I wish I was writing this article from the point of strength. You know, those articles where the writer says everything will be alright and here are steps 1 to 100 on how you can be successful.
At this point, if you were expecting anything from me then I’m sorry but I’ll have to disappoint you.
As I am writing this article, I have 52 Facebook messages unanswered, about 37+ emails unattended to and other random messages on my other social media accounts that I haven’t gotten around to opening.
The truth is I really have no idea why I don’t feel like opening those messages and carrying on with the social part of my life.
My social life isn’t the only thing that is suffering. My personal projects are too. I’m a freelance writer and a freelance writer who doesn’t keep her creativity ticking is just a dead engine.
Mine wasn’t that bad, but I knew I had to do more.
I have so many things on my plate: online, offline and in mind. The less I feel like doing any of these things, the more things pile up until I’m literally drowning in them.
Maybe my story is not as bad as yours but in I my fight to deal with my overwhelm I learned some things I had to share.
Overwhelm Doesn’t Make You Any Less Human
I had a love-hate relationship with the library when I was in uni.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like to read. Libraries as one of the most peaceful places to get your work done and get a good and exciting to flip through. Honestly, it was because each time I was in the library I had 2 conflicting forces at work in my mind:
“Grab all the books you can that will help you do your research. You wouldn’t want to miss anything important that the author has to say.”
And with that I would carry up to 9 text books on the same subject from different authors (of course, not at once. Library regulations only allowed us to pick 3 books at a time. This used to leave me walking back and forth from the shelf to my reading corner like I had pepper stuck up my ass. Funny sight, I assure you).
“All these shelves are closing in on me. Read as fast as you can so that you can get the heck out of here!”
And with that I would try to read at jet-speed, trying to consume as much as I could from all 9 books.
I was anxious all the time. Whenever I would lift my head from what I was reading, the 8 books on my table would wink at me or give me a cheeky grin, while the bookshelves looked over my shoulder.
I was under constant pressure.
It fueled me with anxiety.
It got worse every time I had an exam coming up or I had to work on a project. The number of books that surrounded me and the information I knew I had to consume overwhelmed me.
I felt as if I was drowning.
Some people may have similar feelings like this. It could be from work, deadlines, family, friends or social media. There’s always something that kept pulling you on every side.
However overwhelm may seem to you, we all go through it.
Yes, we do.
It doesn’t mean that you are incompetent. It doesn’t mean that you are slow. You’re just being human and its okay.
Why Should You Bother Listening to Me?
Yes, I just wrote that I have “about 52 Facebook messages unanswered, about 37+ emails unattended to and other random messages on my other social media accounts that I haven’t gotten around to opening” and I will not deny it. I do.
But judging from where I started, I’ve been doing quite well.
I used to have hundreds of emails unanswered, but now I’m making steady progress to making that history.
Just like you, I searched and searched and tried everything I could get my hands on to beat the overwhelm, but I was not making any headway.
I would do well one minute and then relapse the next. You would have gotten tired of me. I know I was tired of myself.
What I’m about to share with you are some things that not many people talk about. They are hidden truths that you have to deal with first before you can actually get over your overwhelm or at least make the process more fruitful.
You can never know these truths unless you experience them yourself. I have experienced them and so you don’t have to bother starting from the beginning.
How to Beat Overwhelm When It Feels Like It Wants to Beat You
What, then, is the way out of this?
You’re overwhelmed and you’re desperate to get over it. Double jeopardy. That puts you under more pressure. I think you probably have enough pressure to deal with.
Maybe just like me you tried everything you read in a book, scored through social media or asked advice from people who have life all figured out. But nothing worked. Here are what I came up with so far.
1. No one has it all figured out, so get a grip
The biggest mistake you could ever make is believing that everyone who is doing better than you, more organized than you, more successful than you has it all figured out. Nobody does, my friend.
You need to realize that we are all on varying stages of progress. Just because you are not able to stick with a calendar or complete everything on your to-do list doesn’t mean that you are never going to hit your goals.
