Feeling Overwhelmed: Why it Happens and How to Control it Before it Consumes You

I felt emotionally pressured when my 7th semester’s finals were over.

I had it planned that after my finals, I would have free time to start completing the courses on Coursera, learn new skills, make them my earning streams, start Instagram growth, and write blogs every single day.

I stretched thin and felt overwhelmed.

What is an overwhelming feeling?

Feeling overwhelmed means your emotions overcome your decision-making power and reduce your attention span because you have too much on your plate.

Your mind is stressed out that you have limited time and what you are doing at hand may not be the right task and you are wasting time doing it. Your mind feels confused about what task is important at the moment and you cannot figure it out except for one solution - procrastination.

Why do we feel overwhelmed?

Trying to learn something new or do something new but a fear takes over our mind

• learning something new may be a waste of time
• cannot figure out what is the current priority which task is important and urgent at the moment
• too many responsibilities; work, family, social, personal
• unrealistic high standards of ourselves that we have to be perfect
• taking on people’s requests and fearing disappointing them
• too much information inflow and trying to make sense of it
• self-comparison with social media influencers and YouTubers’ lives

What are the consequences of feeling overwhelmed?

I read the blog of Elizabeth Perry on BetterUp. She is a CF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach. She says overwhelmed feeling has four negative consequences.

1. We, overwhelming feeling people, think that socializing with friends or family might take up too much time which we should be spending on other important tasks.
2. Stress and fear rule our minds — shadowing our rational thinking ability. We cannot process things, they seem as complicated and we procrastinate.
3. We feel as if we have no motivation in life. This tension drains us of energy (that is why we think sleeping is a solution)
4. What is overwhelming me? In our trying to find it, we forget self-care.

How to overcome it?

I found Rebecca Zucker’s blog on Harvard Business Review helpful and therapeutic in overcoming overwhelming feelings. I named her solution as “Threek Method”.

1. Identify your source of stress: Identify one or two things that, if removed from your responsibilities, would significantly reduce the current stress you are experiencing. This does not mean you should skip those things; you are still responsible for them. But this would help you in identifying the source of feeling overwhelmed, the cause of stress.
2. Time Box and Focus: Dedicate a specific time from 00:00 to 00:00 and focus on that task only. Stop worrying about other things because you have already boxed time to do those things. Let their time come.
3. Be Realistic: You do not have to wait for the right time to start working on a task because you think then you will be able to do it perfectly. Because that right time will pile up more work, your overwhelming feeling grows leading to procrastination and more overwhelm.

“Done is better than perfect.” — Sheryl Sandberg

Know when “good” is “good enough”. Part of this is also recognizing that we cannot do everything perfectly.

Resources used in this blog

Why am I so easily overwhelmed? Causes and useful techniques — From Elizabeth Perry at BetterUp

How to Deal with Constantly Feeling Overwhelmed — Rebecca Zucker at Harvard Business Review