There has been a lot going on with me – both personally and professionally. I see how I am cycling through feeling overwhelmed and feeling balanced. As a professional organizer, I do feel a need to largely be balanced. Yet I am human and therefore not perfect. This also means that I can relate to many of the struggles my clients face. So, what to do?
Most of us end up feeling overwhelmed at some point and even more often than sometimes. I’ve talked about this before in Overwhelmed? and in Coping with Feeling Overwhelmed — all my points can help someone move through things even when feeling overwhelmed. Except there’s something that probably needs to happen first – you need to consider what you need.
- What’s contributing to your feelings of being overwhelmed?
- When do you tend to feel this way?
- What connections can you discover about this?
- What would help you in the midst of this feeling?
There’s a time to push through, to take the first smaller steps of dealing with things. Then there’s a time to give yourself a break. Only you can hope to discover which of these is right for you.
If you are anything like me, you might be filled with self-doubt that you are going to be too easy on yourself. How can one really, truly know when it’s time to allow some space instead of plodding ahead?
Are you able to step back and recognize your own tendencies with objectivity? This world is filled with all types – and I tend toward that Type A driven personality. I expect a lot of myself. Meanwhile, there are some people who are comfortable and even yearn for all the time off they can get without any inner drive to do more. Since I recognize that I can be hard on myself, I then can pause to consider if it’s time to give myself some slack. This won’t necessarily eliminate the inner doubts, yet it’s a step in the right direction.
- What are those things contributing to your feeling overwhelmed – and how critical are they?
- How many of them could wait?
- How much better could you accomplish them if you took some time to rejuvenate yourself?
There are times I wish I could disappear for just a little while – yet for me that feels too much like trying to escape. It usually improbable that we can abdicate all our responsibilities when we’re feeling overwhelmed. This simply means that we need to identify the most important things to focus on – notice I said important – which doesn’t necessarily mean the most critical. And what is most important for you might be completely unique to you.
As with everything I write about – there is no one way of doing anything – and that includes how to take the best care of yourself. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, I would encourage you to take that as a sign that it’s time for you to pause and consider what would help you to be revitalized. Feeling stressed and overwhelmed is often a signal that something is out of balance – figuring out what that is can only help you through it.