Once you know that you are actually taking steps to make a change, then you’re making progress. At that point, you figured out something — you figured out that you had to put one foot in front of the other to make that step.
Intellectually, that is so obvious…like duh! But even the most basic of all truths need to be truly experienced before you can have a good grasp of what it really means to you.
Stop comparing yourself with others. You don’t run the same race as they do and neither are they running your race no matter how similar your goals or vision may be. You’re different. You’re unique. So get a grip.
2. You’re not running on someone else’s schedule. You run on your own
After wasting 6 years on researching everything I could on online marketing, all I had in my mind was how was I going to make up for all that time I spent not earning anything from what I was learning.
Technically, I didn’t waste my 6 years. I just wished I put to work what I learned instead of just consuming everything and not taking action. It was stupid of me, I admit, but I learned my lesson.
That time I would study every entrepreneur I admired and wish I would get there faster. They all grew their businesses within 6 months or one year. But my mind made it look like an overnight success story.
I had hedged my timeline of success on theirs and I was so behind. To speed things up, I set impossible deadlines. I burnt out quickly and never really fully recovered.
When I decided to shift my focus and work at my own pace, I grew. Pretty fast. I had been putting myself under unnecessary constraints and that was too intense.
“Put your head down and execute,” Gary Vaynerchuk would say. And as always, the man was right. You own your own time. Focus on doing the work and not on how much time it will take to get you to achieve your goals.
3. Little steps are good enough. Celebrate them, damn it!
So you were only able to do 3 out of 5 things on your to-do list. Pat yourself on the back. A couple of months ago, you never knew the “T” of a to-do list not to talk of creating and following one.
I would get bogged down whenever I couldn’t finish my to-do list or hit my income goal. But whenever I remember where I was coming from, I had to learn how to give myself some credit. You should too.
You need to appreciate your progress.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, so what makes you think you can do it overnight?
You need to lay the groundwork. You need to exercise those muscles. You need to get stronger and better at finishing everything on your damn to-do list. And when you get there. It feels good.
4. Stop blaming others and take charge of your time
It’s so convenient to blame others for your inability to get things done.
I had a lot of personal writing projects that I wanted to work on. I even had lists of topic ideas. Some had outlines, others didn’t, but they were easily doable…yet I worked on none.
There was no one I didn’t blame my incomplete writing projects on:
- My parents for sending me on errands instead of allowing me to work
- My sister for keeping me preoccupied
- My depressed state I had no idea how I was going to get over
- My non-existent dog that I wish I had
- The rain that funked up my mood
- The late nights I spent watching Game of Thrones (because unlike other people I was a latecomer in the series so I had to catch up)
- The pile of books I bought that needed reading
- My low energy levels because for some reason I couldn’t get myself to wake up at 5:30 in the morning. In fact, I didn’t have the energy to set my alarm clock
- The universe for only sparing 24 hours to make one day. (Why not add more hours, right?)
I blamed basically everything.
I used all those excuses like a shield and each time I covered my face behind that shield I felt worse.
As more things started piling up, the overwhelm grew into a beast and brought it’s friends: anxiety, low self-worth and the mother of all depression.
When you blame everything and everyone for where you are right now, you make yourself think that you are powerless. You think that you can’t get anything done.
It takes constant practice, but if you can tell yourself that you have all the time you need, then you can hit more milestones than you can imagine.
Allow yourself to be productive for just one hour. Yes, one hour. You’ll be surprised where that could take you.
Turn all notifications off, clear your table, turn off your television and give yourself one hour as a gift to do one task you have been postponing.
You’ll love how much you achieve. Even if you weren’t able to finish everything completely, the thought that you could go so far is the best thing in the world.
Once you master getting one thing done within an hour, stretch your time and add one more task. Try two things in two hours and so on.
Where Do We Go From Here?
It took time before you could hit the scary heights of overwhelm and so it will take you time to get over it.
I do not promise you a quick fix — heck, I’ve not even arrived there yet — but I do promise you progress. So be gentle on yourself and stick with it.