Tags

, , , , , , ,

© 2010 Kebba Buckley Button, M.S., O.M.  World Rights Reserved.

I often hear people talking about feeling overwhelmed.  They describe feeling stressed, confused, fearful, overcome by events, or even lost.  They say they are exhausted and have trouble making decisions.  If you are overwhelmed right now, what would you describe as the cause?  Do you have too much going on at work, too much in your personal life, or an intense circumstance that takes all you have emotionally?

Merriam-Webster defines “overwhelm” as “upset, overthrow”, or “overcome by superior force”, even “overpower in thought or feeling.”  So wouldn’t it be great to take power over this uncomfortable condition?  My friend Michael Price says you can do just that.

Michael is a consultant and trainer, and the creator of the program, “Your Powerful Mind Revealed”.  He helps people to realize and harness the power of their minds, to deal effectively with situations and feelings that may have left them feeling helpless in the past.  Michael says one of our most powerful tools is harnessing our self-talk, which may be working against our success and happiness much of the time.  For example, if you have too much to do, you may feel overwhelmed.  Yet you may realize you know others who are equally busy who do not feel overwhelmed.  In this case, Michael recommends you ask yourself if you really have too much to do in too little time, in which case you might consider cutting back. Or, he asks, is the background chatter in your brain making the situation seem bad?  Your self-talk may be in unnecessary panic mode, urging you to be upset and feel incapable.  Your inner chatter may be saying things like, “I’ll never get all this done!  This is too much for the time I have!  My mind doesn’t work fast enough to get all this done!  I seem to get more and more assignments each month!”  This self-talk only increases your sense of being overwhelmed.  You can change that.

Michael says overwhelm “is really an emotional reaction to our visual and mental perception of our workload.”  Further, he says, “Thoughts create emotion, and emotion dictates behavior.”  So continuing to believe we are overwhelmed only increases the sensation of overwhelm.  Michael also says procrastination is a big factor for those who feel overwhelmed.  He recommends we ask ourselves three questions:

  1. Is this overwhelm, or is it simply the result of my procrastinating?
  2. Did I really commit to too much?
  3. Did I misjudge the time this project would take?

Michael says, then, we are ready to prioritize, using his system to take the emotional charge out of the process, and start knocking out the list of projects.  Don’t let your self-talk distract you from the tasks at hand.  Take control instead of reacting.  You’ll find you have less stress and more productivity.  Now go and do, and succeed!

________________________________________________________

Feeling overwhelmed?

Overwhelmed? Fear not!

Reach the writer at Kebba@DiscoverTheSecretEnergizedYou.com