How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed, and Stop Procrastination Today

If you are anything like me, life in general can be overwhelming.  Add to that trying to run a successful home business, raising healthy children, dealing with things that are outside our control  and some days you feel like you just want to stay in bed and turn the world off.  This past week I was feeling hugely overwhelmed in different areas of my life.  I completely was lacking focus and at the end of each day I was disappointed in myself for not being able to pull myself together.

So, I just grabbed a snapshot from dictionary.com to grab the exact meaning of “overwhelm”.  Number four pretty much summed up my week last week:

to load, heap, treat, or address with an overpowering or excessive amount of anything:

Except that it wasn’t in a good way like overwhelming a child with presents.

• Being summer, sales are slow and I’ve been trying to tweak, prepare, and get sales moving.  (No sales is always a bit of a stressful time to a home-based business owner.  No sales =  No lights next month) LOL
• Kids are home for summer, and starting to get really bored so are requiring more attention.
• I had and am having a load of Bureaucratic Bull Sh*t and political agendas where my offline fostering world is concerned.
• My step-sister who has been very ill for a really long time passed away over the weekend.

It was an emotional week for me.  When I was able to sit down at the computer to try and get something done, it felt like I couldn’t concentrate on any one thing.  I felt myself doing the things that distract me and get me to procrastinate like checking my Facebook way too much, working on busy work but not any of my “money tasks”, playing Candy Crush more than my allowed 10 minutes before I fall asleep (that’s just bad!).

It just really felt like a big truck carrying a pile of poop backed right up and dumped it’s load on my head!  I just felt like I was ready to throw my hands in the air and give up.

If you’ve been following along, I have been doing a series on procrastination and the things that can cause me to procrastinate.  Feeling overwhelmed definitely qualifies as one of the reasons I will start to procrastinate and lose focus.

On Sunday, I just had to walk away and re-group.  I took at look at my week and decided what things I could actually do something about, made a list of them and added them to my “to-do” list.  Then I made a decision that I was going to stay focused on those things.

Many things that are happening are beyond my control right now, and there doesn’t seem to be a darn thing a can do about it (and that frustrates me).   I have to just move my focus away from those things because sitting around worrying and replaying conversations and situations in my head does not solve anything.

Instead, what I choose to do is be grateful and think and dwell on the things that will bring about a positive change in my world.  Brian Tracy has a powerful quote, and I actually have it taped to my computer monitor so that I can remind myself often.

So simply put if you are focusing your energy on everything that is overwhelming you, you will stay in that state of being overwhelmed.  If you turn your attention back to things that you can be grateful for, things that are going right, and things that you do have control over, you will get a momentum going in that direction.

Brian Tracy has a really awesome program called Time Management Made Simple.  Brian has studied time management, being overwhelmed and getting rid of procrastination for years.  He is an expert in this field.  In this program he teaches practical ways to manage your life to simplify your life and get more done in less time without feeling overwhelmed. So many people trudge through life overwhelmed, anxious, stressed out — they feel like they have too much to do and not enough time. It’s all because they haven’t mastered the skill of time management.

So many people trudge through life overwhelmed, anxious, stressed out — they feel like they have too much to do and not enough time. It’s all because they haven’t mastered the skill of time management.

If you are really serious about learning how to be successful and mastering the art of time management, check out this program it has over 12 hours of learning on it.  It really is a valuable investment for your time.

Talk soon,

P.S. When you’re ordering, be sure to use the coupon code for 10% savings.