How Do You Handle Feeling Overwhelmed?
Sunday scaries got you down?
At the end of a wonderful weekend, what’s worse than the Sunday scaries? Ruminating on all the week’s tasks ahead can be a real buzz-kill.
Sure, anxiety about the upcoming week is normal.
But what happens when it’s more than the Sunday scaries?
Do you find yourself repeating the same phrases like:
“I’m tired.”
“I have so much to do.”
“I’m never going to finish this.”
“Once I finally finish this then I can start that.”
If so, you are probably overwhelmed with commitment.
Commitment overwhelm can happen for several reasons. Maybe you’re a people pleaser or trying to prove something to yourself or others.
Psychologist Susan Newman said, “People-pleasers want everyone around them to be happy and they will do whatever is asked of them to keep it that way. They put everyone else before themselves. For some, saying “yes” is a habit; for others, “it’s almost an addiction that makes them feel like they need to be needed. This makes them feel important and like they’re contributing to someone else’s life.”
There are two main ways people deal with commitment overwhelm:
You freeze and eventually quit
You go into a frenzy trying to get finish everything
We get mixed messages about how hard we’re supposed to work. We live in a society that encourages us to be busy 24/7 yet we’re simultaneously supposed to be obsessed with self-care.
We equate success to being busy. That’s such an overused word, busy. Sometimes we say it just as a thing to say. We don’t have to be busy all the time. Honestly, that sounds terrible.
There is especially pressure on millennials to change the world by 30 or become the CEO of a start-up by 25. 🙄
We are caught in an unrealistic cycle of “yes, yes, yes” and “do, do, do.”
Why do we need to commit to SO many different things if it’s just going to overwhelm us?
For me, not keeping a hard schedule brings me joy. How annoying would it be to ALWAYS follow a schedule?
Randy Jackson’s voice, “Yeah, that’s gonna be a no from me, dawg!”
Remember you have a choice! Don’t self-sabotage. You can choose what tasks you do or don’t take on. The world will not stop spinning if you say no!