Overwhelm as a Busy Leader is a Choice (& How to Un-Choose It)

As leaders with big visions, big to do lists, and even busier calendars, most of us run at a baseline of varying degrees of pressure, overwhelm, and stress. You might feel this as a steady buzz of restless energy or a vague sense of being behind that never really goes away, regardless of how much you accomplish.

It’s such a normalized state you’ve likely forgotten it’s there; like a 100 pound backpack you put on a long time ago that you’ve acclimated to and accepted as just part of the territory.

But, here are three things I invite you to consider:

1. Overwhelm (and its cousins stress, anxiety, pressure) aren’t normal, and they’re the least effective states to be operating from.

Regardless of how familiar they feel, these are survival states. They deplete us of vital life force energy and shut down the key brain centers responsible for higher thinking, creative faculties, and long-term planning. The feedback loop of frantic feeling -> thinking -> action-taking scatters attention and focus, makes you way less effective, and can make each day feel more like a rat race you never win.

At the most foundational level, being able to operate at and feel your best starts with getting out of survival.

2. When does it end?

Most of us have a belief that someday, once we get “there,” then we’ll be able to relax; to feel at peace, to be fully present and enjoying where we are.

But as an ambitious leader, you’re climbing a mountain with no peak. You’ll always have big goals and life will always be busy. If you’re in a chronic state of overwhelm, preoccupation, or anxious energy right now, you can generally expect the rest of your journey (and life) to feel more or less the same way.

When you drop the myth of someday (and you’ve acknowledged the impact of overwhelm on performance and well-being), you’re in a perfect place to take back your power to decide how you feel (see #3).

3. You are the sole creator of your emotional state and experience in any moment, so you get to choose something better.

How could it be true that you are the source of your overwhelm when you can point me to all the fires you need to put out at work, the personal issues weighing on you, the lack of time to get to everything and everyone that’s important to you?

Because overwhelm, pressure, anxiety, and stress — like all emotional states — are internal, not external issues. They don’t exist outside of you, somewhere in the world.

Every moment, your experience of your life is created with the following formula:

Your Circumstances + Your Story About Them = Your Emotional State/Experience

Your story — the mind’s meaning-making dialogue that’s incessantly running — is almost undetectable, but it’s the most powerful leverage point in your life. And it’s how you can opt out of overwhelm, for good.

Here’s an example:

Most busy leaders have an unconscious, looping story that goes something like this: “I have so much to do, and not enough time to get it all done. I’m behind, I should be further along, etc.”

(Did your pulse speed up just reading that?)

Cue the frantic thinking, decisions, and actions that perpetuate this state.

Instead, when you notice yourself in this state — pause. Acknowledge that you are creating it with your story, and that you have the power to shift it.

You can try something like this on instead:

“Ok, there’s a lot on my plate right now and there always will be, and I accept that. What I also know is that I always get it done. The best thing I can do is bring my focus and presence to what’s in front of me, let go of the rest, and put one foot in front of the other. I don’t need to stack everything I need to do in the future into this moment. I am safe and ok right now.”

Can you feel the difference? What would moving through your day and your life feel like from that place?

Once I began practicing this regularly and felt the vast difference in how I showed up from there, I created a new standard in my life:

No overwhelm, period.

If I am creating it, and I can un-create it with a shift in my story about what’s happening, why would I tolerate it? Why should you?