Everyday life, especially everyday pandemic life, can be overwhelming. Each day can feel like a carbon copy of the last and you barely have a minute to slow down and breathe, let alone be intentional about your thoughts and choices. But if you are up on the research (or instagram), you know the very way to reduce feelings of overwhelm, lessen stress and lighten the pace is by breathing and being mindful. These two things are so contrasting, it can feel impossible to do the latter when you’re in the fast paced overwhelm bubble.
I’m going to share 5 different strategies for bringing some calm and a more intentional way of being into your life. And of course, no one does this perfectly all the time and you will definitely still feel overwhelmed. But hopefully with a bit of practice these strategies will help you recognize the times you are overwhelmed and allow you to pause use one of them to slow down, feel calm and get to a more mindful place and off the hamster wheel.
1. Breathe
Start with your breath. Take 5 minutes to just breathe somewhere quiet or maybe it can’t be quiet, just focus on your breathe coming through your nose and into your lungs and then slowly out again. Then do it again and again. It’s the simplest step but it will help almost immediately with overwhelm and help you move forward with a clearer head.
2. Start Small
Really small. We all have things we want to be doing we aren’t and a lot of times they are habits that would do great things for us. So if you are super overwhelmed, make your first step so easy you can’t not do it. Tell yourself you’ll take one deep breath when you wake up, then the next day change it to one deep, focused breath. Move onto two, then three and eventually you will get yourself to a meditation or mindful breathing practice. This is a great place to start because beginning your day with a calm, intentional moment has a wonderful ripple effect.
If you think you can manage more, start your day with 10 minutes of yoga or meditation. I love Yoga with Adriene, she’s amazing and has a video for everyone. There are lots of great meditation apps out there as well, I like Calm or Oak. Just taking those 10 minutes for yourself to start your day intentionally will change the way you think and feel.
But you can apply the start small strategy to anything you want to start doing;
- Exercise, do one push up or walk for 5 minutes
- Saving money, save $1.00 each day or each week
- Decluttering, throw out one thing or start a donation bag with one item. The Minimalists have a fun 30 day challenge
- More balanced eating, throw a handful of spinach into something (smoothie, pasta, soup) or start taking a probiotic or multivitamin
It doesn’t need to be a huge, sweeping, perfect change. In fact, those kind of changes are rarely sustainable and can lead to more overwhelm. What lasts instead are manageable changes you can build on and feel successful about. I love the book Atomic Habits by James Clear and his email newsletter is great too. So many simple, actionable tips about how to create great habits.
3. Write it down
Make a list or do a brain dump. Taking what’s in your head and putting it on paper is incredibly cathartic. It helps you see your thoughts, which we aren’t always conscious of. As well as relieving yourself of the speed of your thoughts and the amount of them. And making a list is giving order to all the chaos of the overwhelming feelings, it’s like saying ‘here’s a plan’.
Brain dump vs. List
If you go the brain dump route, then just write and don’t censor yourself. If you make a list, then edit it after you’ve written it all down. Figure out what is most important (which is not necessarily the most urgent!) and start there. Are there things you can cross off? The thing about life as an adult is you just can’t do everything and making a huge list that you aren’t able to accomplish is not going to make you feel good. You need to cull your items down to what is realistic and actually cross some of them off completely.
Need to make cookies for your child’s class? How about a box of Oreos. Invited to two birthday parties on the weekend? Pick one. Need to go clothes shopping? Do you really? What are you adding to the list that is unnecessary, eating up your time, making things more chaotic or keeping you from what you would really rather be doing?
This is an opportunity to lay out what you think you need to do and recognize what is actually manageable and start to let go. It’s a process but if you want to get to do what you really want to do, you have to prioritize and that means saying no some of the time. Also looking at a huge list and never finishing it or moving things continuously over to the new list is overwhelming! So let’s all stop doing that to ourselves.
