The door won’t open!
What to do when you’re overwhelmed
I had a freak out moment this afternoon.
As I was sitting down to write, I suddenly thought about all the other things on my plate that seem to have the same deadline: NOW!
I did what any rational person would do.
I checked out and watched an episode of Gilmore Girls (insert distraction of your choice).
Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. — Maya Angelou
While I didn’t take an entire day to withdraw from my problems, I took an hour to simply do something that had nothing to do with my looming deadlines.
When the episode was over, I breathed in deeply rather than jumping back into all I was thinking about that overwhelmed me. I then took an honest look at my tasks.
It is a very busy mission: every day has some major goals that we have to get through, but my experience before has been that at least in the evening, you kind of take a deep breath and look around where you are and have some downtime. — Linda M. Godwin
The first thing I discovered was that each of the deadlines was self-imposed. I set them and I could just as easily change the dates by staggering them more effectively.
Secondly, I reminded myself that everything I’m working on is a process. There are several steps, and I can’t expect to work on everything every single day. I have to focus on putting one step in front of the other and keep moving forward.
Joel Osteen once talked about coming to a lot of closed doors before you got to your open door. He said that if you knew you had 32 doors and you got to door number 8, then that’s another door you have out of the way. The idea here is to keep moving forward, and eventually you will get to the door that is yours.
Even though I don’t know how many doors I have to go through until I get to mine, I know it’s better to keep going until I get to the one that is meant for me. A quote attributed to Mel Robbins is
If the door doesn’t open, it’s not your door.
And while it might be frustrating and overwhelming to keep coming to locked doors, it’s okay to take a step back and regroup. It’s not okay to stop trying to open them.
Thanks for reading this piece! I’m an elementary school counselor by day and a writer 24/7. I write about everyday experiences with a positive twist, because that’s how I roll. If my vibe resonates with you, check out my blog Everyday Life Uncluttered and sign up for my newsletter GTI Wednesday. You can find them both here.
