Are You Feeling overwhelmed?
Feeling overwhelmed is common, particularly for those of us who work in the NFP sector which is often underfunded and under resourced. In addition, we are often passionate about our cause and determined to make a difference. These factors can easily lead to a situation where we experience being overwhelmed, of course it can also happen in domestic situations, in “for profit” business, in students at school, in fact in almost any field of human endeavour.
The indicators of being overwhelmed are many but will always include some level of belief that we are not coping, or maybe just hanging on by our fingertips and likely to tip over the edge at any time. Physiologically we may experience unpleasant and unhelpful physical changes, examples of these might include being tired but not being able to sleep, eating more or not having an appetite at all, aches and pains or a poorly functioning immune system leaving us open to all sorts of physical maladies. What is clear is that each person will experience being overwhelmed in an individual way.
So, what can you do about it? The simple answer is to take charge of your life, more easily said than done in most cases, but totally necessary if we want to change the negative spiral of overwhelm. When we begin to look at taking charge, there are three areas we need to consider. We can only truly control one thing in our lives, and that is ourselves. The three areas we need to look at are;
- Our picture of how we want things to be, this is a picture we created and put in our head
- Our perception of how things currently are.
- Our behaviours, how we are currently dealing with things.
Of the three, the hardest to change is our picture of how we would like things to be because this is what matters most to us. If it is an unrealistic or unachievable picture, we will feel overwhelmed.
The next hardest is our perception of how things are, this is hard to change because almost everyone thinks how they perceive things is reality and therefore are reluctant to take on alternatives.
The easiest to change is behaviour, but anyone who has made a New Years Eve resolution, only to see it collapse in tears shortly after, knows how challenging it is to change behaviour.
When we change one or all three of these elements to a more accurate, sustainable or successful alternative, we gradually begin to take charge of ourselves and our feelings of being overwhelmed will recede. Recognising the early feelings of being overwhelmed is a sign of imbalance and choosing to change these areas is the key to regaining control over ourselves and our lives before it becomes debilitating and our system shuts us down.