Home > NLP Blog > Personal Challenges

Overwhelmed? – It’s Not About Having Too Many Things To Do

If you’re suffering from the stress of being overwhelmed, it’s not because you have too many things to do.

I’ll tell you the real problem in a minute, but first, I want to tell you why being overwhelmed isn’t about having too many things to do …

I’m guessing that you, like most people, often have an overload of things to do and don’t get overwhelmed, am I right?

And, If you’re like many people working in today’s hectic world, you’re often overloaded, but not overwhelmed, with work and things to do. 

But you manage to cope with that, perhaps better than most people.

So, even though you might be overwhelmed, your overwhelm is not caused by the amount of work or things you have to do.

So let’s find out what overwhelm is caused by. 

What Overwhelm Is Caused By

Now that you know what overwhelm is not caused by, it’s time to find out what it is caused by.

So, let’s break the word down into meanings before digging into what causes overwhelm.

Overwhelm basically means covered over or buried. And when you’re covered over or buried, things are unknown to you because you cannot see clearly what’s happening.

Why is it essential to think about the meaning of overwhelm in this way? Because overwhelm is not caused by the amount of work you have to do, it’s caused by “Factors Unknown.” 

What do I mean by “factors unknown”? Factors Unknown are simply things you are not clear about. For several reasons, clarity is an absolute must for any project or job.

Unknown factors can be a combination of things, such as; 

  • Not knowing what to do, 
  • Not knowing how to do it, 
  • What the results will be, 
  • How it will affect you and others.
  • What’s at stake?
  • Etc.

Now that you know what overwhelm isn’t caused by and what it is caused by, it’s time to learn how to avoid being overwhelmed.

Avoiding Overwhelm

Of course, not everyone experiences overwhelm. So we set off to discover the strategy of people who didn’t get overwhelmed.

Because it’s these people that are best to learn from.

All processes are made up of strategies. Overwhelm is no different.

We noticed that some people have natural coping strategies under highly stressful conditions, like our friend Roger from the bomb squad. 

When we sat down to discover the strategies that Roger and others used, we found many things in common, but the most noticeable was that they were all super organizers.

These super organizers were quick and very efficient at chunking and sequencing information. When a problem arose, they immediately solved all the unknowns and mapped out a path to their outcomes. Thereby avoiding overwhelm.

They always started the same way by creating absolute clarity on their outcome. Once the outcome was clear to them, the steps began to fall into place as if by magic.

And when the steps were in place, follow-through was a matter of course.

We then took their strategy and created a program so others could learn how to get things done and avoid being overwhelmed.

So whether you change your situation, learn a new process, or get coaching, avoiding being overwhelmed can be a definite health benefit.

Being Overwhelmed And Your Health

Taking care of your health should be your number one priority in life. Because without your health, you can’t take care of anything else.

Stress affects different people in different ways. Constant stress can cause severe problems with your autoimmune system.

AARDA Facts

Approximately 50 million Americans, 20 percent of the population or one in five people, suffer from autoimmune diseases. Women are more likely than men to be affected; some estimates say that 75 percent of those affected–some 30 million people–are women.

Stop overwhelm. Contact Us to get relief.