Have you ever had one of those ‘bad days’?
Of course you have.
And then that ‘bad day’ turns into ANOTHER bad day.
Which is followed by another ‘bad’ day of feeling off your game.
And before you know it you are in a bit of a slump and left spinning your wheels, with a lingering sense of unease or overwhelm or anxiousness or apathy.
Can you relate?
I am sure you know what I’m talking about.
The truth is that I have had a bit of that antipathy for life feeling (aka: a ‘blah’ feeling) going on for a bunch of days, and now I have decided that it needs to stop.
Enough is enough.
So…what to do?
This is where we are going today.
Exactly what I do when the bad vibes are lingering for way too long, and out-stay their welcome.
Some context
I feel that if everything is going reasonably well for us in life, with the normal batch of ‘garden variety’ life challenges, most of us generally have a default where we can still feel okay with life.
We all accept that it is VERY unlikely for us to have ZERO challenges in our lives.
But it is when we get over a certain LEVEL of ‘problems’ or ‘challenges’ in our life, that we start to experience this thing called OVERWHELM, which can show up differently for each of us.
Maybe for some it is worry, for others it is frustration, or anxiety or hopelessness or powerlessness.
However, I believe the principle thing driving this emotional experience is often a sense of OVERWHELM, which then causes us to have an experience of POWERLESSNESS, where we feel we don’t know how to get ourselves out of our funk.
For me, when I have lingering days of feeling ‘OFF’, the first thing I want to play with (which we will explore today), is what is causing me to have these feelings of overwhelm and powerlessness?
Essentially I have a FEELING of overwhelm, where I ‘believe’ I have too much to do and don’t know how I am going to wade my way through it.
BUT…
Here is what I have found to be the case – most of the time.
We have a THOUGHT that we are ‘overwhelmed and don’t know how to get out of it‘, but the REALITY is that the THOUGHT may not be true, or not the whole truth.
Often we have too much stuff spinning in our head – at once – which leads to a lack of clarity and lots of uncertainty, which the primal brain is not a fan of.
So what can we do?
My go-to Strategy
Let me walk through a real world example in my life.
Recently I have had a lingering, low-grade anxiety thing, bubbling away at the back and front of my consciousness.
Which I identify as – most likely – feelings caused by a THOUGHT of OVERWHELM.
My next step is to see SPECIFICALLY what I have going on – that might be causing these feelings – and if I can do anything about it.
I know I am unlikely to find a solution if I leave all of the things potentially contributing to my overwhelm in a big pile of ‘goop’ in my mind, because this makes it harder to see what is really going on.
So here is the Strategy:
Step 1: Get out a clean sheet of paper, some different coloured pens and maybe even some highlighter pens.
Step 2: Write in the middle of the page: “The things that are most likely making me feel off my game are…”
Step 3: Write down everything that comes to mind.
Step 4: Highlight the things you feel have the highest impact on you (discomfort, uncertainty, fear, confusion, etc.).
Step 5: See if you can come up with an idea or two to address the things with the highest level of uncertainty and/or cause the most amount of discomfort.
The reason this makes a significant difference is because:
1. Your mind can only hold so many things in short term memory before it becomes overwhelmed.
2. Writing everything down increases you CLARITY (which the primal brain responds to).
3. Writing things down allows you to get a better sense of what is REAL and what are IMAGINED ‘issues’.
4. Writing things down gives you PERSPECTIVE.
5. Writing things down gives you a psychological sense that you are doing something positive and are no longer ‘stuck’.
6. Writing things down allows you to better PRIORITIZE what needs addressing now.
7. Writing things down allows you to come up with a better PLAN to work through this stuff (e.g. what to delegate, what to shift to next month or next year, what you need external help on, what you need to research, etc.)
My personal experience
Just before writing this article I applied this Strategy.
Because I was feeling a little overwhelmed and ‘unsettled’.
My list of things included: 3-4 work projects that are outstanding, final house sale ‘issues’, perceived disruption to my work during our move, (annoying) banking issues, some decisions that need to be made (and communicated), the fact that it is frikkin hot these last few days, my iMac dying unexpectedly a week ago (and losing some stuff as a result), and a feeling of uncertainty about moving to a new location and lifestyle experience. Plus a few more.
The result for me, once I got everything on paper:
I realised the thing which would wind down the overwhelm dial the most was to get 100% clear on what EXACTLY I needed to get done over the next 10-14 days (including what did not need doing now), and actually SCHEDULE it into my Weekly Planner.
Increased CLARITY = Decreased OVERWHELM.
Again the reason is that our experience (of the feelings) of overwhelm often include a lot of thoughts that are not necessarily true, urgent, or important.
In Summary
If we are in a multiple-day funk, often it can be as a result of OVERWHELM.
A general sense of overwhelm can lead to feelings of worry, anxiety, frustration, apathy, powerlessness, hopelessness, etc..
A major cause of overwhelm is UNCERTAINTY.
It is (really) hard to solve problems with a number of different moving parts, in our minds.
Writing stuff down provides clarity, perspective, a sense of priorities, plus a psychological feeling of taking action to break inertia.
It is much easier to find solutions when we know exactly what the issues (real or perceived) are.
(Example of the Strategy below and the sorts of things that are revealed).
My Parting Words
We all experience ‘down’ days.
The issue is if they keep lingering…day after day.
At some point we need to get below the surface of our feelings and get clear of the root cause.
Often that root cause is overwhelm.
We just have too much stuff going on, or too much stuff going on that we are trying to juggle in our minds.
It is best, and a lot clearer, to do that juggling on a sheet of paper.
When you do, a feeling of CLARITY will stare back at you, and the uncertainty dial is likely to be turned down (along with the stress response).
My final encouragement is to give this Strategy a whirl and see what the results are like for you.
The rule is that IF your ‘funk’ is pushing past 2-3 days, THEN it is time to give this Strategy a shot.
Let me know how it works out for you.
And I will do the same.
Have a great day of forward momentum, and a week of enhanced mental clarity.
Take care
Carl
Quotable QUOTE:
“Often our experience of the feelings of OVERWHELM includes a lot of thoughts that are not necessarily True, Real, Urgent, or Important.” Carl Massy
(Author of 18 Ways We Make Life WAY Harder Than It Needs To Be)
PS: Have you read or listened to this book yet? 18 Ways We Make Life WAY Harder Than It Needs To Be