4. Focus on Mindset
How do you perceive things? How do you talk to your self? Are you super hard on yourself and always beating yourself up for not accomplishing enough or doing a good enough job? Even if the rest of your life is totally calm and in control, that alone can create overwhelm. I will argue that mindset is the most important, as well as the step that can have the biggest impact. Being kind to yourself eliminates a lot of self-inflicted noise in your head.
One idea I heard on a podcast I love is life is 50/50 here and it’s 50/50 there. Meaning, it’s great to have goals but on the other side of where you are now, life is still 50/50, so you need to enjoy the journey. Because the journey is in fact our lives. So if you are living in overwhelm, being super hard on yourself, stressed all the time, etc, etc, then this is the most important area for you to work on. Once you can flip the switch on this one so much of the struggle disappears and you can feel clarity of thought. I have found it the most powerful.
Practice to shift your mindset
There are a few practices that have helped me shift my mindset the most. Reminding myself of the 50/50 rule, a regular gratitude practice, setting long deadlines as well as recognizing how much control I have over how I feel and what my life looks like. These have had the most impact on my mindset and my feeling of overwhelm.
Gratitude
My gratitude practice has been ongoing for about 6 years. I began by writing it down and I still think that is the most powerful way. But in the busyness of toddler life I now more often think the things I feel grateful for. I try to tune into moments throughout the day and really notice something I’m feeling particularly thankful for. A big one I notice a lot is the sky. There is a beautiful video called A Grateful Day that everyone should watch. It’s incredible, and Br. David Steindl-Rast’s voice echos in my head regularly “Look at the sky, we so rarely look at the sky.” So now I do, everyday, and honestly it’s breathtaking. There are so many incredible things we take for granted and tuning into what they are is a remarkable tool that really will change the way you think and feel, quickly.
50/50 Rule
Again, the 50/50 rule is a great reminder and helps to remove that urgency to be ‘there’. The journey to ‘there’; new job, married, bigger income, house, etc, is life. So if you are thinking things will be better ‘there’ you are in fact missing the moment and your current life. Shifting your mindset in this area and reminding yourself it’ll be 50/50 ‘there’ as well will help you be more present and happier.
Set long deadlines
Setting long deadlines is another way to get more present and enjoy life now as well as affirming commitment to your goal. People tend to set themselves short deadlines to accomplish big things, then get discouraged and quit. We overestimate what we can accomplish short term but underestimate what we can accomplish long term. With tiny, consistent effort and setting small deadlines along the way, you can accomplish big things. Creating small, manageable stepping stones reduces your overwhelm, makes the BIG goal seem manageable and keeps you going. Any change I have made that has lasted has come over time. Their is a process to really internalizing and becoming different and you will make mistakes.
5. Narrow things down
And lastly, you really need to get clear on what you want to focus on. Then focus on that and let the other stuff go. All these other steps really tie into this one. Let go of the extra, practice your mindset, breathe and write it down so you have the space and focus to narrow in on what matters. Focusing on less is going to feel better. Now that we have less stuff for example, tidying up is way easier and our home doesn’t feel like a disaster (all the time!). If you have less clothing, you have less decisions to make. After doing Project 333, I got rid of a LOT of clothing, and I miss none of it. My closet is less cluttered and everything is easy find, we were even able to get rid of a dresser! Although I’m not at the point where I love everything I own, I care a whole lot less about what I’m wearing and have more space in my brain for things I do care about a whole lot more.
Spend some time thinking about what matters to you. Who do you want to be? What kind of person? The kind of person who; reads, spends times outdoors on the weekends, is active, cooks great meals or swing dances? When you know, then focus on THAT. Schedule time to go for a hike on the weekend, plan to read for 30 minutes before bed instead of Netflix or find some inspiring recipes and start cooking. Clearing away the extra leaves so much space for the right stuff for you and takes away overwhelm.
I hope this list is helpful, gets you thinking and gives you some steps to start. One thing I know to be true is making positive shifts in your life are simple but expect to make mistakes, get derailed and start again. There are a lot of things that are going to get in your way, make sure you know where you are headed so you can get back to it. You can absolutely do it!
