Repositioning Overwhelm

Many of my clients often experience a sense of being overwhelmed, sometimes daily, when they begin the coaching process. They may feel like they are juggling too many objects. They feel like someone is constantly throwing more things at them to keep in the air. And maybe some of those objects are water balloons, raw eggs or newborn babies.

Just understanding how their Turbo Thinker brains cause the feeling of being overwhelmed can already reduce the intensity of the emotion. For example, ADHD symptoms such as emotional dysregulation can lead to the exacerbation of anxiety. Moving from trying to keep all the information in your head to using executive function skills, such as planning and prioritizing can also help you feel less overwhelmed. In fact, there are so many creative solutions that come up during the coaching process. These can include: developing an organization system that is fun and easy for your brain, learning what your brain needs and how to ask for it, choosing the first small step of a project and taking it, identifying what is truly urgent and what is truly important to you, creating reminders to boost working memory, developing systems for time management so that you can accurately estimate how much time you will need and set realistic expectations, setting and adhering to boundaries to protect your time and energy, and learning what steps you need to take to manage your brain energy levels and your emotions.

Maybe you even learn to eliminate and delegate without shame or guilt. Gently toss some of those objects to trusted resources so you can keep the balls that you like to juggle in the air. After all, just bouncing one ball all by yourself is boring. Having just the right amount of challenge with the right support keeps it fun and keeps you smiling. You get to feel calm, accomplished and full of joy. So send in the clowns!