What To Do When You Feel All Over The Place
You know the feeling. It feels a little like burn-out. As a matter of fact, it may be one of the symptoms of burn-out. You feel unfocused. You feel like everything is coming due at once. You feel like you’ve lost your creative mojo and nothing you do is working out. You look at your calendar and realize you have all sorts of LITTLE project in which you are involved. They may be small house fixing DIY project. They may be work projects. They may be business, church, personal improvement projects.
When you took them on, they seemed little and you just KNEW you could knock them out pretty quickly. But, somehow, you keep pushing them off and your project list keeps on growing instead of diminishing. Your body begins to tell you and your mind just can’t seem to concentrate. So, what do you do? What else? You head to the internet to look up what you should do. There you find…EVERYTHING! WebMD, Facebook fake doctors, some ad leading you to a Garcinia-Cambogia article, EVERYTHING! And what does that do? NOTHING!
It’s tough to prioritize and everything seems HUGE at the same time. I’m able to write these feelings so clearly because I’ve experienced them. Not just once or twice, but several times. And “the way my life is set-up” (some of you will get this reference), I’ll probably experience them again. But the fix is always the same. If you feel overwhelmed, like you’re doing too much, like everything is happening at once…STOP!
That’s it! STOP!
This is the one time you get to QUIT!
STOP!
Most people who feel this way continue to push for one big reason…they don’t want to let people down. They feel responsible to their kids, their boss, their pastor, their spouse, their everyone. But, this “feeling” is a symptom of something greater. Your body and mind are warning you of impending danger. This is how your body works. It ALWAYS warns you. Whether you pay attention or not is a different argument. But, your body warns you.
The one thing you need to do is simply STOP! It’s only for a time. Simply STOP!
There will be people bothered by your stopping. They may be annoyed, angry and even call you names. But, your “stopping” is for your own health. By nature, most people are selfish. When you stop, it upsets their expectation of the needs they wanted to be met. They may have been in line to complete a project for a promotion and your stopping causes more work for them. They are allowed to be mad. But you are allowed to STOP! You can choose to STOP!
I write about productivity sometimes and the idea is to be able to do the most important things in less time. But, most people feel like if they have more time, they can simply add more STUFF into that time block. This contributes to the feeling of overwhelm. In the US, we are in fact the most over-worked nation in the world. Yet, for the majority of us, the return on that overwork is minimal.
Gary Keller wrote a book called The One Thing. His premise for achieving extraordinary results was focusing on ONE THING! When you feel all over the place, take a moment to:
- STOP
- Ask yourself what’s most important
- Create a way to focus on what’s most important
- Pour 90% of your energy into that ONE THING for a period of time.
Since September 1st, I’ve undertaken a 12 Week Year to focus on writing. I needed to re-align, re-purpose and re-establish my focus. I needed to STOP in order to regain my traction and momentum.
STOPPING is hard! It’s not easy. You will have many competing factors and voices in your head tell you why can’t stop now. Remember, this is not a permanent quit. It is simply a moment to gather yourself so that you can be of greater use to yourself and everyone else around you. You’re not at you’re best when you’re pleasing everyone else. You’re at your best when you’ve done what it takes to be at your BEST! And sometimes, that means you need to STOP!!
Want to focus on writing a bit? Join me here in my 12 Week Year group where I’m focusing on writing with a group of other people who are hungry for the same thing.
I’m Robert and I speak about leadership & communication. If you enjoyed this article, hang out with me to get more over at robertkennedy3.com. Sign up here to hang out.
