Feel Overwhelmed

Feeling overwhelmed? Me too. This morning I woke up, and immediately felt anxious and overwhelmed. Like many of you, I am balancing a career, kids, my marriage, friendships, and graduate school on top of everything. Keeping everything in check, can, at times, feel extremely challenging. 

If you're currently in the same boat as me, I want to share some reminders and tactics I consistently do to help myself get out of the feeling of overwhelm and into a place of gaining clarity, taking back control of my feelings, and working towards identifying what triggers are being set off to make me feel this way. 

• I remind myself that these are feelings and that these feelings or state of mind will pass. In other words, I'm not going to feel like this forever - as long as I recognize how I'm feeling and decide to take action. If you don't take action on how you're feeling, there is a good chance that you going to continue to feel overwhelmed and anxious because you're not addressing your issues or triggers. 

Two things that I will typically do to address feelings of overwhelm and anxiousness are:

(1) I get moving and exercise for at least 20 minutes. It get's the blood flowing, the exercise helps release anxiety, and I begin to think more clearly about why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling and what I need to do differently to change how I'm feeling

(2) I plan out my day the night before. The last two days I haven't done this and now it's biting me in the butt. Instead of sitting down in my office to begin the workday focused and prepared, I am sitting down and figuring out what to do.  

• When you begin to feel overwhelmed and anxious its a very isolating feeling. At times it can make you lose sight of your goals, cause you to feel tired and withdrawn, and it can cloud your judgement with where to start to get back traction. Here are two ways to avoid the feeling of isolation:

(1) Reach out to friends and family - it doesn't necessarily need to involve you talking about how you're feeling. The conversation can simply be to catch up with them, shoot the breeze, and feel connected to someone outside of yourself. We are social beings and connection can do you a lot of good. 

(2) I will journal - for many of you this may sound like too much work. But, it is one of the best ways I have found to release negative thoughts, anxiousness and overwhelm. Through writing I inevitably also begin to see what I need to get done and where I need to start. 

• Set a target - I mostly feel overwhelmed and anxious when I don't feel like I am making progress fast enough. Progress is a huge trigger for me. The slower I move towards a goal, the more anxious I begin to feel. Just writing this blog (a.k.a. journaling) is helping me gain clarity and see the steps I need to take to not only feel like I am making progress, but that I see that I am making progress. 

As always, my hope is that the words above have been helpful for you in figuring out how to release some of your feelings of overwhelm and anxiousness. If you need further help in figuring out next steps or have any questions please reach out to Zach at [email protected].

Thanks, 

Zach