78 – How to feel less overwhelmed?

You’re listening to the deals on heels podcast by business mentor Lotje Euser episode number 78

Welcome to this podcast episode, for those who don’t know you: my name is Lotje Euser and I’m a business mentor for entrepreneurs and companies who want to fall in love with sales and become really good at selling.

So how are you all doing? How are you feeling? I’m doing amazing! So many things have happened since the last episode. I’m going to organize a new Sales event in 2024 and I’ve recently got to a new office. So many great things are happening right now and overall I’m feeling really blessed. Also I’m thrilled to talk about today’s topic: how to feel less overwhelmed.

It’s December, and I think in this month especially that feeling of overwhelm plays a big role for many people. Not only when you’re an entrepreneur, but for other people as well.

For must of us, December is such a busy month. And can cause stress for a lot of people because of all of the things that need to be done before the end of the year. 

So how does feeling overwhelmed feel?

Overwhelm feels like being out of control. And not being able to manage it all within the given time that you have. And it causes those “I’m running out of time.” Or “I have so many things I need to do” or “I don’t know what to focus on.” or “I have a hard time focusing on the right things.”  thoughts. And it can cause a lot of stress within our heads as well. Especially at this time of the year. Because time is quite limited this month, because of the holidays, and this can lead to us feeling a lot of pressure.

And maybe you feel the same way right now: you’re feeling stressed because you have so many things on your to-do list, or so many projects that are running or new ideas that are taking up space in your mind.

I know from a lot of entrepreneurs who I’ve been talking to that they feel a lot of stress as well at this time of year. They have so many things they need to get done and they feel they’re not in charge of how they spend their time. And they feel like their agenda is leading their lives, instead of them leading their lives and using their agenda to support that.

If you feel overwhelmed as well, this episode will help you tremendously to reduce the amount of overwhelm you’re experiencing right now. So let’s dive into this!

The first thing I want you to do is realize that it is the thoughts that are causing this feeling of overwhelm.

We’re thinking like: ‘I need to do this, and that. And I have so little time. And I have so many things that are important right now.’ Those thoughts are causing the feeling of overwhelm.

So whenever I notice that my coaching clients are struggling with this I ask them to write it all down. To write all of their thoughts on paper. Not only all of the things they think that need to be done. Also all the emotions and feelings that are in their minds and bodies. Like putting it all onto paper.

Because the problem is: our minds cannot always determine what is important and what is not that important. Sometimes we don’t even know why we feel the way we feel. And that causes stress, overwhelm and confusion. And that’s when our emotions mess with our clarity and our ability to make the right decisions.

Because in our minds we can make everything equally important. We cannot differentiate anymore between what is important for us right now, and what is not. Because of the emotions that we are experiencing. It’s like a rat race. 

And as soon as you write everything down that has been on your mind, you will see that it will become much easier to determine if it’s all true. Like are all of our thoughts for real? Or are we creating a lot of drama about things that are not even that important? Or are your to do’s creating stress and is that why you feel fed up?

When you write everything down, you will create so much clarity for yourself. I cannot emphasize how important this is. And when you experience that sense of clarity again, you can easily determine what is important and what is not. 

That is when you can start to prioritize all of the things you’ve written down.

So what I would advise you to do is to start prioritizing what is important to do TODAY. What MUST be done today? And what is important for this week? And what is important for upcoming weeks? And you will see that when you take a good look at everything that you’ve written down, you will see that it’s actually not a lot of things that need to be done ASAP.

Most of the things that we create head drama about, are not that urgent or need to be done immediately. They need to be done, but not often at this particular moment.

I experienced the overwhelming feeling myself a few weeks ago. I was getting the key to my new office space. I was super excited about it! It’s my very first office and I felt so proud and happy but I also felt quite overwhelmed by: how am I going to get all the furniture moved to my office? What do I need to focus on first?

I was also experiencing that feeling of overwhelm. And when I realized I experienced that emotion I decided to take action upon that feeling. And to do what was necessary to reduce the feeling of overwhelm.

Often people shy away when they experience overwhelm. They try to avoid the emotions caused by overwhelm, or they try to get rid of it by using alcohol or distracting themselves by starting other things. They try to do anything to avoid the feeling. 

But this is like a ball that you try to push under water, it will always come back up. And the thoughts that are causing you stress are still in your head and taking up space. And knowing that somewhere in your mind you feel so much stress, will only take up more energy and will block your natural creativity and flow. 

I can tell you from my own experience that whenever I’m stressed, I’m just not a fun person to be around. And I bet you recognize this for yourself. No one becomes at nicer or more joyful person by experiencing stress.

So I want to be very clear to not avoid the feeling of overwhelm but to act upon it. And take measurements to solve the overwhelm.

So when I noticed I felt overwhelmed, I wrote everything down that was on my mind, and by doing that I created clarity for myself. Clarity about what I stressed about, what I needed to do, what I needed to know, and I could determine what needed to be done first.

What first needed to be done in my case, was to take measurements in the office space. Then decide what I wanted to actually change in that office space. Did I want to paint the walls? Did I want to put in flooring? What furniture did I want to put in that office space? And move from there. So I created a to do list and prioritized all the to do’s, determined what I wanted to get done and simply started with the first thing on my list.

And you can do this too for yourself. And whenever you start to prioritize the things that are on your list, I want you to also prioritize taking breaks for yourself. And make them as important as all the other things on your to do list.

When I put down everything that I needed to fix for my office space, I also prioritized my energy. So whenever I knew that I would be in my office all day, to put in the flooring or whatever, I would keep my evenings free. I would schedule alone time. I would schedule relaxing activities. Because I know that when you’re busy it becomes even more important to take breaks. However, that is not always what we do right? Whenever we feel busy and overwhelmed, the last thing we think about is taking breaks.

But these are the exact moments that breaks are even more important.

So I want you to add those breaks to your agenda. And schedule them very intentionally. Because when you don’t do that and you’re super busy, you simply forget to take breaks. Because anything else seems more important.

But it’s not. If I would only work and work and work, then I would exhaust myself. And that is why overwhelm can also cause burn outs. Because we forget to do selfcare in the heat of the moment.

And I want you to not schedule so many things in your agenda that you’re not able to keep up with it. But to schedule them in a realistic way. And add those breaks as well.

And if you don’t know how much time something will take up, and you experience troubles to schedule all of the things then I would say like: that is simply untrue. 

The amount of time something will take, is determined by the time we create for it. This is Parkinson’s law. Parkinson’s law is a law, which states that the work of a task expands according to the time available to accomplish a task.

For example: I can take 3 hours to write the perfect post for social media. Easily. Really. But I can also simply decide to write 10 posts in 3 hours. So the amount of time some activities take, are determined by the amount of time we decide to take for it. Remember: you are in control of your agenda, your tasks and your time. Not the other way around. If you do what I say in this episode you will feel in control again, you will know what needs to be done and you will reduce the feeling of overwhelm.

I hope that this episode will help you get through December in a less stressfu way – if you want to share any thing with me, feel free to do so. You can DM me via Instagram or Linkedin, I’d love to hear from you.

And I wish you a very pleasant weekend!

Talk to you soon!