Do you feel overwhelmed and consistently have tightness in your chest or belly? Are you getting headaches more often? This article will give you some tools to try to help minimise the overwhelm. Over time, you will learn what works for you.

Idea Playground: Overwhelm

Use an Idea Playground to dump everything that is going on in your life. Get all your thoughts and feelings down on paper. Use a mind map or a freewriting exercise for the Idea Playground.

Things to think about:

• Out of everything that is going on, what items are important to you?
• What tasks have deadlines or are time-bound?
• What items are for your wellness/health?
• What tasks or items are about your relationships?
• What items are about your financial life?
• What items can be delayed?
• What items have to be done now?
• What items can be deleted?
• What can you do to help with your mental health?
• Can you break the task down to smaller action steps?

Use your Happiness List

Once you have dumped your overwhelm in an Idea Playground, refer to your Happiness List and do one of the items from the list. Or think about something or someone that makes you happy, such as a happy memory from your childhood or adult life.

Take a pause and breathe.

When you notice all the symptoms of being overwhelmed and you start rushing around, pause and take some deep breaths. Keep doing breath work until you feel calmer and can think again. Then do a couple more breaths just to be safe.

Break your task down into smaller steps.

When you are feeling overwhelmed by a big task or project:

1. Do an Idea Playground to dump all of your thoughts, feelings, and tasks that you can think about the task or project.
2. Create a Task Tracker and list out all of the tasks: task, due date, start date, finish date.
3. If you can, break the tasks down into small action steps

Prioritise what is most important to you.

Another thing to take into account when you are dealing with overwhelm is to prioritise those tasks that are important to you. This way you are rewarding yourself at the same time. Plus, you will be more invested in the task.

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Funny thing, as I was trying to write this article, I started to get overwhelmed, so I took some deep breaths and broke the article down by creating the headers. Then I took each section at a time.

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Do you need help with navigating your Crossroads Journey? Book in for a Goal Investigation Session or WhatsApp Goal Investigation Support.