I was leading a group coaching session a couple months ago with eight powerful, diverse women executives. The topic of discussion was how overwhelmed, beat, tired, and burned-out many of them are feeling due to the “too much to do / can’t stop now” syndrome.
Are you one of those people who can’t seem to stop “doing?”
I have yet to meet anyone who hasn’t felt overwhelmed from time to time. Since it tends to feel uncomfortable, if not downright unpleasant, we often view it as negative and as a weakness. We don’t dare to admit we are overwhelmed or dare to talk about it, which can leave us feeling isolated and alone, further exacerbating the feeling. We often deny we are overwhelmed because we do not know how to stop the frenetic behavior that leads to this feeling. So we do nothing. Our employers, colleagues or friends often do not help support us to stop overworking.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Primarily, this syndrome occurs in our work life but it can carry over to our personal and family life, and it frequently does. Focusing on projects often begins with good intentions and we can quickly and easily be overwhelmed if we do not have a plan to minimize and balance our work. Getting the project finalized for your team, writing the proposal for more staff, designing the new sales brochure or completing the 90-day marketing plan are extremely important – but having a balanced, healthy life is equally important.
This stressful pattern is telling you to change your life! Once you get this message, it is easier to identify the steps you need to take to shift out of the behavior quickly.
Ways to Beat your 'burnout'
Following are helpful strategies gleaned from my personal experience and from my work with coaching clients who are burned out, frustrated and even depressed. These strategies immediately diminish feelings of being overwhelmed so you can refocus and make some work/life balance decisions.
- Stop what you are doing for a few minutes and take a break. Go for a short walk, sit outside under a tree, meditate, breathe deeply, go to a movie, call a friend to have coffee and share what is going on.
- Get a piece of paper and make two columns. In one column, list urgent things you need to do this week. In the other column, list those projects that you can delegate, hire or barter to be done.
- Eliminate, eliminate, eliminate. Unsubscribe to unnecessary e-mails, organize your desk and office to decrease clutter, stop attending meetings, get off committees and decrease volunteering at fundraisers unless you have a total passion for the organization and the cause.
- Do not spend time with people who you do not like. Assess your friends and business colleagues. Do they support and honor who you are? If they are negative and don’t share your vision for your dreams, don’t spend another minute with them.
- Decide what is most important in your life. If you want a balanced life, you will have to make changes in your life to allow this to happen. That takes some time and planning that will be well worth the improvement in your life!
- Set a hard start and stop for work. This can look like committing to not picking up your work phone or accessing email until after you’ve had breakfast or turning off work emails and texts before dinner.
Take an action step today to make change in your life! Call a friend who will support you, take a class to get organized, or work with a coach who will support and motivate you to have a more balanced life. Once my group coaching clients made commitments to each other and held one another accountable, they felt like they had taken back their lives again. In fact, one of the women gained time in the evenings to read again and she’s made it through three books! What will you be able to do when you take back your life?
Work With Me
Are you ready to overcome the overwhelm? If you’re looking for that accountability and a safe space to share about your circumstances and take your life back, here’s a link to schedule a time so we can chat about how I can help you.