Do you feel like you must be everything to everyone?
Overwhelm is a common struggle that many women go through.
Often it causes you to have difficulty with achieving the next step in your life and goals. There is just so much to do, and you are the only one that can do it, right?
No, this is not true!
The world will not end if you take a break, and often you need a break to be able to do the things you want to do well.
- Learn to Say ‘No.’
- Prioritising Your Tasks.
- Does Multitasking Work?
- Try Delegating Some Jobs.
- What Really Needs to be Done?
Learn to Say ‘No.’
Saying ‘no’ when someone asks you for something can be very hard. Yes, it gets easier with practice. It helps you set healthy boundaries with family, friends, coworkers, and others. Once you have started saying “no”, you will thank yourself for it.
Do you have a regular task that gets assigned to you but takes up your valuable time and has lost any joy connected to it? You might get volunteered to organise a Christmas party every year for your community for example. Even if you have done this every year before, that does not mean you have to do it every year in the future. It is okay to give yourself a break.
It might make things different but different is not a bad thing.
Embrace it and enjoy your newfound freedom.
Prioritising Your Tasks.
Take the time to sit down and make a list of everything you need to get done. Seeing it instead of just thinking it can help a lot. Now you have your list, you can begin to decide what needs to get done right now and what can wait.
What really, really needs to be done?
What doesn’t need to be done at all?
It may seem like a small thing but it can make such a change to your life and the overwhelm you experience.
Does Multitasking Work?
Multitasking is very popular as a solution to get more done fast. Doing more than 1 thing at a time can be distracting and stressful. It may make you feel worse.
The problem with multitasking is you must keep re-setting and switching between the tasks that you are doing. Multitasking is really bouncing between tasks, not doing multiple complex tasks at once.
You can still get everything done!
Focusing on 1 thing at a time can help you get there much easier (and with less stress) than trying to do everything at once.
Try Delegating Some Jobs.
I do a lot of travelling and sometimes my husband needed to make dinner for our family.
When the children were younger, I was a stickler for making sure they had plenty of vegetables for dinner in the evening. On 1 particular occasion, I came home to find out that “Dad made chunky canned soup on toast for dinner.”
The children thought it was lovely.
A great fun dinner.
I was horrified but guess what, no harm was done. Their tummies were full, and they all had a fun evening.
Yep, they got double veggies the next night.
No, it wasn’t done my way, but it was done. Even if things are not done your way, letting other people take on your tasks sometimes is okay.
What Really Needs to be Done?
Sometimes our biggest enemies are those time wasting tasks that aren’t important but that we end up doing multiple times a day. Have you ever felt stressed and overwhelmed because you have run out of time to do everything, but you have also checked your emails for 30 minutes twice a day?
It’s okay to let go of the things that aren’t bringing any value to your life.
The habit might seem hard to break but you will feel a lot better for it.How Do I Avoid Overwhelm as a Woman in Transition?
There are many different ways to combat overwhelm and it may take some time to find the right strategy for you. You can do it!
Need help? Get in touch and see if coaching is the right fit for you.