Do You Know How to STOP Being Overwhelmed?

Overwhelmed! Are you familiar with it? It seems to be a frequent visitor in our house.

The dictionary defines overwhelmed as “engulfed, buried, or drowning beneath a huge mass.” I think that’s a pretty fitting description of the past few weeks I’ve had, how about you?

We’ve all been there from time to time. Tasks and troubles begin to pile up. Interruptions keep us from making forward progress. Things seem to be coming at us from all directions. We’re having trouble coping with it all. We may even want to just give up.

The sad thing is that feeling overwhelmed can easily become a chronic state if we let it—especially when major parts of our lives seem to be spinning out of control. When we don’t know what to do to stop the downward spiral, our feelings of stress, fear, confusion, frustration and often even depression, become yet another huge mass that threatens to crush us.

The good news is that just three small steps can help us begin to climb out from under all that heaviness. All we have to remember is STOP! FOCUS! DO SOMETHING NOW!

STOP

As humans, we want to know where we’re going. We want to know that we’re going to be successful. We want to be prepared. We want to be in control. But . . .we often have very little control over the situations we’re facing—probably even less than we think. 

We can drive ourselves nuts trying to figure out how everything is going to play out. Often there is just no way of knowing—no clear site line to the goal—no guarantees.

If we insist on waiting until it all “comes clear,” we may be waiting for a very long time. The longer we stay stuck in one place, the heavier the load of overwhelm becomes. If we sit there week after week with no relief and nothing changing, it is easy to become hopeless. Hopeless is a very dangerous state of mind. Nothing productive comes of it.

We have to accept that we may not be able to see what’s around the bend until we first step out in faith, asking God to correct our course, as needed. It’s nearly impossible to steer something that isn’t, first, moving.

FOCUS

So, how do we know where to start? There is SO much to do. There are SO many choices. In essence, that’s what’s caused us to be overwhelmed in the first place.

The most helpful thing we can do at this point is to reduce our range of focus. It’s not the time to be trying to see the big picture. Our first objective is to just do something to get unstuck.

Ignoring everything else, prayerfully zero in on finding one tiny BABY-step that will cause some movement—even if that movement ends up being wrong. 

DO SOMETHING NOW!

My husband and I have a problem with stuff accumulating in our garage. As the piles get higher and higher over a period of months, it becomes increasingly overwhelming . . . and depressing. It ceases to be a useful space. We can’t do anything in there, we can’t find anything in there, in fact, sometimes we can’t even walk through it any more.

We finally had a phenomenal realization. It doesn’t matter how much we talk about it, grumble about it, or feel bad about it, that garage has NEVER gotten clean until we first walked in there, picked up the first item and put it away. We actually have to follow through and DO that first baby step.

Once that’s complete, our task is to look for the next baby step AND DO THAT. By consistently repeating that process, momentum eventually takes over and, before we know it, our garage is a functional space again.

The same is true with blogging. I can get frustrated about missing a post of two. I can feel bad. I can put it on 102 to-do lists . . . but until I narrow my perspective to ONLY looking for the first baby-step (like sitting down and turning on the computer) those words just never appear.

Even the smallest step has the potential to give us a different perspective. Once we start moving, it’s not usual for things to begin happening that eventually lead us to solutions and resolutions. 

GIVE YOURSELF GRACE

I’m still learning. I still have to recite “STOP,” “REFOCUS,” “DO SOMETHING NOW” to myself on a regular basis. I still slip under the clouds of overwhelm more often than I’d like. But, when I actually do make an effort to follow those three simple steps, the results have been amazing.

The only way we learn a new habit is to practice it over and over again. Want to join me? If we keep at it, I’m confident that, in time, and with God’s help, we can reduce the amount of time we spend feeling overwhelmed. That’s a peace I am eager to experience on a more widespread basis!

“Commit to the Lord whatever you do and he will establish your plans.” — Proverbs 16:3

TODAY’S CHAT: If you’re feeling a little overwhelmed about something in your life right now, what is the one-baby step you can take TODAY, to begin the process of getting unstuck?