Becoming Overwhelmed and Your Success

When you’re fighting to achieve your goals, you have to push yourself to the limit sometimes. High performing people are always stepping outside of their comfort zones but they also make mistakes and fail at certain tasks. Part of setting the bar higher is missing it sometimes.

When starting new projects or just balancing a major workload, you may feel like you’ve taken on too much. When this happens, it’s crucial to avoid the overwhelming burnout feeling. This can lead to lack of focus, loss of productivity, frustration, and even depression.

In order to avoid becoming overwhelmed, you have to recognize the signs that it’s starting to happen. Your mind might start racing or your breath might get shorter. You’ll start feeling anxious, which only makes the stress build on itself more.

Once you’ve realized you’re becoming overwhelmed, force yourself to take a step back. Breathe with long, slow, deep breaths. This will slow down your thoughts and help quiet the mind. Use a 20-second breathing technique to really fill those lungs and feel the benefit of deep breathing.

Take one step at a time. When your plate is full, it’s tempting to try and do it all at once. The faster you can get everything done, the sooner you can relax, right? Unfortunately, our brains don’t work that way. Most of us function best when only thinking about one task at a time. Focusing in on one task will help reorganize and calm your brain. It gives you a greater sense of control.

Speaking of control, that’s where your focus needs to be. When becoming overwhelmed, it’s easy to wish and imagine how things would be different if only everything was perfect. You fantasize about the world outside of your control but it only makes the burnout worse. You can only control your own actions and that’s where your emphasis has to be.

Delegation is key in avoiding the overwhelming, especially when you know there are too many tasks for one person. Successful people are masters of delegating tasks whenever they need to in order to keep your focus on the things that really matter to them. You should always have a support system of people you feel comfortable asking for help. For a longer term solution, you may want to consider hiring someone. A virtual assistant can be extremely helpful for people working towards specific goals.

You have to learn how to say no to things that aren’t making you more productive. If you’re already on the verge of becoming overwhelmed, now isn’t the time to take on a new role or grab onto a new opportunity. Some chances are too valuable to let go but if you can’t delegate any further and don’t have anywhere else for your work to go, say no to new offers to keep your sanity.

As a last result, if you can’t solve your stresses by focusing, staying in control, and delegating, you may have to give up on something. I’m not a fan of quitting by any stretch but you have to be able to create room for your most important priorities. Evaluate everything on your plate and see what commitments are essential and which you can back out of. When you try to do too much, all of your projects suffer.

Becoming overwhelmed is a natural part of striving for achievement. But staying overwhelmed is a choice—and it’s one that’s likely to hurt your goals more than help. Use your best judgment and create a pathway that lets you maintain focus while still moving forward.