How to handle overwhelm (part 1)

I don’t know about you, but I have so much that I want to get done every week. Heck, every day! And I think I’m probably not alone in this feeling of never-getting-enough-done.

There are many reasons for overwhelm and I think that there are different ways to approach them depending on what kind of overwhelm you’re dealing with.

In my case, and what I’m going to be talking about here, is that kind of overwhelm that comes from simply having so much you want to get done that you don’t know where to start. And when you end the day you know you were busy all day but you don’t feel you have anything to show for it.

I’ve come up with a few tricks that help me handle that so let’s dive in.

1. You’re not gonna like this one

If you’re anything like me, you’re not gonna like this one. But I put it first because I think it’s something we A-type personalities need to get better at.

Ok, so what is that first step you ask? It’s to be able to relax. Chill. Remind yourself that the world won’t crumble if you don’t get everything done.

Yeah I know. You want to get it all done because they’re steps towards your bigger goal – maybe quitting your job and starting your own business. Or changing career. Or to have the feeling of having the perfect home.

For me it’s all the things I want to get done when it comes to ForeverGoodLife. I have a long list of things I want to update or fix when it comes to the site. I want to create more videos. I even want to come up with a better name. And I’m working on some products that I’m looking forward to sharing with you pretty soon.

What I wrote just now doesn’t sound like much, but trust me, the list is loooong!

I have a few tricks to handle my overwhelm, but sometimes I still end up with that feeling of not being enough, not getting enough done. As you know, this whole personal growth thing is something we work on daily. It’s not something you do once, then you never have to think about it again.

Anyhow, let me share my latest ’secret weapon’ when it comes to remind myself to take a bit more relaxed approach to life…

’The journey is the destination’. Realizing there will probably never be a moment when I’m not going to have a long list of  things I want to get done. Because at the same time I’m checking things off I’m adding new things to the list as well. The goal is to enjoy the ride.

Life isn’t about getting somewhere. It’s about enjoying the journey. And to be able to do that we need to be able to take a step back and relax.

2. Monthly focus area

You know, as we have so much we want to get done it’s sometimes difficult to know what to prioritize, to know where we should be spending our precious free time. We want to eat healthy, exercise, get some fresh air, spend time with loved ones and at the same time spend time on moving towards our goals. Plus a gazillion other things.

We can easily have 10-15 areas in our life where we want to make progress, each one with at least one goal but probably more. So how do you know what to prioritize?

It’s not really realistic to think that we can work towards ten goals with full focus, all at the same time. Day in and day out.

For that reason I started with my monthly focus areas – I select the areas (or goals) that I want to prioritize that month. I’ll still keep on working on the other goals as well, but if there’s ever any conflict between the goals I know which one I’m prioritizing.

(The “Get Energy” section in the picture is partly from Tony Robbins, love that guy!)

Let’s say you have a goal of exercising three times each week. You also have a goal of writing on your book every day. It’s Sunday and you’ve only exercised twice this week so you really should head on over to the gym. But you haven’t sat down to write either. Which one should you prioritize? Well, if you have a monthly focus area that might help you…

Another great thing about the monthly focus area is that it helps me when I’m not too keen on doing anything at all. Which happens more often than I would like to.

Deep down inside I want to get things done, but for some reason or another sometimes I just want to scroll through Instagram or watch some Gilmore Girls on Netflix.

In those cases I remind myself of my focus area and decide to do something that’ll move me forward in that area. In these cases I don’t have to look through my to-do list with a gazillion things on it to be able to select what to do next. It takes away the feeling of overwhelm big time.

It’s important that you know, specifically, what your focus areas are. If you look at my examples you might find them vague – like ’finding my intuition’ or ’listening to my body’. But to me those are super clear. Find my intuition is another way to say I want to spend time letting my mind rest. Doing things like meditating, coloring or maybe writing in my journal. And ’listening to my body’ is actually a major thing I’m ”working on” right now. To be guided by what my body and intuition says instead of what I think I ought to do.

If you decide to give this a try I would like to offer you these tips

1. Decide on one, maybe two, focus areas (I have way too many in August as you see)
2. Make sure they are super clear to you
3. Write them somewhere you’ll see them daily (to keep them top of mind)

I’m going to continue on with this topic in a later blog post as apparently I’m really bad at keeping my posts short and sweet so I have to split them up haha. Hope you found it useful though, and please let me know of any thoughts and questions on Instagram or comment below.