#1 Sign You Are Feeling Overwhelmed

Overwhelmed shouldn't be praised

In today's society, we praise people for overworking, for multi-tasking, for working overtime, for going above and beyond and yet we don't recognise the impact of doing all of that.

We shouldn't be celebrated for running ourselves into the ground or for putting other people's needs in front of our own.

Selflessness is a great quality when you're own wellbeing isn't being negatively impacted.

Where I am feeling Overwhelm

I really only acknowledged my overwhelm today. As in I actually admitted it to myself.

Which can be hard to do and it can be hard to recognise as well.

It happened when I woke up this morning dreading logging into work and seeing my calendar. I knew I had so much I needed to be doing and I also knew I was stressing about getting it all done.

I haven't felt like this in quite a long time!

In the past few months I have had a promotion in work and that has resulted in a change in my work load.

Alongside my day job, I have also been doing voluntary work to support one of our business networks. In my previous role, finding the extra time to do all of those volunteer jobs was easy, I could do my day job in my sleep.

But here I am now

Since taking on this new role I have had to learn new skills, take on more work with all new work taking longer because it is new. However, the voluntary stuff hasn't gone away and I now have this feeling of being obligated to do it.

I am now 3 months into my promotion and I am starting to feel like I am underperforming and under-delivering across all areas because I just have too much to do.

It's NOT sustainable!

I am helping no-one right now because I'm not helping myself. The capacity I am trying to work at is not sustainable and will only push me more into overwhelm.

Maybe you are in a similar situation?

Are you trying to do everything and yet you feel like you aren't doing anything?

This is when it's not ok!

You cannot sustain this as a long term goal because it will only compromise your wellbeing and that will flow into other areas of your life.

I'm not showing up as well as I could in other areas of my life due to overwhelm and I didn't even know it.

Here's what I want you to do

Firstly, forgive yourself for wanting to do it all. You are not a failure, you are merely wanting to help.

Secondly, recognise where you are feeling overwhelm and why!

Thirdly, have the courage to make some changes:

• If you need to step back, do so

• If you need to have a chat with your boss about dropping some work load, do so

• If you need to say no to helping a friend, do so

Find what you need to say no to and do it for you.

Now,

Turnanewpage x