Don’t Let Overwhelm Kill Your Dreams

Beating Overwhelm Before It Kills Your Dreams

Carol Evans

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You may well be feeling somewhat overwhelmed right now.

You probably started the new year filled with positivity, optimism and motivation. I don’t know about you, but there seemed to me, to be a great feeling around the start of 2020. The feeling that absolutely anything was possible and that this was the year that it was all going to happen.

The feeling for potential success was literally palpable.

Then bang! Day to day life takes over. The hard work begins and the vision that captivated you becomes cloudy. The “to-do” list to achieve your dream goals gets longer and longer and instead of driving you in to action, it paralyses you in to fear.

With your energy tanks feeling depleted you turn your focus on to simply surviving day to day conundrums and putting yourself through the motions. You’ve no time or mental capacity to tackle those actions you know you need to take. And, so it goes on.

It’s not long before your mind is literally rammed with really unhelpful negative thoughts.

So, what can you do…

Well, the very first thing I want to do, is reassure that this is normal.

I’ve worked in business virtually all of my adult life and set up and run a number of my own businesses over the last 15 years or so, and I can tell you that I have felt like this on very many occasions.

So, let me tell you what works best for me.

Get it all out of your head.

I journal. I love it. I journal for all kinds of things and find it so beneficial. All those random unhelpful thoughts need an outlet, and journalling provides that. So grab your notebook or even just a piece of paper and write it all down. Whatever comes to the front of your mind, write it down. I promise you, by the time you have done this, you will start to see and think much more clearly.

Next, grab a sheet of paper and write down every single task, however small or large, you need to complete in order to achieve your dream goals for 2020. Getting them out of your head will put a stop to all that ruminating that is generally particularly prevalent whilst you are endeavouring to sleep!

Now I recommend that you take time out to focus on your big “WHY”.

Remind yourself why you do what you do. Everytime you come up with answer to why you are doing what you are doing, ask yourself the same question. Keep asking until you hit that little bubble of excitement that is bubbling around in your belly.

This incredible feeling is why you cannot allow your dream goals to be sabotaged by this pointless overwhelm.

This is your passion. This is your purpose.

Getting back to practicalities, I now urge you to go back to that awful long list of action points. Take a look through it and select just one task — doesn’t matter how small it is — and cross it off the list. Now write this task on the top of a fresh clean sheet of paper. Place this sheet of paper over the top of the long list, so you cannot see what you have written — you don’t need to distract yourself with all the tasks. You just need to focus on the one task you have in front of you and do that.

Once you’ve done it celebrate!

It doesn’t matter how small that task was. You need to acknowledge that you have taken an all important step towards the achievement of your dream goals. This is massive.

Giving yourself a pat on the back and loads of praise will help you to associate good feelings with completing tasks. Meaning the next task on your list will feel slightly easier to action.

After completing that first task, yes, you’ve guessed it, you go back to the long list of required actions and select the next one. Scrub it off the list and move it to the top sheet. Then complete that one.

Just keep carrying on doing this.

Don’t jumble up your mind by focussing on all those tasks you need to do. Just focus on that one key thing you need to do today.

One tiny step after another in the right direction is the secret to success.

One final point.

Out your own self care as your number one priority. You can achieve great things or indeed provide your best love, care and attention to others, if you are not taking care of you.

So, build in regular time to treat yourself. Give yourself a pamper — whatever that means to you.

Make this your new habit for 2020 and see and believe what you can achieve.

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Carol Evans

Carol Evans, Queen of Passion, Purpose & Profit, works with business owners to overcome challenges, leverage resources & scale up to create money & fulfilment