by 3 years ago | 5 Min Read
There is a mentality in our modern culture that glorifies the grind. We’re all supposed to push ourselves beyond our limits on a daily basis. This is what we’re told is the right path to success. With this kind of mindset though, it can be easy for us to feel overwhelmed by the endless list of responsibilities and duties that we put upon ourselves. Working hard is an important part of becoming successful but so is resting. Balance is necessary to really thrive in life. Here are 5 ways that you can face and overcome feelings of being overwhelmed.
#1. Take A Deep Breath
When you’re stressed out, your heart rate and blood pressure both increase. You probably won’t realize it at that moment but your breathing will become shorter and faster. Take a moment to take some long and deep breaths. Hold them in for a couple seconds before slowly exhaling. This will increase your oxygen intake, which will improve cognitive function and immediately improve your mood.
If you want to take things to the next level, you can incorporate meditation and yoga into your daily routine. These are both powerful practices that will improve your breathing, along with countless other benefits.
#2. Start Writing Things Down In Your Agenda
One reason that many people tend to become overwhelmed is that they’re juggling several things in their mind. If you need to remember 5 different tasks you need to fulfill today or this week, it will all feel very daunting and challenging to you. Start writing everything down into your agenda. Put all of your tasks and things you need to accomplish in there. Getting these things out of your head and onto paper will ease your mental burden and clear your mind up to focus on other things. Seeing everything you need to accomplish in written form will also help you to better strategize the order in which you take on your various tasks. Write things down so you can start knocking them off of your agenda, one by one.
#3. Focus On Problematic Tasks
Now that you’ve written down all of the things you need to accomplish, it will be much easier to pinpoint the specific tasks that are the most stressful and difficult for you. You should focus on completing those tasks first. This will relieve you of much tension and stress. You might also decide that you want to delegate some of these problematic tasks out to other people. Either way, you need to figure out what things are making you feel most overwhelmed, then you need to figure out a game plan to accomplish them. Once you’ve done this, it will feel much easier to take on the rest of your tasks.
#4. Change Your Perspective
When you’re so mindful and focused on each moment of your work day, it can be easy to let problems seem more significant than they are. When your entire mind, body and energy are focused on accomplishing a specific task and that task is particularly challenging, it will be very easy to lose faith in yourself and give up. What you need to do is change your perspective. You need to stop focusing on that specific task for a moment and zoom out. Look at the bigger picture. Will this problem matter next week, next month or next year? And how much does it really matter to begin with? You might have lost an important client but there are more important things in life, such as the health and well being of your family and loved ones. Change your perspective to focus on what really matters. It will help you stay focused and motivated as you work at completing that daunting task.
#5. Focus On Progress
Speaking of being mindful and present in the moment, it’s very easy to throw on blinders and race forward full speed ahead, when you’ve set some big goal for yourself. You might have a plan to accomplish something specific in 5 years, and so everything in your life is organized around accomplishing that one big goal. You might think you can just put your head down and grind for 5 years but you could easily find yourself burned out and defeated after only a year or two of the process. 5 years can feel like 5 lifetimes if you feel like you’re suffering on a daily basis. What you need to do is to focus on the progress you’ve made already. You might not have accomplished your big goal after a year or two of working at it but you will undoubtedly have grown and evolved in several different aspects of life. It’s about the journey, not the destination. Find gratitude in how much progress you’ve made along your journey so far. Having that perspective in mind will help you stay focused and motivated as you keep working to accomplish your big goal.
If you ever feel overwhelmed, take a break and try one of these 5 techniques. I’m confident that it will help you relax and feel prepared to get back to work and put in your maximum effort again.
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I hope that you’ve found value in this blog post! Feel free to share it with anyone that you think will benefit from it as well.
If you’d like to hear more of my thoughts on this subject, you can check out my video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IP7eggSyCw
If you’d like to be even more effective as an entrepreneur, check out my blog post on 5 Lessons That People Learn Too Late In Life.
